“I have GOT to go to bed earlier tonight.”

Every afternoon, I say the same thing. Tonight’s the night I just go to bed at a reasonable time. And every night, the hours tick by, and I’m up too late. And I whine about being sooo tired the next day. I mean, I’ll probably be tired even if I go to bed early because I’m big pregnant now and don’t ever get great sleep. But maybe I’d be a little less tired if I just forced myself to bed on time.

Thing is, I look forward to my few hours of alone time every night. It’s when I watch shows or movies that I can’t watch when the kids are awake, or that Cam isn’t interested in. So, something’s gotta give. Either I stop getting alone time and stay tired OR I go to bed earlier and become a little less tired. What would you do?

First, a few shout-outs

I typically do shout-outs at the end, but I’m feeling silly today, so let’s shake things up. 🙂 

Thank you to Alicia and Bethany, who each bought me a coffee last week!🥰

Thank you to Allison for the onion-cutting goggles! YES they work!! ❤️ 

Thank you to Kailee for the homemade bacon-and-egg earrings! Love them!😍

Mystery you want to know about?

I asked in a question box a few weeks ago: “If you could find out the absolute truth about a mystery, which would you pick?”

I’ll share a lot of the answers I got, and then I’ll share my own response!

• JonBenét Ramsey

• The moon landing

• Easter Island

• DB Cooper

• Bigfoot

• Madeleine McCann

• Aliens

• Stonehenge

• JFK

• Black Dahlia

• Atlantis

My response is always going to be JonBenét. The early parts of that investigation were so sloppy. I mean, the police went in initially thinking it was a kidnapping, so they were looking all over for evidence of an intruder. Then they realized it was NOT a kidnapping, but they had not secured the scene at all. Neighbors and friends were just roaming around, touching and moving things. Then, the evidence is all so… odd. The ransom letter being written on the mom’s notepad, and why was it so lengthy?? And why would you leave a ransom note if you didn’t even take JonBenét? Too many questions and not enough reasonable explanation for any theory!

No one in the responses mentioned Michael Peterson (The Staircase is a multi-episode documentary if you’re interested!). They never did look much into the owl theory, and I really want to know what happened to Kathleen - he was convicted in 2003 but then released in 2017 after submitting an Alford plea. (NOTE: I do not know what words aren’t allowed in these emails!! Like, I don’t want to get blocked by email servers for using certain words, which is why I’m being a bit vague.)

Another one that no one mentioned: Elisa Lam! Cecil Hotel! Okay, that is all.

If you want to reply with your own thoughts (about any of those, or about a new response!), please do. I think mysteries - true crime and otherwise - are fascinating and, in many cases, so tragic. I just wish we had definite answers.

RELATED QUESTION: Would you be interested in a regular email segment just about true crime? I am fully immersed in that world and learn about new cases all the time. I could just highlight what I found to be the most interesting case of the week, something like that. Let me know!

❤️🫶🏻❤️🫶🏻❤️

Weekly meal plan!

Here’s a meal plan you can steal for yourself:

1. Vietnamese Meatballs with rice: I’ve made these meatballs with only beef, but this week I got ground pork as well. They’re sooo flavorful! You do need some specialty ingredients, like fish sauce, but it lasts quite a while! I also love that you cook the meatballs in the oven rather than on the stove - it makes it even easier.

2. Chicken and Sun-dried Tomato Pasta: I might have shared this before, but I want to type it out for you here! I got the idea from Zach Choi (he’s on all the socials), but he never posts recipes, not that I’ve found. So I watched the recipe video for this and came up with this recipe:

   1. While you are chopping and cooking, go ahead and cook some pasta of choice! I used bowtie this time, but penne is a good choice too.

   2. Chop up some chicken breasts.

   3. Pour some of the oil (1 Tbsp) from a jar of sun-dried tomatoes into a large skillet on medium heat. Add the chicken, salt, and pepper, and cook fully. Remove it.

   4. While the chicken is cooking, chop up an onion, about half of the jar of tomatoes, and a few handfuls of spinach.

   5. Once you remove the chicken, add 1 Tbsp of butter to the same pan, along with the onion and some minced garlic.

   6. After 5 minutes, add the tomatoes and spinach.

   7. After another few minutes, add back in the chicken, about ½ cup of broth, and about ¼ cup of heavy cream. Let that simmer.

   8. You can add the pasta to the skillet OR you can just spoon the mixture on top of your cooked pasta.

3. Chicken Enchiladas: Two things… we usually use jarred enchilada sauce rather than making it. And the other thing, some folks on Instagram told me ages ago that it’s better and easier to just pour ALL the sauce on top rather than putting some of it inside the tortillas, as the recipe says. So that’s what we do now!

4. Cracklin’ Chicken: This is one of those recipes that totally blew my mind the first time we tried it. The chicken skin gets SO crispy; it’s delicious. TIP: If you get your chicken from a butcher (like in Whole Foods), they’ll remove the bones for you. Otherwise, sharp kitchen shears work great to remove the bone. I’ve never found packaged chicken thighs that still have the skin but are also boneless. *We eat ours with mashed sweet potatoes!

5. Hamburger Steaks: I have never made hamburger steak, so this is just the recipe I PLAN to use! If you’ve made it and have suggestions, do let me know!

6. Fried Fish with Hush Puppies: No recipe for the fried fish. I’m just going to batter them like I’d batter chicken and fry ‘em up. But hush puppies! I like a recipe for that, since I’ve only made them twice. There are two types of hush puppies; one of them has a strong onion flavor, and the other is sweeter. It’s like sweet vs savory cornbread. I like the sweeter kind. So I’ll actually omit the onion in that recipe I shared! You do you 🥰

What are you making this week? Excited about anything?

