I can remember Scott sitting in the jogging stroller next to Amy. He had a small remote control for a Little Tykes car that he carried around with him. He would hold it out and pretend he was navigating a Pod Racer. A real Luke Skywalker with a little lisp.

Once he realized that his chances of Pod Racing were next to nothing, he settled for airplanes. After taking him to an airshow he was hooked. The smell of airplane fuel and sound of the props was not just interesting, it was intoxicating and has been his life goal from the young age of 9.

He has been in Civil Air Patrol and had the opportunity to fly, each thing a step toward his goal.  Recently Scott was awarded a scholarship to begin getting his pilot’s license.  Every week he goes to ground school and today was the first time in the pilot’s seat of the plane. He is on his way toward living his passion.

Let your dreams take flight..the sky is the limit!

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return. ”
Leonardo DaVinci

Anyway… some of the fun of having kids isn’t when we, as parents, teach them something, but when they teach us something.   Yesterday we went to the Colfax High School field and Jack decided to teach me a few of his plays.           

I could always tell when my mom and dad’s friends were coming over to play Bunco. My mom would bake carmel corn and set it out on each table along with some other goodie, but she always made sure there was enough carmel corn for us kids. We loved Bunco night! But every once in a while mom would make a batch for us “Just because.”

Today when Jack came home the first thing he said was “Is it a special occasion?”

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“No,” I replied.

“Is someone coming over?” he asked. A little bit more hopeful.

“You guys are pretty special!” I told him. “I thought I would just make some …just because.”

Sometimes we need some “Just Because”.

Recipe for Carmel Corn

• 2 sticks of butter
• 2 cups of brown sugar
• 1/2 cup corn syrup or honey
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 teasp. baking soda
• 1 teasp. vanilla
• 8 quarts popped popcorn-plain

Melt butter in medium sauce pan; stir in brown sugar, corn syrup (or honey ) and salt. Bring to a boil stirring constantly; turn heat down and allow to boil without stirring for 5 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla and baking soda. gradually pour over popcorn in large mixing bowl. Mix well. Turn mixture into large shallow baking or roasting pans. Bake in 250 degree oven for 1 hour, stirring every fifteen minutes. Remove from over; cool completely.  Break apart and store in airtight container.

variation: mix in dry roasted peanuts with popcorn.

Enjoy!

]]> http://www.marciseither.com/2012/02/just-because-carmel-corn/feed/ 0 http://www.marciseither.com/2012/02/just-because-carmel-corn/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MarciSeither/~3/d8POq3tM1iQ/ http://www.marciseither.com/2012/02/from-print-to-e-book-what-an-adventure/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:01:05 +0000 Marci http://www.marciseither.com/?p=1222  I am an article writer so actually publishing anything beyond my 750-1,200 words is a big step for me. Going from print to e-book has been even a bigger learning adventure. Thankfully, I have friends who know how to navigate the process and I am not to proud to ask…or even bribe with chocolate chip cookies…for some serious help.

The first person I turned to was my friend John Vonhof. He has several booklets published and also one that has been converted to e-book. He is the one who gave me Larry Kaye’s contact e-mail.

Larry was very helpful in walking me through the conversion process and doing some fine tuning as far as punctuation and grammar. He sent me this note in an e-mail and agreed to let me share it with you. Hope this gives you a glimpse into what is involved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editing is always necessary and it should always be done by somebody else as it is too easy for the author to miss the mistakes in grammar and spelling.  Correct Punctuation is often missing from sentences. I find this always, even after it has gone through the editing process.

There are too many eBooks out there with numerous mistakes that could have been corrected in the proofreading stage. It is also not too late for the author to correct them now, resubmit the corrected Word document and update their book.

Unfortunately negative Blogs on their book has already occurred and the sales potential drops, even though it may be a good story…unfortunately it is a terrible read.

My take on this is that the stages of a book should be:

1.       The author writes a book and corrects as many errors as possible (in spelling, grammar and punctuation).

2.       Give it to someone, with a good command of English and have them edit the book.  Here the author sometimes lets their Ego get in the way and recommended changes are not accepted by the Author.

3.       Once the book has been edited it needs to be Formatted for the eReaders.

4.       At this stage it is now ready to be read (on an eReader) by a Proof-reader so that the last few mistakes are picked up and corrected without disturbing the Format.

5.      You can now publish your book.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To see my book on Amazon is kind of cool. Being able to publish something and have someone in a different state buy it and read it is flat out amazing!

Thanks John and Larry!

For those of you interested in doing an e-book conversion, feel free to drop Larry a line. His rates are super reasonable and he is very prompt and great to work with.

email  ~  larrykaye@shaw.ca

On the top of my “Pursue” list is healthier eating habits. I grew up dieting from the time I was old enough to lie about my weight on my driver’s license. I have been on crazy cabbage soup diets, Scarsdale Diet, Low carb and Grapefruit Diets. I have  lost several hundred pounds over the years, only to have them creep back on.

The final thought on the matter as to why none of them really work long term is that … I like eating! I know I would be thinner if I didn’t like to cook so much, but I do. I have tried to convince myself that eating the crust off my kids sandwiches contains only half the calories because it is, in a small way, recycling.

Leaping mounds of unfolded laundry and powerlifting number 10 cans of  groceries into our Costco cart does not count as exercise.

Seriously, I figured the goal of losing 15 pounds is not near as good as pursuing better food choices after all the Holiday eating I indulged in.

I feel likeI have consumed enough butter to make Paula Dean gag. Time for some serious intervention.

Weight Watchers ~ the pursuit of fitting into my favorite jeans.

 I am not a Bible scholar, just a mom who writes, but I do know that the Bible cannot contradict itself. This brings up an important discussion about the about the gift bearing travelers from the east.

