To my author friends, I signed up for HubPages and I really love the community so far and you can earn money by publishing articles and short stories and even copyright your work for free. I urge you to sign up! If you do PLEASE use referral code MonicaCara, you earn "points" for your profile and high ranking people get featured on the front page. Please let me know if you have any questions.

XoXo 
M

Click the link to get a free preview of my book 'A Perfect Stranger'. Feel free to leave feedback!

XoXo
M

Tonight, I impressed myself. I discovered the secret to keeping pork moist. Coconut oil! I wish I had taken a picture before we cut it up, I had no idea it was going to be so good. The wonderful thing about this recipe, is every ingredient is to taste. So you can season and not worry about it being overbearing. 

• Preheat oven to 325* F
• Rub unrefined coconut oil all over pork loin
• Use a syringe (even a childs Tylenol syringe would work) and inject worcester generously through-out meat.
• Create a dry rub using garlic salt, onion powder, rib rub of any choice and parsley.
• Apply dry rub generously all over pork loin.
• Wrap in til foil and cook for 90 minutes (or until 150* F in center)
• Take out and leave wrapped in foil for 20 minutes.

Cool and enjoy. This recipe is full of flavor and moist. MmmMmmMmm!

My family and I take several "vacations" through out the year. Every one comments how we must be made of money since we travel so much. That is actually not the case. We are your average middle classed family, I just stretch every single penny.  When traveling, you have to prioritize. 

• Will there be things for the kids to do?
• Will what I spend in gas outweigh the good deal on the hotel room?
• How much money is there for food?

Things like that are very important. When people say vacation, usually an extravagant 10 day get away  is what comes to mind. My family does not vacation like that, so we can afford it more often. Every year for my wedding anniversary we go somewhere. Usually Sedona AZ but it has varied year to year. This year for my birthday we are planning a trip to Flagstaff AZ. Last year we took 3 vacations, and this is how I do it!

Today I had a real urge to bake some cookies. I just received my first Naturebox and I was eager to see how diverse I could make the snacks throughout the month. So this is my recipe and it came out DELICIOUS! Along the way I ran into some problems, I was out of salt and the original recipe I used as a backbone to my alterations required one cup of butter. YOWZA! So I decided to let my inner Pintrest freak shine and use alternatives. 

My recipe is as follows;
INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup coconut oil 
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. lemon juice (salt replacement, no lemon flavor once cooked and much less sodium per cookie)
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2  cups flour
• 2 cups Naturebox Vanilla Macaroon Granola

Bake at 350F for 20 minutes. It seems long to bake, but the outside will be crunchy and the center will be perfect. These seem to cook nice and slow. 

Now, if you don't have a Naturebox subscription I would imagine you could make your own granola. I was unable to find a similar recipe online so here is a summary of things that were in the granola. 

• Granola
• Honey
• Almond Slices
• Coconut Flakes
• Macadamia Nuts

I cannot guarantee that if you made your own granola mixture it will come out the same, but I'm sure it will taste delicious. I know everyone in my house LOVED them. 

Per Cookie:
233 Calories
31 Carbs 
12 g/fat
2 g/protein
116 g/sodium
19 g/sugar

So these aren't the best for you, but you could even get away with cutting the amount of sugar in half, or even down to 25% of the original recipe and it would still be good. The granola is naturally very sweet. 

Exciting news! Last night I finished my final draft and this morning I sent it out to a few literary agents. Fingers crossed I hear from someone soon!


XoXo
M

I just linked my Instagram to my contact page. I hope you all enjoy seeing glimpses of my beautiful life and all of the things I love. 

Last night I completed my rough draft of The Moon, The stars & A Perfect Stranger. I am so excited to have hit this milestone so much earlier than expected. Time to start editing!

I wish I didn't have to sleep. I get so lost in writing, but when I can barely keep my eyes open its time to go to sleep. Good night world. I hope tomorrow is a beautiful day. 

XoXo 
M

Hello everyone! I have decided to recreate my blog onto my website. It makes it easier to access for everyone and now I can read your comments as well. I will be posting my thoughts, updates about my work and many other things. I hope to hear from you all and have a wonderful day!

XoXo
M