Snakes and spiders, oh my

Whenever I post a picture of a snake or spider somewhere, I get countless replies that say something like “the only good snake/spider is a dead one”. And I get it. I was afraid of bugs and snakes up until about 5 years ago.

Then I decided to join a few Facebook groups that are specifically about bugs/insects/snakes. As it’s been said, knowledge is power. Knowing what bug/insect/snake I’m seeing and whether it’s venomous — just having a NAME for it — has made such a difference.

Now listen… I’m not going to go pick up a random snake. I’m not usually going to pick up a bug or insect. But I don’t feel the need to kill them either. I’m just not fearful anymore!

Here are a few Facebook groups for you to check out, if you’re someone who hates or fears snakes, frogs, spiders, or any other little critter:

• The Pro Snake Poultry Group (for those of us who own chickens!)

• Snake Identification (people post a pic/location of a snake, and other people comment the scientific name of the snake as well as if it’s venomous or not)

• Reptile and Amphibian Identification

• Antman’s Hill (bugs and insects!)

NYT Crossword: tips

I don’t pay for a lot of apps, but I do pay for the monthly New York Times Games app. It lets me go back and play all the old crossword puzzles, not just the one for the day. I feel like my vocabulary has expanded through doing the crossword regularly!

Since I’ve been playing since 2016, I think I can offer some tips. Not all crossword puzzles are created equal, but the NYT ones are consistent in their rules, so that’s what I’m sharing here!

In case you didn’t know, Monday’s puzzle is the easiest - not a lot of word play, pretty straightforward answers. Usually your gut instinct is the right answer. Each weekday gets harder. Friday and Saturday are the hardest and usually themeless, which makes them harder. Sunday’s is the most interesting, I think, with a cool theme and design.

Let’s get into a few clues and how to interpret them! I’ll put the answers to these 5 at the end of the section, in case you want to try figuring them out!

1 “Lead-in” means a word that can be used before box or bug. It’s not the same as a prefix; it’s a separate word.

9 Whenever a clue says “informally”, it will be an abbreviation or a slang. Another VERY important tip: If the clue is plural, your answer MUST be plural! So this is plural answer: a 3-letter answer with an S at the end.

19 Any time there’s a question mark at the end, it’s going to be word play, which means you have to think outside the box. The answer is more of a riddle or trick. These are often part of a series of clues that work together; they’re hard to figure out on their own. This clue is one of four word play clues in its puzzle: the other answers include the words “double”, “three”, and “four”, which can help a lot to figure this one clue out!

32 You see how it doesn’t say “Typing measurement” and instead says “meas.”? That’s part of the clue! That means your answer will also be an abbreviation.

52 This isn’t really a tip, just a good thing to remember. There are several small words that the NYT folks like to use a lot, and one of them is this clue. Reminder: this is a plural clue, so the answer needs to be plural! This answer is either OLES or RAHS.

ANSWERS:

1 PILL
9 PBJS
19 ONEEYEDJACKS (Jack Nicholson and Jack Nicklaus, and both the last names have one of the letter i)
32 WPM
52 OLES

Baby update

I’m 33 weeks now! I just say “about 8 months” when people ask, or I say I’ve got “about 1 month to go” even though it could be closer to 2 months. It really is a big range!

Baby is kickin’ a lot. And I feel like maaaybe I’m not breech anymore, but I have a hard time feeling my belly and being able to tell the difference between the head and the butt. I know that foot kicks are supposed to feel different from elbow jabs, but I can’t tell. 😏

I saw the chiropractor last week, who helped me out with some round ligament pain and groin pain, and she also did a few things that should help baby to flip.

I’ve got an OB appointment early next week, so I’ll ask her to feel around. It tickles so bad, so I end up laughing the whole time - but she seems to have a knack for figuring out where the head is (probably because she’s been doing it for many years haha).

House update / kid rooms

The house add-on has no real update. *sad face*

The roof is done, but we’re still waiting on windows. Once that’s done, the contractor said the rest should move super quickly. Do you remember when he said it could be done by May 1? Well that’s come and gone. And my new date is May 15? I’ll keep ya posted!

We’ve decided on who gets which rooms, which was a huge juggling act. Alexander and Annabelle are getting their own rooms, which is fun. I let them each pick out a paint color, ceiling fan, curtains, accessories. They have beds already, but they each will get a new desk with a chair, plus all the little things.

I took them to a store called At Home, just to get some ideas of what they might want. Alexander pretty clearly wants gamer decor, plus red and black for wall colors. We found some pics online that actually look nice, rather than some sort of creepy dungeon (which is what I picture when you put black and red together).

Annabelle wants pink walls with a dark pink trim, and she wants butterflies and flowers. She’d like a very fluffy rug and a vanity (basically a desk with a mirror). She’s got this giant Barbie house with a lot of accessories, so I’m trying to come up with ideas for how to organize that; right now, all the accessories are just tossed into a giant bag.

I stayed up late one night and typed up 6 full pages of ideas for how to organize all the spaces in the rearranged version of our house. There are still a lot of questions, things like “where should we put ___?” But it’ll work itself out.

I’m so excited to share the final add-on results with you all! It’ll be so so soon, I can feel it. ❤️ 

Old emails, wish list, tip jar, and PO Box!

If you want to see old emails, here’s a link to all of them!

I hope you and yours have a great week. Please let me know if you need anything from me: prayers or suggestions or encouragement or anything.

If you’d like to support me and my content, then here are two ways:

• My Amazon wish list! There are some baby-related items on there too. 🙂 My PO Box is still open, by the way!

  • Bethany King

  • PO Box 8152

  • Shreveport LA 71148

• Buy Me a Coffee - it’s basically a virtual tip jar!

Much love,
Bethany