Mary's Recipes Week Two

 Welcome back to Mary's Recipes.  I'm including a picture of the great lady herself with each post.  Isn't she a sweetie?  

I'm posting five recipes a week. That should keep you busy! 

 

 

DOA’s Merry Murderous Christmas Mysteries

 Here’s my stack of Christmas Murder Mysteries.  There’s one book which is coming later this month for some reason, pictured separately.  I hope to have them all read and reviewed by December 31st. Could happen!

DOA's December

 

We made it! It's the last month of the year and we are all (mostly) still standing.  This post will be the 84th post for the Librariandoa blog.  I'll just need sixteen more posts to get to the ever desirable 100 posts :)

Though I posted every day in November, I don't plan to do that in December.  I will be keeping three themed post days active this month:

DOA On TV Sundays

Mary's Recipes Thursdays

Saturday Puzzles

 

Never fear, there won't be a content drought!

DOA In The Kitchen!

 

I recently purchased several great cookbooks I'll highlight.

I've four nice sized cookie jars, I think they're all from Walmart, but I plan to put one type of cookie in each, with a little label so a person can just dig in.  Date filled cookies, Sugar Cookies, Chocolate Sandwich Cookies and Spritz are this seasons selections.  Pictures and recipes used as I make them.

On the side, I'll make half recipes of Muddy Buddies, Rice Krispie Bars, and daringly caramels and divinity.  Good luck with those last two, you say.  This could be the year when I succeed.

Crafty DOA!

Time to soothe the inner beast by doing craft projects. Crafting can put you in a "meditative state", they say.  Unless you mess up.

I've recently started painting ceramic things again.  I've no artistic talent, but I see painting these fun objects as being much like working in a coloring book.  I've always liked using nice colors and I must stay inside the lines. Some of these are new, some I’ve had for years.

I recently purchased a book called 100 Crochet Tiles.  I saw it in a store and looked at the directions, and determined I can do the stitches required.  Bozo that I am, I didn't pay attention to the yarn used, which is Paintbox and Scheejpes, a European yarn.  You can get this on Amazon.  I picked a square to try and ordered the Paintbox Yarn for that square.  The skeins are 1.7 oz, perhaps just enough for one square?  Watch this space to see.  Another roadblock here is I can't make a "magic ring" to save myself, so I either finally learn it, or just have a hole in the middle, lol.

 

A Merry Murderous Christmas!

I have a pile of Christmas Murder Mysteries I plan to read and review this month.  Since two of the books are short story collections, I'm giving myself a goal of having read all of my Christmas Mysteries by December 31st.

I don't quite have all of my books yet, so I'll post that list when I have them.  

This plan is inspired by the Ho Ho Ho Readathon at the Caffeinated Reviewer Blog.  I would love to have signed up for this reading challenge, but just not this year.

https://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/2025/11/ho-ho-ho-readathon-begins.html 

 

 

Have a very Merry December! 

DOA On TV: Stranger Things Season 5: Eps 1-4, Homeland: Pilot

 

 

 Stranger Things Season 5, Eps 1-4

 

I watched very little this week, but did manage to see the first four released episodes of Stranger Things Thursday after Thanksgiving dinner.

I love the chapter titles for these:

The Crawl

The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler

The Turnbow Trap

Sorceror

The episodes managed to give screen time to all of the main characters so we can see who they are now, after four harrowing seasons.  The kids are mostly grown up, but ya, they're still kids in how they respond and react.  

The actual grownups get some fine moments too, particularly Karen Wheeler.  She's still tipping the wine glass, but she can use it as a weapon if she needs to.   Joyce Byers is all in on saving the world, but her kids still come first.  Hopper isn't the gruff fuzzy bear he usually is, so far. He's just gruff.

 Quite a bit of time is spent in the upside down.  Everyone, including the military, seem rather at home there, taking some of its edge away.  The scary stuff comes in a more human appearing form in the guise of Henry Creel.  He's gathering the children of Hawkins who are shy and vulnerable. 

 Looking forward to Christmas and the next set of episodes. 

 

Homeland Pilot Episode

 

This is new to Netflix, and has gotten a lot of publicity, though it ran initially from 2011 to 2020.  I remember it getting high praise and lots of awards nominations over time. So, give it a try, I said.

Claire Danes is a CIA operative named Carrie Mathison who uses any means necessary to prove she's right about whatever she's currently working on.  She has bi-polar disorder she's masking from her superiors.  She's so intense, though, and prone to going over the top, that I don't see why she isn't regularly in more trouble.

Part of this may be the efforts of her mentor Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) who tries to help her navigate without getting in trouble.

The story line of the pilot involves Carrie promising a man in prison about to be executed that she will help his family if he gives her key information.  The information is, a prisoner of war has been "turned".  I don't know if she ever helped his family as promised, but that really bugged me.  She doesn't seem like a person to honor promises.

Soon after, a prisoner of war who has been thought dead, but has been held for eight years is released.  Carrie is immediately obsessed with him and sets up unauthorized surveillance equipment in his home. She has him followed everywhere, all off the books.

