Review for What More Could You Wish For

A Self-Realization-fiction

St. Martin's Press  

    Samantha Hoffman's first novel, What More Could You Wish For is a delightful read.

    Libby Carson  goes about life “as is”, after having two failed marriages and

opting to shed the corporate world to build her own sewing/fashion business and having

 a fairly steady boyfriend for several years. UNTIL, she turns 50 and her boyfriend

pops the “question!”                                  

      She panics. She she has always had  approval from her family, who are loving and supportive. ”Yet she seeks that approval,” While doing it “her way”

     Meantime she re-connects with a high school boyfriend, the then, love of her life. They e-mail and ultimately connect.

     Things progress until a serious family situation sends her into a 180!

She starts planning a wedding with the present boyfriend.

     Hoffman's characters are vibrant and real.  Well-rounded.  She is in their

skins and really knows them.  Turning 50 for some women  is celebrated with black balloons and angst, the “going down hill” syndrome. Libby works through all this

 in the midst of  family sorrow.   

    Hoffman  carries the story through to conclusion in an up-beat satisfying

ending. 

~Norma J. Sundberg: Author of An Odd Fable, a children's story

Pubished CyPress Publications/available on Amazon

How Many Stupid Things Can You Do In A Day?

How many stupid things can you do in one day? Two, so far, and counting.
This morning I go to get my driver's license renewed because I will be in China on my birthday (so excited!) and am leaving in just a couple weeks. And yay! only two people ahead of me in line (if you're downtown you MUST go to the Chicago Loop Express), so I get up to the counter and I'm all happy because for the last (at least) 15 years I've been carrying around this license with a picture where I look like a drunken troll. They keep automatically renewing it and each time I think, "No! Don't do that!" I even had it stolen once and thought finally, I'd get a new picture. But noooo...they just pulled up the old one right out of their ugly picture archives and reissued the damn license.
So there I am this morning and I haven't had a drop to drink and my hair's looking pretty good and I've been practicing my smile in the mirror all morning, and the woman behind the counter looks at my license and looks at me (probably thinking, "Honey, this is a badass picture), and she says, "Your license expires in 2014."
Oh.
Why did I have it in my head it was this year? Wishful thinking, I suppose, but all I had to do was look at the damn (ugly) license.
So then I stop on the way home and grab some lunch and I give the guy a twenty and he hands me back a twenty. I look at it and I say, "What's this?" thinking he's going to say, "You're the 50th customer this morning so you get your lunch free," but instead he holds up the second twenty that I gave him that's still in his hand.
There is no free lunch.
At least he was honest. I would never have known.
Can I blame all this on the fact that I didn't sleep well last night? No, I didn't think so.
Have you done anything stupid today? It would make me feel so much better if you had.
So, two stupid things for me today. But the day's still young. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, oh, oh...I have one more. This didn't happen today, but there's no moratorium on stupid things. So last week I watched this fantastic Eagles documentary on Showtime and afterwards I ordered one of their newer CDs and when I got it yesterday I realized I already have it.
I hate shit like that.

Book Signings Are a Crap Shoot

Last night's event at Round Table Books in Winnetka more than made up for my event a couple weeks ago where no one came. Really...NO. ONE. Well...shit happens.
This book promotion stuff is a challenge, let me tell you.You never know how an event will go. Will you get an audience? Is the book seller supportive? Are people engaged? Will we have a major snow storm?
It's a crap shoot.
And sometimes you win, like I did last night.
Arthur Frank, the owner of this lovely book store, is the most wonderful host. He knows how to do an event! Thanks to Arthur and the lovely Sue (photo at left), and Simone, and the other lady whose name I don't remember (so sorry) but who was so welcoming. Winnetka is a very lucky town to have a book store like Round Table Books.
Want to hear other authors' perspectives about doing events? Check out this article from my friends at ChickLitCentral. 

