Foodie Fail

I spend a lot of time thinking about this blog: what's it's focus should be, what I know a lot about, what I'm passionate about.

And I think I stumbled on something: food.

I love food! It's so yummy. I like to prepare and eat it. I'm not big on presentation or pictures of food. But that's a skill I could learn right? Food blogs are a big deal: I spend a great deal of time gleaning my recipes from other food bloggers. I'm sure the world could use another one.

And I like to think about food--but not in the way that you think. Food has the power to change a life: to make one sick or make one well.

And food inequality.

And real food versus junk food.

And how the poor often don't have access to quality food.

And the difference an adequate diet has on health and learning and thriving.

The piece de resistance: how much food we waste. A recent report I heard on NPR said that our country's food waste is equal to our waste of paper and plastic combined.

This statistic has certainly borne itself in our home. Last year, as a science experiment, we kept track of our trash output for an entire week. What we found was humbling: about 40 pounds of waste (which includes the amount that we recycle). But of that total, about 1/3 was food waste. Of course, that included peels and ends and a chicken carcass. But it also included the remains of the cereal bowl, the gross remains from the fridge, the second helping of dinner that was put on a plate, but not eaten. One third!! 13(ish) pounds of wasted food. That's disgusting.

I was sickened.

So, as I thought about a blog, I thought, "I could do some stuff with food stuffs that we would generally waste. Find a useful and yummy way to prepare it, so it wasn't wasted." Wouldn't that be great?

Luckily, my wonderful neighbor often picks up bulk foods for our family. This week I got a huge bag of bananas. They were still perfect, just a bit spotty. Delicious. But I also know that there was no way that our family would finish eating them before they turned bad. There is already a significant number of bananas and mush waiting in my freezer. (Honestly, putting more in the fridge would just be my way of wasting by not wasting. I probably wouldn't use them).

Looks good going in.

Then I had an epiphany. I stumbled across a recipe for homemade banana chips. Sure, they aren't the family's favorite, but I could spruce them up, toss them in homemade granola, right?

So I heated the oven, prepared the pan, and sliced the bananas. To add a bit of 'extra.' I made a mixture of cocoa powder and sugar and sprinkled all over the banana slices.

Doesn't this sound yummy?

I let them bake for almost two hours--I wanted crispy little pieces of banana.

When I took them out, they looked...okay. Then I tasted one. It was gummy. No worries, I thought, they just need to cool. Gave them a few minutes to cool. Try again. Weird and gummy. "Well, maybe it was just that one." Try a smaller one, a bit crispier. Hopeful. Taste. Nope.

I let them sit on the counter until Eric came home. "Hmmm, those look interesting." One taste. The look on his face was confirmation. This was a food fail. Two pans (and a couple bunches of bananas) went straight into the trash. My attempt at not wasting...sigh...resulted in wasted food.

The lesson in all this: I don't think I'm going to be a food blogger. It was fun for about 10 seconds.

It was more fun and challenging and real to think about how we use food and what we waste and our part in the system. And how much we take for granted. There has to be a niche in that, right? For me and my thoughts?

But next time I have extra bananas, I'll just stick to banana bread & muffins.

I kept sampling because I hoped that maybe they would get better.
They didn't.

Writing is Perilous

And I'm talking more than just paperclips.

In fact, in all the years that I have loved writing, I have never received a paper cut from my work. So there is something else dangerous about it.

It's this: it seeps into every part of your fiber. And you can't get rid of it.

Case in point: I'm now having dreams about submitting my work to professionals. It goes like this: I get the head guy of an agency really excited about my work so he asks for a sample. Which is fantastic and I run to my computer, which happens to be in my parent's driveway. But no matter how hard I try, I can't get my document to open, then I can't get it to print. And the crabby secretary from the agency is staring at me out the window of her office with evil eyes. And that makes me nervous. So I get sweaty palms and I can't make my computer work and that makes me nervous and I get all flustered. Finally, it's been like 5 hours and I'm at my wits end, when the head guy comes back up to me and says you have 10 minutes. We close soon. I'm racing. Yes! The computer is on and open and will print--when I run to the printer, and there is no paper.

