Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

Stop judging me.

Guh.

(34.4C for those of you who don't use Freedom Units)

🌟 Ready to unlock the secrets of getting published? Join us for an incredible evening with debut author Madeline Claire Franklin! ✨

📚 The Wilderness of Girls author is coming to share her path to publication journey - and trust us, you won't want to miss this! Her debut novel is already making waves as a 2025 YALSA William C. Morris Award finalist and snagged spots on Amazon Editor's Pick, Indie Next Pick, and Barnes & Noble's Best Books of 2024! 🏆

What you'll experience:
💡 Insider publication tips from a successful debut author
❓ Interactive Q&A session - bring your burning questions!
✍️ Book signing - get your copy personally signed
📖 Discover this unflinching fantasy about feral girls and mysterious secrets

Mark your calendars:
📅 Friday, August 8, 2025
⏰ 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
📍 Midlothian Public Library, Midlothian, Texas

Whether you're an aspiring writer or just love discovering award-winning debuts, this event promises inspiration and insights!

https://madelineclairefranklin.com/

Taking the edge of the heat.

The last two days proved that professional writing can be as rough as answering phones.

I expected that, sure, but it's one thing to expect and another to experience. Still wouldn't trade it for an old phone job. Even early Nintendo phone job. And maybe, just maybe, it's good. :)

So I'm watching a friend's bird webcam in the corner, cause I spend a lot of time in the office, and if I can't touch grass, I can at least see grass.

I just watched one of the crows pull a bucket of millet to the side, help himself to a ton of bird seed, then politely push the bucket back in place and take off.

How...civil.

Lights off, curtains closed, windows shut to trap in the cooler morning air. Let's see if we can avoid another 88 degree living room today.

Life in the Covid era. Woke up this morning, my throat hurting terribly and my voice gone. Took a Covid test (negative) and now, after a few hours and a bowl of spicy ramen to soothe my throat, I'm 90% better. "Is It Covid, or Is It Allergies?" is a game where I choose Covid every time until I'm sure it's alergies.

@jenalysis that spice mix is the secret to all Mexican food.

It should not be 88 degrees in my living room, I'm calling the FBI.

Carne Guisada

Yield: 5 servings
Category: Entree
Cuisine: Mexican
Rating: 5/5 stars
Source: Ama

Ingredients

2 pounds beef chuck roast
1/2 whole bell pepper
1/2 whole white onion
6 3/4 ounces diced tomatoes
2 1/3 tbsp salt
4 tsp pepper
2 1/4 tsp garlic powder
2 1/4 tsp onion powder
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 cup flour
Water (as needed)
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Instructions

1 - Cut the beef chuck roast into cubes of roughly 1/2 inch square. (You can substitute pre-cut stew meat here if you'd like).
2 - Dice the bell pepper and onion.
3 - Using a colander, drain the tomatoes.
4 - In a mixing bowl, coat the meat with the flour by hand mixing the pieces
5 - Add the oil to the large pan and heat it on medium high until the oil becomes runny.
6 - Add the meat to a large pan at medium high heat and stir fry it until the meat is greyish-pink.
7 - Add in the bell pepper, white onion and tomatoes, and continue stir-frying until the meat is lightly browned.
8 - Add in hot water so that the meat is nearly covered.
9 - Add the spices and stir to combine well.
10 - Set stove to high, and bring to a boil.
11 - Drop the heat to medium high. Allow to stew and reduce the gravy to half of the original amount of water, stirring occasionally, about 30 to 45 minutes.
12 - Once reduced, take off heat. The gravy will thicken as it cools.

Notes

Makes 5 servings at ~533 calories.
Calories 514
Total Fat 30g
Total Carbohydrate 9g
Protein 36g

Mexican Rice

Yield: 7 servings
Category: Side
Cuisine: Mexican
Source: Mom

Ingredients

2 cups long grain white rice
3 cups water
1 whole bell pepper
1 whole white onion
2 tbsp tomato paste
4 tbsp vegetable oil
2 1/3 tbsp salt
4 tsp pepper
2 1/4 tsp onion powder
1 1/2 tsp cumin
2 1/4 tsp garlic powder
411 g tomatoes (canned) (diced)

Instructions

1 - Add the cooking oil, rice and Mexican Spice Mix into a large pot.
2 - Set heat to high, and stir constantly as to not burn the rice.
3 - Just as some of the rice begins to turn the tiniest bit brown, add the water and immediately cover
4 - Once the water comes to boiling, set the heat to medium.
5 - Add in the bell pepper, onion, tomato and tomato paste, mixing well until the rice becomes a uniform pinkish red color.
6 - Recover and Wait five minutes.
7 - Set the heat to low. Wait five minutes.
8 - Remove the pot from the heat, and wait five more minutes.
9 - Uncover the rice, and fluff the rice using a rice paddle or spoon.

Notes

Makes 7 servings at ~50g carbs per serving.
Calories 286
Total Fat 6g
Total Carbohydrate 49g
Protein 5g

This Weeks' Meals: Mexican Bento Box!

We got ourselves some tasty Carne Guisada, a nice helping of Mexican Rice (it's got tomoato paste, sorry, Mom), and Mom's low-cost fave an unnamed tomato and spinach concoction a friend dubbed "Mexi-saag."

I wish I'd made tortillas. :)

Recipes in the coments, since it's two recipes (The Mexi Saag? A can of tomatoes, a can of spinach, salt, pepper, and warm it up).

#cooking #thisweeksmeals

@internet_ryan - I've been running Linux on and off about 20 years. It was More Linux Than Windows the last ten years or so, and after moving to Mint over Arch, it's my daily driver now.,

Laptop appears to be back up and running, but there was something seriously wrong there.

After 30 minutes or so, the system would freeze up. Sometimes black screen, sometimes just a system freeze up. I tried booting into Windows, and thats where things got wierd. I got a "Your system needs repair." IT asked to run diagnostics...and the diagnostics froze. The BIOS Diagnostics said there were problems, but "it fixed them" (COULD YOU TELL ME WHAT YOU FIXED?!). Still couldn't get into window, and now I wasn't able to get into Linux.

No prob. Let's reinstall the system. I pop in a Linux Live USB and...it wont load. Kernel panic. O_O Pop in a Windows USB..."a file is corrupted."

Huh. I went into the bios and did a hard drive wipe, which worked. And then loaded up Windows, and got the corrupt error again. And then tried linux again, and it would load but with errors. At one point, it managed to load into Window, so I spefiically rewiped the drive in GPArted, rebooted and everything worked after that.

I think either there's a hardware error lurking (thanks Dell BIOS for giving me no info), or a BIOS update didn't take and one of the reboots knocked it back into shape.

But I'm keeping an eye on it, moving forward. And it's now my first all-Linux system. No Windows. Granted, it's mostly used as a portal to get to the file server or my working PC in the office, so you don't need much there....

Making the Executive Decision to make the laptop a full on Linux system! No more Windows partition!

Apparently, the universe decided I was making too much progress on my weekly routines and crashed out my laptop.

LOOKS LIKE WE'RE REINSTALLING A SYSTEM BOYS!

::sigh::

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S80ivPamBoM

Do I know anyone who could make a batch of one die-cast model? Let me know!

@ami_angelwings @socketwench - To be fair, when you hire James Horner, you're hiring him to be James Horner. :D