A Must-Make Recipe

Chicken and dumplings - what makes you feel better than that?
You have to make this - you just throw everything in your slow-cooker, leave for the day and come back to a house that smells like Grandma's. It's easy and delicious and heart-warming.
That's it at left left before I put the dumpling dough on top and finished cooking it, and then, in my impatience to chow down on this comfort food (my favorite food group), I totally forgot to take a picture of the finished dish. Just dug right in. And I have one word: yum.

Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumplings

• 3 pounds skinless chicken thighs (I use bone-in for more flavor)
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1 cup mushrooms, chopped
• 2 carrots
• 3 stalks celery
• Frozen peas

Combine in a saucepan:

• 4 T butter
• 6 T flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp poultry seasoning 

Put the vegetables into the bottom of the crockpot and chicken on top. Add the milk/flour mixture.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 4-5. An hour before serving, remove chicken and let cool, then pull from bone and shred. 

Drop in dumpling dough. (You could use refrigerated biscuits at this point if you want to make it even easier but I made my own because I had pancake mix that I never use.

Cover and cook on high for another hour. The dumplings are done when you can insert a knife and it comes out clean. They will be spongy and will brown a bit on the sides and top.

Dumplings:

• 2 1/2 cups buttermilk pancake mix
• 1/3 cup water
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 egg

In medium bowl, stir together pancake mix and remaining ingredients until dough forms.

Drop dough by rounded spoonfuls onto simmering stew.

(I added salt, herbes de Provence and a touch of cayenne to the dumpling dough.)

Two Book Signings...One Audience

Amy, at Women and Children First.

Friday night my friend Amy Andrews Alznauer launched her book Love & Salt at Women and Children First, a bookstore in Lakeview, and had an SRO crowd. What a thrill for Amy. I haven't read her book yet (we only recently met) tho I'm sure it's wonderful since she's a charming and intelligent person.

I was unable to attend Amy's event because I was doing my own book signing at The BookMarket in Glenview, and it turned out to be unlike any signing I've done before: NOT ONE PERSON showed up. Not a soul. Maybe all the book lovers were at Amy's.
They have these lovely, comfy chairs at The Book Market, and when I arrived I was greeted by Rick, who was managing the store that evening, and he was so hospitable and accommodating. He asked me how I wanted to set up the event and we moved these beautiful chairs around until it was a cozy, casual gathering. And then we waited.
My event was scheduled for 7:00p.
7:00 - no one.
7:10 - no one. Okay, it's only ten minutes. People never show up on time, do they?
7:20. Still no one. It was becoming abundantly clear that I was not going to have any butts to fill those comfy seats.
Don't be sad. I'm fine. Shit happens. And I always learn from these experiences.

Here's mine

Here's Amy's event.

Here's my lesson this time: I did not check with the manager of the book store to be sure she had put up the posters (that I created and sent to her), that she had gotten my books and was featuring them in the store, that she even remembered who I am.
In short, even if a store agrees to have a book event for you don't assume they give a shit. (Oh, oops, I was taking the high road here. My apologies.)

Is This What Happens When You Get Old?

Oh. My. God. We are old and we cannot help ourselves. I feel as if I'm living in a nursing home and I'm not even collecting social security yet.

