More of a starter than a finisher lately, I thought I would use a little of my free time to update you a bit in my journey through this year of being 50. I volunteered this year to be an exam-question writer for ALU (Academy of Life Underwriters). ALU has 4 underwriting-related exams and they are considered very challenging. This is something that I have thought about doing for about ten years, since I first realized that people like me wrote the exams. After attending a conference in April (virtually of course), and hearing the association president talk about getting involved and the many ways to do that, I tracked down contact information for the ALU president and asked about how to volunteer. They had 2 open positions - one for marketing (ah, no.) and one for exam writing for 301, the final and hardest of the exams. Sign me up! I wrote a total of 26 questions, all multiple choice, for 3 chapters of the textbook and some of "general knowledge". There are 3 different styles of questions - straight, except ("all of these EXCEPT"), and multiple option (A only, B&C, A&B, etc.). It was time-consuming, difficult, and a lot of work in a short period of time, but also very rewarding and interesting. I feel like I know and understand the material in chapters I worked on better than ever. Reviewing my partner's questions helped me learn more about what makes good questions (and also reminded me that I have the nit-picky proofreading skills necessary for this task).
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True to my first sentence, I started but didn't finish the blog post on 8/30. Back now to finish it up. I believe my ALU work is technically volunteer time, since I did not receive any pay for it and most was done on my own time. Conservatively, between reading, writing questions, reviewing questions and revising, I will say 25 hours spent. I have 2 day-long virtual meetings coming up this week and then some time to complete final revisions on my questions by early October. Then I will be done until next summer.
Recipe 23 - Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie
Way back on the 4th of July, I tried this recipe to share with friends. My mother-in-law had made it for dinner the week before and I had right away asked for the recipe. It was easy (could be easier if you use a premade graham cracker or chocolate pie crust but this crunchy crust is so good, you'll want to try it at least once), and if you like PB and chocolate like I do, you'll love it. The filling recipe is from cooks.com and sounds like one that comes on the label of Cool Whip or Hershey's syrup. The crust recipe comes from E's cousin. Combined they are a delicious summer dessert. Unlike other frozen desserts, this one isn't impossible to cut straight out of the freezer.
Butter Crunch Crust
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix the following ingredients together with your hands:
1/2 C. butter
1/4 C. packed brown sugar
1 C. sifted flour (unsifted if you are me and don't have a sifter)
1/2 C. chopped pecans, walnuts or coconut (we used pecans)
Spread mixture in a cake pan (it didn't say what size - I used a Pyrex 8"x12" and that worked fine). Bake about 15 minutes. Stir it up (to break up chunks) and press 2 C. hot crumbs into bottom and sides of 9" pie pan. Cool. Save the remaining crumbs for topping. Can also use for topping for ice cream, pudding, parfaits, etc. Store in refrigerator.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie filling
Mix together:
3/4 C. peanut butter
1/2 C. Hershey's chocolate syrup
12 oz. Cool Whip (Lite works just fine)
Spoon into prepared crust. Sprinkle crumbs over top (or grated Hershey bar). Freeze until ready to serve.
Book 23 - The Husband's Secret
My selection for August book club was one that my mom loaned me after seeing it on my Goodreads list. I can't remember when I put it on my list or how I had originally heard about it. The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty looks like chick-lit. Chick-lit is not my favorite (both the term and the marketing behind it, plus most of the books marketed this way), but I thought it would be a light read for summer time. I was pleasantly surprised and really liked this book, plus we had great discussion at book club where others were also pleasantly surprised. The blurb on the back has you "imagine your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret - something with the potential to destroy not only the life you have built together, but the lives of others as well. And then imagine that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive..." Fairly intriguing, right? I never guessed correctly any of the twists or turns. The plot was not at all what I expected and kept me reading. A couple of notes for potential readers: the author is Australian and the book takes place in Australia. This means that some cultural references and places will likely be unfamiliar. It also means that Easter happens in the autumn. It occasionally confused my American brain a little bit but not too much. The other thing to note is that there are a lot of different characters and storylines taking place at the same time, plus some flashbacks. Pay attention - characters will change from one chapter to the next.
Overall a very good read, not your typical chick-lit, and made me think really hard about secrets between couples and between family members.
Fifty for 50 Tally
Books completed – 31 (8 more in progress)
Recipes tried – 28
Blog posts published– 23
Miles walked in August - 62.3
Miles walked so far in September - 14.7
Miles walked year-to-date –411.28
Scrap book pages completed –27
Hats donated – 20
Hours volunteered – 25
