Pockets Full Of Jam.

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I wrote about the jam/jelly festival yesterday. Today I’ll elaborate a bit on the title.

First, however, is the new push – subscriptions to the blog. In the relatively near future I will be producing some e-books that will be free to subscribers only. They will be short stories, essays about political doings, and maybe the secret ingredient for the rhubarb-orange – nah. No recipes.

The point is, you will benefit greatly from being a subscriber in the coming months. As in free stuff other people will have to pay for in the long run. So don’t mess around, go to the box below and subscribe now.

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When I got home the other morning I carried in a case of the new jams from the car. I know my limitations (Dirty Harry taught me that much) and so I didn’t even try to balance the extra jars on top of the case. I knew they’d wind up on the garage floor to the horror, cursing, and pouting of one blog writer. So I stuck the spares in my pants pockets.

I laughed when I did it. I just struck me as funny. And then it occurred to me what a blessing it is in this world to have so much good food that you can’t carry it all. You need to stuff it in your pockets.

Pocket bait.

I took a long nap (fine – it was almost 7 hours long, but still a nap) before getting up and pretending to be a human. I worked a bit on the book I’m getting ready for a contest and had a fine conversation with my agent. Hence the push for subscriptions. She’s got a great idea of what to do with the e-books and so the push. I finished the day watching Duck Dynasty on the DVR while eating dirty rice with my wife. Stormy was lounging nearby – she was tuckered out after spending the nap period with me on the bed. Yes, progress.

The point of this ramble is that yesterday I ate well, slept well, worked well, and was well loved by my wife and my dog. You don’t always get that kind of day in the modern era. No real strife, no troubles – just nourishment in many ways.

I spent a bit of the day yesterday praying as well. I knew that my life was on the right track. I made sure that I told God all about how thankful I was for the blessings he had bestowed upon me.

You, as my readers, are one of those blessings. I hope to provide more and better content over the next few months. I will be posting more often some weeks, other weeks you might see something three times. But I’m going to do a bit of this and that to spice the joint up. I hope you’ll subscribe, make yourself eligible for the e-books, and come along for the ride.

Will you be counting your blessings today?

I’m Giddy About Canning.

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My friend Carol is a great cook. She knows I’m a rhubarb addict. Combine the two and it’s been a summer full of tasty treats from her garden.

A while back we started talking about putting up preserves so that we’d have all this good stuff year round. The more we talked about it the more we started nosing around the actual work involved. About a month ago we actually set a date to do the canning. This past week we both rounded up all of the tools and supplies needed to get the job done.

Monday morning I took off 3 hours early from work. Time to get some writing done – and to get the fresh fruit needed to go with the rhubarb and make the jams. I wandered up and down the aisles of a deserted Cub foods shopping for my produce and sugar. I couldn’t have been happier.

Some fat guy with a spoon

Tuesday morning I left work promptly at 0700 and headed over to Carol’s mother’s apartment. We’d included her in the festivities as she’d been an ace canner in her years as a farm mom/wife. Like all smart farmers, she elected to snooze in the easy chair while we did the canning. All the benefits, none of the work. I admire that kind of solution.

I’d given Carol all of the jars and one of the canning pots last week so that she could run them through the dishwasher. I had a load of sugar, oranges, lemons, and strawberries in my car. Carol’s sister, Judy, was there as our consultant and driving force. Between the three of us it was a great team effort. It’s fun to work with people who don’t mind putting the work in to make things happen.

The cooks

It took a while to churn out all of the chopped fruit, skinned oranges, squeezed lemons, and assorted other tasks, but when all was said and done we wound up with a couple of dozen jars of strawberry-rhubarb and orange-rhubarb jam. The mess was incredible, the smells intense, and the joy of a home produced preserve immeasurable. We even stepped out on the wild side and went “off recipe” for one of the batches. I think it was a good idea – the tast was awesome.

Rhubarb orange jam

I hope the pictures will give you a small idea of what we were up to with our madness.

Strawberry rhubarb

Last night at work we sampled our wares. The results were wonderful. The rhubarb-orange in particular was tart and pleasing. Sadly, we’ve missed the deadline for entering it in the state fair. Seriously! This was world class due to a modification we made to the recipe. That’s our secret until we win at the fair next year. We already have plans to put up a batch in time to enter it in county fairs and the state fair. Rave reviews around the room. Here are some pictures of our finished product.

Strawberry-rhubarb on top, orange-rhubarb on the bottom.

I’ve got to head out to Fleet Farm to get some more supplies. I learned how to use several tools doing this project that Judy had brought with her. It’s clear that I’ll be doing this again and will need to incorporate them into my repertoire.

Now the question is, “What in the name of sugar do I do with all of these preserves?”

Young Authors At My Church.

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It’s easy to get all wrapped around your axle when you’re a writer who’s got things going in the correct direction. Other issues, other people, other writers become landscape whizzing by the windows as the train picks up speed. I fall into that group in spite of my best efforts, and took some time to slow down and see what other people are doing this week.

There is a book that came out in July called Great Inspirations By A Few Great Kids.