Here's the story: three girlfriends (and I use that term with exceptional looseness) and I are planning an outing. (I never used to call these things outings, but now it seems unfortunately appropriate. So sad.)
Anyway, we're mostly doing the coordinating via email (thank god or I'd have no cell phone minutes left). One of us, L., lives in the Lincoln Square area and that's where we're headed. The rest of us live downtown. Two do not own cars. No problem, we can get anywhere by public trans. But, aha! M. owns a car and offered to drive. Perfect!
You'd think. But no...
So G. emails everyone and says, "Thanks, M., for offering to drive. That's nice. Or we can take the train. If we take the train it'll take about 40 minutes, if we drive it'll take maybe 30. Whatever everyone else wants to do is fine with me." Then M. (I'm changing the initials to protect the old) hits reply all and says, "Oh, I'm happy to drive. Or we can take the train. Either way is fine with me."
G. hits reply all and says, "Should we meet at 5:45 or 6:00? Does anyone have a strong opinion about driving or train?"
Really??? Why would we want to take two trains if we can take one car?
So I reply all and say, "Okay, I'm settling this. Thank you M. for offering to drive. We will take you up on your kind offer and meet in the lobby at 5:45."
Done.
You'd think. But no...
This a.m. (our outing's this evening) there's another flurry of emails regarding the condition of the roads and the sidewalks and parking and if we should go to L.'s house first for a glass of wine (the original plan) or just meet at the restaurant due to the weather. I am looking outside as I read the latest email and I'm thinking, "What fucking weather?"
Three, four emails later with everyone expressing an opinion and then ending with, "Whatever everyone else wants to do..."
Oh, blah, blah, blah. Jesus. One plan. One email with the details. Done.
You'd think. Used to be that way when I was young. I long for those days.
So I reply all and say, "Ladies, let's leave it as planned. M. will drive, we will meet in the lobby at 5:45 and go to L.'s for a glass of wine and then we'll walk or drive to the restaurant. Done. Quit with the emails. xo, Sam."
Will that be the end? Doubtful. Especially if, god forbid, a snowflake falls.
I don't have the patience for getting old. I'm not going there.
If they start talking about arthritis or their latest colonoscopy when we sit down to eat I will run screaming from the restaurant.
And hope I don't fall on a snowflake and break a hip.

Belated New Year's Resolutions

Yes, I'm a little late with my new year's resolutions. But, hey...January's not over yet.
Do you make them? I don't. I mean I have, maybe once or twice in my life, but as a rule I don't believe in them. Why bother? Does anyone ever keep them? I think everyone resolves to lose weight or quit smoking and then on January 2nd the resolutions go up in a puff of smoke and a chocolate eclair.
But this year I decided I'm going to give this another shot. Why? No clue, but here they are:
1. Quit smoking
Okay, so I don't smoke. I thought I should have at least one resolution with a 100% probability of success. I did smoke, when I was young, when it was still cool and we didn't know it was going to blacken our lungs and kill us. Then I quit - 30some years ago. Thank god. It's such a stupid thing to do - draw smoke into your lungs and pollute the air around you and stink up your clothing. Oops, I'm jumping down off that soap box now. Sorry, I know how tough it is to quit, but DO IT NOW.
2. Write for at least five minutes every day.
That doesn't seem so hard, does it? I can certainly write more than that, but to have some discipline about my writing, five minutes a day is a great goal. This is a tip I learned from one of my writing coaches, Jerry Cleaver, and it's a good one. The least that happens is I get five minutes of writing done, but the most? Sky's the limit; I finish my story/novel/article/poem, write a new chapter, discover new characters...it's all about sitting down and not getting distracted by the Internet or TV or a book or the state of my nails. It's all about just doing it. Maybe if I stick to this resolution my second novel won't take eight years like the first one. Actually, I'm about 3/4 of the way through the first draft of The Ones You Left Behind, and I'm very excited about it.
(I also like Melanie Thorne's Not-Resolutions for writers so I'm going to add them to my writing list. Since they're faux-resolutions they don't seem so daunting.)
3. Take French classes.
Ah, c'est une bon idee! I envy people who went to Europe when they were young, traveling on a Eurail Pass (do they still have those?), sleeping in garrets, smoking Gauloises. Why didn't I do that? Maybe because I grew up in Toledo and no one I knew was doing that. I had only been on an airplane once by the time I was 18 so traveling to Europe never occurred to me. I'm sorry I didn't have that experience as a kid but, I'm not dead yet so I can still do it. It'll be a different experience, of course, and I'll have to do it differently now: no garrets (not that a garret was ever my style), and definitely no Gauloises. But at some point I want to live in Paris. At least for a little while. So, this year I'm going to brush up on my high school French.


Alright, enough with the resolutions. No need to get carried away here.
Did you make any? What are they? Will you keep them?