Ahh, it's everywhere….

To further my point, I have two other specific areas where being a writer is ruining me.

1) Everywhere I look, I find great examples. For instance, I watched Tangled with the kids a couple weeks ago and noticed that Max, the horse, is a brilliant character. And I started to think about how I would write him into a story. And I spent the rest of the movie paying attention to the shift of his eyebrows or the way that he jutted his lower jaw and wondering how I could write that picture out on paper. When I read, I note words or sentence structure or grammatical structure that strikes me as brilliant, moving, creative, disrupting. I may occasionally even jot down a couple notes. I can't just read without noticing anymore.

2) And this point is much more damaging. As a writer, I have an impossibly hard time teaching writing to my kids. Maybe there are other writers who don't have this issue--but I am teaching the basics: how to construct paragraphs and essays and use creative words and such. Currently, I am advised to have them add -ly words and use all kinds of devices to improve the quality of their work. Which is fantastic. Except that my rules, for writing fiction, aren't theirs. For instance, no -ly words. No 'quickly', 'quietly', 'tenderly'. They have even helped edit these words from their work. And now, they're insisting that they don't need them either. Ahhhh!! (Yet, they write some pretty great stories and are no longer afraid of my editing pen!)

The peril is real, my friends. And with a wink in my eye and a smile on my face, I extend my hand to you. Come join me in this perilous life--where there is beauty on the blade of grass, joy in the rising sun, sorrow captured in the souls of the broken.

(And if you don't want to write, I will gladly bear that burden for you!)

From Ms. Dorothy Parker  "If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do is present them with a copy of Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy."

(source: http://aerogrammestudio.com/2013/07/19/23-tips-from-famous-writers-for-new-and-emerging-authors/)

I need your help

Okay friends, I need you.

And not in the "I-need-you-to-bring-me-a-meal" or "Rescue-me" kind of help (although meals and rescuing are always welcome!)

Actually, this is more along the professional lines of my life, and I think it's a bit shameless, but I'm asking anyway.

I am writing a proposal for my novel, The Unexpected Life of Genevieve Ryder. There are a couple agents I'm sending it to. Part of a proposal includes my marketing/publicity plan. I'm pretty sure that this blog is a decent platform for such things, but I need to build it up, so to speak. (And I'm pretty sure I don't have those amazing famous people connections that will allow my book to be read and endorsed--unless you are somewhat famous and would endorse it. ;) )

So, I am asking you for a little bit of help and a little bit of information.

First, the info: How do you follow this blog? Are you a Facebook friend? Are you someone who checks occasionally to see if I've written? What do you like? (What could I improve?--Okay, that's just something I'm curious about) Did you find me somewhere else along the way?
You can leave a comment or email me at sbeuker (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Second, the request: would you be willing to follow my blog? Over to the right side, you can be a follower of me or connect with google connect. Of course, if you are uncomfortable doing this, that's okay, but it would be helpful for me to say "I have 1,000 followers" (which would be awesome, but isn't happening tonight!)

Finally, thanks. As I think back over the years I've had this blog and watched it grow and the interest in it grow, I'm humbled that you have decided to come along for the ride. This next part promises to be pretty exciting. I hope you decide to stay around for that too!

My writing space. If only it always looked that neat! 

Reclaiming myself

It's been five months since Mali joined our family and I'm beginning to think we are out of the worst of the weeds of adjustment for our family.

How do I know that?

Simple, I have an undeniable urge to be creative, more specifically, to write. To put words to my thoughts, to put a pen on to paper, to create.

Lately, I've been doing something crazy: revisiting that part of my creative self.

After the day is done
the toys are picked up
the tantrums are over
most little people are quiet in their beds,
I've done something brave:

I've tried to be a writer.

