My Head Might Explode Part MCLXVII.

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I’m working on editing today and have the radio on in the background. The news had an item about Egypt. The White House Spokesperson just finished saying that *(and I paraphrase rather loosely)* we’re miffed that the head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is under arrest. That’s not in accord with our human rights policies.

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REALLY! How about some indignation over the murder of Coptic Christians by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. A bit of outrage over the church burnings. Some ennui over the rape of young Christian girls so that they are “ruined” and must marry the Muslim man who did it and convert to Islam? (Google that one, it’ll blow your mind.) Gosh, even a bit of angst over the Christian Pastor being tortured in Iran over his faith would be kind of nice.

No. We (as a nation) are supposed to be upset that the group that gave birth to AlQaeda has found itself on the losing side of a crackdown in a country that speaks Arabic. I’m not even going to think about how to phrase this, I’m just going to run to the cliff’s edge and jump while screaming:

Barack Obama is the worst foreign policy president of my lifetime.

He just passed Jimmy Carter for the honors.

Before they can chime in, I’d just like to add – Shut up, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. They haven’t been right yet in 2013 about anything in the Arab world and I don’t expect that string to break today.

That is all. Rant secured.

My Lawn Is Shaggy.

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My eye opener Monday morning took place at 0500. Much work to do and not enough time to do it all. First stop – Mickeys.

Plasma

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After a plasma infusion I went back home and got working on the book. Editing is that magical time when you admit to yourself that some moron wrote the words you’re looking at on the screen, and it’s your sacred duty to make said moron look somewhat less stupid. It can be daunting. Today we snipped excess words. Excess words are a blogger’s friend – pads out the post. In a novel it’s the six little words that the potential publisher can’t stand to see that cost you the deal.

Sunday I removed tumors from the book. There was a cancerous growth around chapter fourteen that was a data dump. It didn’t do much for action and plot, it was simply a big bag of stinky background information some dimwit thought the reader needed to know. Fie! I have opted for the Otte Editing Method (OEM) and decided to eliminate data dump. You now have a short chapter of dialogue instead. I like it much better. It reads better. I don’t get sick reading it. Etc.

Following just enough editing to make my eyes glaze over I went to my church and did some lawn care. No murders today. I admitted the weed whip was smarter than the blogger and put it away after 10 minutes. I only went to college for 7 years (the happiest freshman year anyone ever had) and got three nuclear rocket surgeon degrees. That self-feeding thing is too complicated. Seriously, which way does the cord wind?

I did something I hadn’t done since my knee surgery: I walked about two miles. I figure that’s how far it was to trim all the areas I did at the church with a hand mower. (The grounds cover the better part of a city block.) The deacon will do the riding mower Monday afternoon, and with my thousands of hours of lawn care experience I knew where to trim in advance. Combined with my Roundup murder spree a few weeks ago it was looking pretty good when I got done.

Sweaty, dehydrated, and stiff from the car ride home I made peanut butter sandwiches (with honey) for lunch and took a nap. Bad idea. I’m so stiff I can barely shamble. Good grief – but it felt good to walk that far. It gives me hope for my exercise plan. My knee is fine, I’m just stiff from the overall exertion. The plan to get up and mow my own lawn after the nap fell through. One blast of joint pain per day is my limit. Most of the wild animals that live in the yard can rest assured that the triple-canopy jungle will remain for another 24 hours.

My neighbors have by now returned to their yards after the bear scare – it was me using a clipper on my head. I’d let my hair grow for three weeks and it was timed to return to the skin head. The DNR showed up wanting to know if my wife had a permit to keep me. Boy, does she ever. Filty Filner projects a better image than I do at the moment. I have a head full of stubble that needs a razor more than Richard Nixon in the debates.

Back to the book after a shower. I don’t do the tortured/smelly author thing well. I’d prefer to be hair free and smelling like Lava when I hit the keyboard. Only 40 more chapters to do in the next ten days. No problem. No sleep.

So, what project is keeping you awake and shambling these days?

Sponsorship Sunday – Week Fifteen – Romual

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A bright and pleasant Sunday to you! Thanks for coming by the blog to help sponsor some of the greatest kids you’ll ever meet. Each week there’s a new face to see, a new child that needs your help at Grace Village. Please take a few minutes to read the entry and prayerfully consider sponsoring one of these children.

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This week’s child is: Romual.

Romual

Romual and his brother Isaac are abandoned orphans who are happy to be together and call Grace Village home. Romual is a talented musician and enjoys playing piano and singing gospel songs. Romual is a thoughtful boy who likes to do good things for others. Romual wants to be a doctor or an accountant when he grows up and enjoys studying science in school. Romual’s prayer request is that he can go to medical school.

Romual came to Healing Haiti in September, 2008. Romual and his brother, Isaac, are orphans. Both of their parents are deceased.

Birth Info
Birthdate: October 10, 1997
Place of Birth: Cap Hatien, 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.

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?”