It's set up that this man, Brody, is an agent of al-Qaida, according to Carrie. He's hailed as a hero returning home, and there are plans to have him run for congress.

While the episode was intense, and Danes really an interesting character, there was far too much torture for me.  Also, if the Brody character really is a bad guy and he just floats through, that's depressing.

Not for me. 

Librariandoa's Saturday Puzzles : A Cryptogram

 

Welcome to the last November Puzzle!  Saturday Puzzles will continue on December Saturdays, as I am not at my goal of one hundred posts for 2025 yet.

Mr. DOA requested a Cryptogram for this one, so here it is.  Just figure out what letters are substituted for which letters to reveal the first line of a book, as always.

 

SZLHWZ XEZWZ AJI QZQHWB, SZLHWZ XEZWZ AJI EGIXHWB, XEZWZ AZWZ XEZ YZCGJXEJPI : XEZ UHYHIIJY, QHPIXWHRI UWZJXRWZI XEJX YRQSZWZM JIEHWZ ZJUE AZX IZJIHP JPM AZPX AJPMZWGPT XEZ DYJGPI, SWGPTGPT MZJXE JPM DJPGU AGXE XEZQ.

 

DOA's Saturday Puzzles An Answer Key for the November 22nd Rebus

 Almost too easy, right?  The rebus is the first line from the book This Fallen Prey, third in Kelley Armstrong's Rockton series.   I'm trying to parcel them out to myself slowly so I don't obsessively get them and and blow through them.  Really a good series.  The quote refers to the frozen ground of the Yukon not being pliable for digging throughout the winter months.  Bodies must await spring elsewhere than in a proper gave.

 

 

The season may have officially started two months ago, but it isn't truly spring in Rockton until we bury our winter dead. 

 

 

35+ Gift Ideas for Bookworms from the 52 Book Club

 

Here we go!  We are suddenly into the Christmas season though I didn't plan to be, not quite yet.

What's a person to do when gift ideas just pop right up?

 

From my blogroll,  the 52 Book Club has a list of Christmas ideas for Bookworms.  We always see things we would like when shopping for others, right?

 

I have been keen this year on counting the books I've read, so boink!  I have this on order so I can keep count next year.  Isn't it great?

 

 I resisted getting myself anything else from the list because I'm a good dog.

Happy Thanksgiving! Mary's Recipes Returns

 

I love Thanksgiving. It's all about food and sitting around a table with those you love.  

I had a Librariandoa 2.0 Blog that I ran out of space on and couldn't post anymore.  I should have left it up because it had some really good recipes I found out in the world, and the complete Mary's Recipes, the cards from her recipe box I carefully scanned and posted.

Luckily, I have the card scans on my PC, so I can put them back out here, where they'll be available.  

Have a great day!

Here's a recent picture of Mary Herself :

 

 

Goodreads Choice Awards Final Voting Round, My Choices

 

Here we are, at the final voting round for Goodreads.  This time, many of my choices made it to the final round. Yay!  Here are my picks, best of luck to these authors whose books I loved this year:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOA TV: TV Guide's The Most Anticipated Shows of Winter 2025-2026

 

Remember when the holiday season was full of boring re-runs and cheesy holiday specials (if you were lucky)?   Those bad old days are gone.  If you have a few choice streaming services, you can doze your way through a ton of great shows.  New, exciting shows!

Here's a list of upcoming shows from the ever reliable TV Guide.  These will get you through November, December, and into the new year.

 

TheMost Anticipated TV Shows of Winter 2025-2026 - TV Guide

 

From this list I have some I'll be certain to watch:

I've watched season one eight times, and am likely to watch it one more time before season two airs on December 17th.  

 

 

Coming out beginning tomorrow (November 26), the fifth and final season looks great.  I'm sorry to see the series go, but have enjoyed seeing the kids on other shows, and will be rooting for them.  Quality has been consistent in this series, its major flaw has been it takes too long between seasons.

 

 Coming January 15, the long awaited Starfleet Academy is looking to be a bit more Beverly Hills 90210 in Space than the training ground for a lifetime of adventure I was hoping for.  I hope I'm wrong!  I love my Star Trek.

 

 

 A psychological thriller with Jon Bernthal as a detective, and Tessa Thompson as a news anchor sounds good. I didn't realize that this is based on Alice Feeney's novel, though, yikes!  I've read several of her books but not this one.  So do I buy the book now, and ruin the show for myself or get it after I've seen the show so I can do the gloating thing about how much better the book is?  Hmmm.

 

 

Season four features Benedict Bridgerton, probably my least favorite of the Bridgerton siblings.  The series has been entertaining every time, though, so I'll keep the faith.

 

Intriguing But Unlikely To Watch

There are a couple I'd like to try, but I may not have the streaming service they're on (don't have Apple or Peacock), or I'm not so sure its for me.  I can always do my “watch an episode and decide” thing on the Netflix show.

 

 I'd really like to see these two actresses go head to head.  I worry the show might be too gritty, and dare I say, mean for me.

 

 I like the premise of a spy whose brain is hacked, but don't have Peacock.