Most nights I fail miserably, in that I'm so tired that I can't create a coherent thought. Last night I did a five minute warm-up and that was the extent of the thinking my brain could handle.

But I tried. And that counts.

However, it's time to reclaim some balance in my life, where I am more than just the mother of a traumatised toddler, a homeschool mom, a stay-at-home mom. Because I am also a wife.

And I am a writer!!

To help start along the reclaiming journey, I get the wonderful privilege of attending the Maranatha Christian Writer's Conference in Muskegon, Michigan. (thanks Daddy!) Tonight I leave for 48 hours of writerly thinking, learning, crafting, and writing. I will hopefully make new friends, be bombarded by more ideas than possible to write on, and be encouraged to keep on.

It's a scary step--it feels safer to stay in my crazy world than it is to venture out into the world of thinking adults.

But I'm doing it.

My synopsis and samples are fresh off the printer. A clean copy of my completed manuscript is printing as we speak.

I ordered and received my new personal/business cards in the mail earlier this week.

I think I'm ready. Let's go!

Now what?

Today, I crossed another item off my non-existent bucket list: I submitted a completed (93,500 word) fiction manuscript. I feel like I've been working at this for the past few months. And in reality, since October 15, when the editor first asked for a sample, this manuscript is where every extra bit of effort, imagination, and time has gone.

This afternoon I sent in my manuscript.

I smiled widely and then took a minute to congratulate myself.

But what am I going to do now?

My Top 10 list of things to do now:
10) Pinterest: maybe now I'll have time to actually make a crafty thing (maybe not!)
9) Laundry.
8) Write more blog posts.
7) Read a good book--haven't read a good one in months. I need to read a good story.
6) Spend quality time with my kids, as in not say to them "figure it out yourself" or "you're hungry? I'm sorry"
5) Beuker school is back in session.
4) Check my email every twenty minutes waiting for a word from the editor or our adoption social worker.
3) I'm sure there some new website that I can waste more and more hours on...
2) Sleep. I am going to sleep because I won't be dwelling on the scenes I have to edit or the characters I have to develop or the description I have to add.
1) NOTHING.

Yep, I'm going for nothing.

Maybe next week I'll start on my second book. ;)

Peace for the Storm

To say that my life is stormy right now...is a perfect description.

Between all the forces and tasks competing for my time, attention, and emotions, I am being pulled in many directions. Sometimes I am strong enough to stand in the force of the storm.

Right now, I don't feel so strong, nor do I feel particularly safe.

So God uses his people to hold me up, to encourage, and to protect me.

In the past 48 hours, I have been the recipient of a number of blessings which I did not earn nor do I feel I deserve--and as I ponder the sources of them, I find myself pondering the Source of them. And I feel my heart held, my soul comforted, and my burdens eased.

One such example, and that which inspires me so greatly, happened this morning when a friend showed up on my doorstep with an early Christmas present. She felt moved and obeyed a prompting in her life.

And I am so grateful--the gift she gave is a new book from Calvin author, Gary Schmidt and his wife Elizabeth Stickney, Acceptable Words: Prayers for the Writer.

I have literally dropped almost everything this morning to pour over the words of this book. It resonates deeply within me. Even the names of the chapters. I have found myself, skimming and jumping, reading and dwelling on the words and prayers of brilliant writers who have gone before me.

And I want to give you my prayer (it's in chapter 3), the prayer of my heart, the one that I have already found myself going back to numerous times, that I will recite tonight as I sit and write and edit.

The Writer's Prayer

 
Open my mind, Lord. Grant me the talent to write with clarity and style, so my words go down rich and smooth, like fine wine, and leave my reader thirsty for more.

Open my heart, Lord. Grant me sensitivity to understand my characters--their hopes, their wants, their dreams--and help me to confer that empathy to my reader.

Open my soul, Lord, so I may be a channel to wisdom and creativity from beyond my Self. Stoke my imagination with vivid imagery and vibrant perception.