Great Inspirations By A Few Great Kids

Many of the young authors are from my church. It is part of The Cookie Movement.

The book contains a collection of simple statements, poems, vignettes, and philosophical maunderings by children from throughout the nation. Many of these youngsters attend my church, Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, in Saint Paul, MN. Last Sunday they were asked to stand and be recognized for their contributions.

“Bah. So what?” is the response from some of you. I can hear it echoing down the halls as I write this and you haven’t even said it yet. While the book contains considerable white space, and some concepts that come from other notables with a little spin on them, some of the words are pretty cool. They show a level of thought that most of us don’t attribute to children.

More importantly, these kids come from an inner-city culture that scorns intellectual prowess. Being smart isn’t part of the culture, and it costs these kids to come out as writers. I’m proud of them for doing this work. It’s a huge leap into an intellectual world where I welcome them as future superstars. If I’d been in an anthology at age 6 who knows what would have happened in my life. I went out of my way to collect as many autographs as possible before I left the church that morning.

We, all adults, need to encourage children to stretch not just their muscles, but their minds. That young writer in your house might just do a paragraph or a short story, but that’s huge in today’s video culture. Spend the time to build them up – before society tries to knock them down.

My hat is off to the children who worked on this book, and to Trina Dawkins Patterson who collected their work. Good job!

Now, to get them all to buy my book when it’s published…

The Second Career Started This Morning.

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It’s 0514 and I’m at the computer. I had to get a few blog posts ready before I could settle in and work on the novels. I have made a commitment to get them done in time for a conference in September, and to have at least one of them ready to submit to a contest in 2 weeks time.

It is quite likely that sleep deprivation will set in sometime around next Saturday. My schedule this week is brutal. Fun stuff that was scheduled long before I got an agent and long before I decided to enter the contest. But that means that I have to fit in the writing in the crevices that remain.

This morning I made a crevice by taking 3 hours of vacation time at work. I hate taking vacation time during the summer. Especially when I’ll be spending it inside working on the computer. Hopefully this morning will dawn bright and sunny so that I can take the laptop outside and work on the patio.

Stormy was glad to see me when I ambled through the door, but her joy didn’t last all that long when I plunked down at the computer and started bashing keys.

The good part of the whole treadmill is that I have several really great story ideas churning around in my head. And now that I’m scheduling time to work on them I’ll make it happen. There’s no rush, no urgency to finish a work without a deadline and some sort of consequence. You can convince yourself that you’re “writing in my head” when what you’re really doing is staring at the wall and trying to remember if you have any Oreo’s left on the shelf in the pantry. (The answer is no.)

I’m a little daunted by what I’ve undertaken with this course in my life. I’m also thrilled to have the opportunities presented to me.

I’ll keep you posted. Maybe even a picture or two of me toiling over a hot keyboard. Then again, I’m told I have a face more suited for radio.

What lies in your future that draws you forward and holds you back at the same time? Is there a task that you’ll never finish until someone sets a line down and demands your completion?

Sponsorship Sunday – Week Fourteen – Bylove

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Amazing. I was looking at the Healing Haiti website this week and really pleased with the amount of help they’re getting from the public. The readers of this blog are a significant part of the effort – my thanks to you and a prayer that it only grows from here.

Please follow me on Twitter, and “Like” the Facebook author page.

This week’s child is: Bylove

Bylove

Bylove has a heart for God. When asked his favorite activity he will tell you it’s playing, singing and dancing for God. Bylove is one to encourage other kids and he will be the first to help out when needed. Bylove wants to be an engineer when he grows up and he likes studying French. You will most often find Bylove on the playground and playing soccer or basketball. Bylove’s prayer request is that he will be able to finish school.

Bylove came to Healing Haiti in June, 2010. Bylove is a true orphan, his mother is deceased and his father is unknown.

Birth Info
Birthdate: December 26, 1998
Place of Birth: Cite Soleil, Haiti

It is my hope that one of you will find your heart touched by this child and take up a bit of Christ’s work by sponsoring them for an extended period. My wife and I are sponsoring a pair of sisters and we took on the commitment based on having to only gave up a fast-food dinner each day to change the life of a child. God came through with a very lucrative bit of voice over work for me that covered the bill that same day, but it really is as easy as skipping a value meal. Healing Haiti will do the right things for these children and I have full confidence in their work. I am not affiliated with them, they don’t endorse this blog, nothing like that at all. I just love kids (can’t be Santa and not love children) and know that Grace Village is the difference between life and death for many of these children. Please open your heart and prayerfully reflect on the opportunity God’s giving us to sponsor these children. Some of them have come out of slavery and have some of the toughest lives you could imagine prior to Grace Village.

Just click the link and it will take you directly to the page where you can sponsor this week’s child. And if God is particularly good and that child is sponsored when you get there, please grab another smiling face and change their life instead. My goal is to put Sponsorship Sunday out of business as quickly as possible and take that day off each week. Thank you. God bless you for your generosity.

Some of the finest people you’ll ever meet. The hands and feet of Christ.