If you were curious about the "cooking disasters" I was talking about a few days ago, the post is up on my blog now: https://samanthadunawaybryant.blogspot.com/2023/01/cooking-disasters-open-book-blog-hop.html

#mfw as a lifelong reader, I can be hard to surprise. I’m very good at seeing where a story is going to go. But I just got to chapter 19 of Babel by RF Kuang and I did not see this coming. Don’t you love it when a story can surprise you in the best possible way? #CoSoReaders

I was writing today about "cooking disasters" and I remembered the time I tried to make my husband (my boyfriend, then) a curry…but I had no experience with peppers since I didn't grow up eating them (my dad won't eat them). I picked habañeros, because they were pretty. Oops! If you cook now, what's something you had to learn the hard way? #CoSoCooks

For the Insecure Writers Support Group blog hop today, we're talking about our word of the year. Do you select one? I like the idea, myself. This year, I've picked "finish." #CoSoWriters https://samanthadunawaybryant.blogspot.com/2023/01/iwsg-word-of-year-is-finish.html

I'm doing a submission challenge in January. It's not as kinky as it sounds--it's my writing I'm submitting, one piece a day for the entire month of January. I've done it before and it generally pays off, resulting in at least one or two publications. I LOVE writing, but the research and preparation for submitting my work is tedious, so this is how I make myself do it. Wish me luck! #CoSoWriters

So I finished my #ReadingChallenge with 55 books. My goal was 52, one per week. Did we read anything in common this year? Did you find anything new to love and you’re reading life? #ReadingLife #AmReading https://samanthadunawaybryant.blogspot.com/2022/12/my-year-in-books-what-i-read-in-2022.html

Got any interesting New Year’s plans?

Well, I went out to buy a house plant today a house plant, singular. Somehow all of these other plants came home with me. Somehow, I’m also not very sad at that. #HousePlants

I enjoyed showing off all my holiday shirts. Here they are in one collection. It’s been eight crazy nights for sure.#chanukah #hannukah

Ignore that pile of stuff on the counter behind me. We’ve been too busy enjoying #chrismakkuh to clean up. I think I found the perfect shirt for the day though. #chanukah #hanukkah #winterholidays

Three layers of #hannukah today, since it’s cold-my dragon shirt, my “ugly” sweater and my Among Us socks. There’s a lot of Christmas prep in my celebration time today, so it feels good to wear my team colors. #chanukah #festivaloflights #winterholidays

For the sixth night of Hanukkah, a meme shirt. I’ve got a few of these, where the joke is based on something that was popular the year I bought the shirt, but has kind of dropped out of Public consciousness since. Do you remember the dab? #chanukah #hannukah

We are a blended family. We celebrate #Hanukkah and #christmas This year the two intersect pretty strongly with the last night of Hanukkah falling on Christmas. Hence my #chrismukkah shirt. We celebrate by having a family activity every night during Hanukkah. And tonight is a very blended family experience: going to the movies to watch Violent Night, a Christmas horror movie. It took some getting used to, but now I really love the way our traditions intertwine.

Here’s today’s #hannukah shirt. Since enjoying Hanukkah treats like latkes, sufganiyot, and gelt are unlikely to make me, well, svelte I find this one very amusing. Do you remember the solid gold dancers?They used to come on after cartoons were over on Saturday when I was a kid. I imagine the solid gelt dancers are a little rounder.

For one of our nights of Hanukkah, we took a walk. We celebrate by having a family activity each night. We saw this tree on the walk and clearly something should be in there. What do you think it should be?

I’ve always thought the word “Hannukah” was fun to say. Sweetman found me this shirt a couple of Hanukkah’s ago, and I still love it. It could totally be a catchphrase for a streetfighter game. #chanukah #hannukah #chanukahtee

and Hanukkah is underway! Today’s shirt is in celebration of the best version of fried potatoes. Not that you can really go wrong with fried potatoes and other forms either. They might be the one universally human pleasing food. #chanukah #hannukah #winterholidays

Hanukkah starts tonight! And for me that means eight days of ridiculous T-shirts. No one knows how to spell Hanukkah (Chanukah) in English. We don’t seem to know how many n’s or k’s or what the first letter is. So Llamakkah is just as likely. We love our rhymes. Plus, isn’t she cute? #chanukah #hannukah

We get a crazy amount of acorns in our yard--lots of oak trees. One of the weird things about them is how pretty they are at every stage, from pristine to mostly decayed. #Nature

This is the card that won my lunchtime game of Solforge against my husband. I misread the name of it and thought it said southside stegadon, so he was taunting my husband in a Boston accent the entire time. He must love me, because we’re still married after this. #CoSoGamers