But most of all Lord, help me to know the Truth, so my fiction is more honest than actuality and reaches the depths of my reader's soul.

Wrap these gifts with opportunity, perseverance, and the strength to resist those insist it can't be done.

-Sandy Tritt

Amen and amen.

Learning to wait, again.

What a strange, emotional week.

This week is almost surreal with the different incredible highs and lows.

On the adoption front, we know nothing more than we knew a week ago, except that it is clear we need to wait until after December 1 to get any answers at all. We have spent our week asking questions we don't have answers too and wondering if any chance happenings were supposed to be telling us something. We have opened our ears to listen and heard....silence.

I know who I am and waiting patiently without answers is very difficult for me. If there is a question or angle to inquire about, I will. In my humanness, I want to push--push our social worker, push government representatives, push, push, push. Force answers I want right now when it is abundantly clear that answers aren't for this moment.

Waiting is hard. This waiting is agonizing for me. I've had low moments, searching the internet for answers that aren't to be found there.

Early in the week, a friend sent me this quote from Henri Nouwen.

To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that God moulds us according to God's love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting

 that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control. - H. Nouwen 

At first, I totally glanced over it, not wanting to really read it. But over the week I have gone back over it time and again and found that open-ended waiting is what is being forced upon me, that i have to wait and trust and believe that God has something phenomenal waiting for me, for us, for our family. I am working hard to fight back my fears and not let grief for the process not overwhelm me.

There have been times this week when I simply wanted to go to bed, hide away, not think, sleep. Anything to escape the questions I can't answer. But I didn't. I might not have been a total champion when it came to parenting and home-keeping this week, but I made it.

And then God brought in a total, complete surprise. The editor who had asked for a portion of my work has asked for the rest of my manuscript. And that has me over-the-moon excited. My work was supposed to get a polite rejection, which was okay and what I had prepared myself for. So now, instead  of having permission to push my manuscript to the side, I now have about 6 weeks to start/finish a serious re-write/edit process. My brain is now completely scrambled as I think about how to accomplish this ginormous task--and have holidays, travel, school, and the rest of life thrown in for good measure.

But this is a gift of God's goodness. Although I still expect a polite rejection, it is a delicious distraction. I have plenty to do, plenty to keep my mind busy, plenty to do and think--so much that I don't have a ton of extra energy to focus on things in our adoption that I cannot affect or change.

This already is far beyond any of my 'imaginings'. I am remarkably blessed.

Accepting a Challenge

Last week, my writing partner-in-crime went on vacation. And she forwarded on to me a number of "blog assignments." Even though I love her dearly, I am only taking up one of the many challenges. But it's the scariest one, by far. 


She gave me the:

Lucky Me. 


So, this is a writing challenge: to look into my current manuscript and put a very random part of it out there. Here are the rules:

Here’s what’s required:

• Go to the 7^th or 77^th page of your work in progress.
• Go to the 7^th line of the page.
• Copy the next 7 sentences or paragraphs. Remember, they must be as they are typed.
• Tag 7 authors.
• Let them know they’re it.

So this is one of those challenges that I am going to try--and it's super scary. The writing you are about to see is unedited. It has never seen the end of my red pen. I wrote it about a couple weeks ago. I write with a 'closed book' meaning that I am not apt to show anyone what I write until it's all the way done. Except for this little bit. 

You are about to see what's on page 77. Starting at the 7th line. And you're getting 7 paragraphs, because it's dialogue. If it wasn't dialogue, you wouldn't be getting so lucky! 

Easy? Well, for you it is. You just have to read it. And it's not going to make sense at all! 

So let me set the scene. It's early fall in 1946 in a living room at a farm in Wisconsin. Len & Antoinette are fighting about their daughter, Del, who is about to come down the stairs and make a life-changing announcement. 

  "She has to get up soon, Len. She can't keep moping around.
I don't want to keep doing her chores."

     "Patience, dear. She's suffering a great grief. Give her a
bit of time."

     "Time! I've given her four days. How much time does she
need?" Antoinette voiced bitterly. "I'm not surprised, you know.
I don't know how she convinced him to go out with her in the
first place. He's much better than she deserves."

     "Antoinette, she just found out from her father that her
boyfriend proposed to her rival. She's dealing with enough hurt
without your critical words."

     "Is it really true?" she asked in the grocery store gossip
voice, "did he really propose to Susie Hudson?"

     "Yes, and he even had her father's blessing. The Hudson's
couldn't be more pleased with the match." Len leaned forward in
his rocking chair. "That boy toyed with and broke my daughter's
heart. I could kill him for that. Wring his neck like a little
snake. . ."

     "Come now, Len, there's no need for such angry words. I'm
sure it isn't his fault. I'm sure Del did something to deserve
it."

I would tag other authors, but I don't know any others with a blog (that they admit to!). So you get the privilege of reading and savoring. 

Lucky you!

Writer's Block

So, if you know anything about me, you know two very basic things:
1} I love the written word. I love the way it flows on  paper. I love the way the way words force me to consider things that I wouldn't on my own: an emotion, a question, a problem, a solution. I could spend most of my time thinking about words.
2} I love to learn new things. I love to ask questions and learn about people and places. I like going a bit deeper and asking uncomfortable questions that get at the heart of a feeling or problem or situation or person. When I meet someone who views, thinks, or knows differently from me, I want to know about it--so I ask a ton of questions. I am truly interested in what other people have to say.

Add to that the fact that I love the quirky things in life, the small details that others may notice but not pay attention to and that I love to express myself with the written word, mostly for me, but also for others.

So I ask you? Why in the world do I have writer's block?

I mean, seriously, I have ten thousand ideas in my head. Every day I think of new questions to ask, find out about, write about, explore. I've even thought of a blog post that just lists a ton of questions I have, things that I am curious about.

And every time I sit down at a computer to type or write something out, I completely freeze. The words are stilted, forced, fake. They aren't what I write in my head. It doesn't have the rhythm, force of meaning, provocativeness, or lilt that I hear when I recite them in my head.

Why are these words stuck inside my head?

Honestly, it's because I care too much about what other people will think. And isn't that true in so much of life? We are free in our heads and stilted on paper because of how others will judge us and what we look like on the outside.

In much of the way that I live my life, I have stopped depending on others approval to validate who I am. And that is what I need to do more in my writing. Oh yes, I have a ton to say. And you might not like it. But if I am truly honest about who I am and who God has created me to be and the fantastic things that are in my head--Watch out! 'Cause there is some sweet writing comin' your way.

Pursuing a dream

So I hereby publicly declare that I am pursuing my dream.

Sort of.

For my entire life I have dreamed of being a published writer. Actually, to be specific, I dreamed I was such an excellent writer who had such mastery of words that I was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

Now, I just dream that I can complete a piece of writing.

But to that end, I am actually doing something about it. I am now meeting regularly with a woman who is interested in writing and words. Every time we meet we will each have something written to share with the other for critique, enjoyment and ideas.

It is fun yet scary to think about having someone critically read my writing. Honestly, I think, "what if my writing really stinks--'cause in my head I think it might be the beginning of something good."

To practice my writing skills, I have actually started writing. Because in the end, I can talk about how i love to write all I want, but it is the act of putting pen to paper and letting the words flow that makes me a writer. I try to write every week. Sometimes it's great, sometimes its horrible. But at least I try to write.

But here comes my problem. I don't know what to write about. If left to my own too long, I always come back to two topics (which while they are worthy topics, they don't always have to be my focus in my writing): parenting (both that I am doing and that I experienced) and faith. And usually, it is the intersection of those two things.

So I would like to ask you, dear reader, have you a brilliant glimmer for me? Some inspiration? Some fantastic thing I should write about? Ultimately I know any writing will have to come from my head, but I don't mind gleaning any ideas I can (isn't that what Ruth did to survive in a difficult time?)