The thee Magi make their first appearance at King Herod’s palace and spilled the beans about coming to worship and bring gifts to the King of the Jews. In the Matthew account of the event, they had been following his star until it lead them right to Jesus.

Herod was a little disturbed to find out the prophesied Christ had been born right under his nose. He asked the travelers when the star first appeared. They told him it had been two years. Two years! That is a long time to be following something that you are not sure of. I mean, after about 4 hours of riding on a camel, I would have been whining “Where’s the baby?”

Herod told the trio to find the baby and them let him know so he could worship him as well…. RIGHT! After the Magi saw the baby, they returned a different route to avoid the wicked ruler. So Herod decided to kill off all baby boys two years old and under, but by that time, Joseph had already fled the area with his family.

According to the Luke account, Mary and Joseph left Bethlehem and headed back to Nazareth after the baby Jesus was blessed by Simeon and Anna in the temple. They stayed in Bethlehem until Mary was considered ceremonially clean, a total of 41 days by Jewish Law.  If the family made the trip home after they could travel, the wise men would have had their blessed encounter before Jesus was six weeks old at the most.

When you read both accounts side by side, there is only one reasonable explanation. The wise men saw the star way before Jesus was ever born. They most likely started gathering what they needed and headed in the starlight direction almost two years before the angels announced “Peace on Earth, good will toward men”.

They were on a mission. One of focus and purpose. Moving forward.

What a take-a-way! How many times do we wait until we see all the “I”s dotted and “T”s crossed before we dare to take a step? If the wise men had waited until they had more proof, they would have missed the event. Instead they set out on a journey of faith. How many times do we miss something because we are not willing to just move forward?

There is a star that shines in the distance, are we pursuing it?

Christmas is full of wonder.

At the top of my candy making list is Christmas Craisin Fudge.  Nothing like perfect fudge for Holiday gift giving and filling a few goodie plates to make the holiday festive.

Here is the recipe. It is simple. It is delectable. It is perfect fudge.

Ingredients;

3 small packages of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

1 cube of butter – cut up into small pats

2 tsp. vanilla

300 mini marshmallows-     which you can have a youngster who is anxious to help count out for you- or – 3 cups- whichever works best for the mom who usually has several things going on at the same time, so having a kiddo preoccupied with marshmallow counting can be a good thing.. just make sure you have extra on hand for any marshmallow tasting.

4 1/2 cups sugar

1 can of evaporated milk

optional-

2 cups walnuts and/or  2 cups craisins. OR you can really go big and put in some of each. Our family doesn’t really care for walnuts so we stick to just craisins. The tart snap of craisins with the sweet fudge is a nice mix.

Mix choc chips, butter vanilla and marshmallows, craisins and walnuts in a large bowl and set aside.

Stir evaporated milk and sugar together in a medium sauce pan.  Over medium heat, stir until mixture beings to boil. Turn down heat and continue to boil for 7 minutes. This is what makes the fudge so creamy!

When the seven minutes is up, stir hot liquid into bowl of ingredients and stir until marshmallows and chocolate is melted. Pour into a lightly buttered cookie sheet or 9X13, depending on how think you want your fudge to be.

When the fudge is cooled, score with a paring knife. Cover and let it set for 24 hours. Then dish it up. This is really rich fudge so smaller squares is a good thing.

Merry Christmas!

Creative packaging that doesn’t cost more than the gift!  Six simple steps that will help bring out your creative side and is easy enough you can do with your kids.

You can have your kids help cut out shapes and arrange them.  Our kids had so much fun they even cut letters!  They might need help with the iron depending on the age of child.

You can do several packages at a time to keep on hand for those unexpected guests that you may want to send home with some Christmas goodies!

1. Get lunch bags in white or brown or my favorite is Chinese take-out cartons which I pick up from a restaurant supply store called  Smart & Final. Cost range is 10 – 15 cents per box.

2. Pick up a Heat and Bond product for local craft or fabric store.  Cost is 2.75 a yard.  Purchase a few fat quarters of fabric – or go through your stash to find material.

3. Iron Heat and Bond to a piece of fabric.

4. Draw a shape and cut out.

5. Peel off paper backing and position onto packaging.

6. Iron!

Enjoy!

At first I was inclined to agree. I thought of all the stuff I planned to pawn off on others, but our kids were bummed. They didn’t see it as a hassle, they saw it as an opportunity.

It wasn’t about the gift, it was still about the thought. And it still counted to them. Even if they weren’t going to be on the receiving end, they still wanted to make something special to give. How could I say no to that.

We picked put an easy to make project. A pillowcase.

Last night, after dinner, I cleared the table and began to set up the sewing machine and fabric. I gave instructions about cutting with pinking shears and making sure they remembered to take the pins out before they got ran over by the sewing needle.

Jack sat in front of my sewing machine. Carefully he pushed on the foot pedal, trying to keep the stitches in a straight line.  Amy ironed and assembled flannel pieces that had been purposefully selected for each person.  Even Scott, who said he had too much homework to take part in the production, sat down to try his hand at the sewing machine.

They are so addictive. As an extra little treat, I drizzled a some almond bark across the top. I think the best part, besides the fact that I can make up 4 batches at once, is that it reminds me of my favorite lunch box memories. I loved it when my mom would make cupcakes for school events or a cake  for special occasions. Not because of the cake, but because I knew she always made extra homemade butter cream frosting which she would put between graham crackers to put in our lunchboxes. On days I knew she had packed the special treat I could hardly wait for lunch time. Skip tether ball and four square. Somethings were just too yummy to rush!

Recipe for Homemade Graham Crackers ~From the 2010 Raley’s Something Extra magazine

prep: 30 min           chill: several hours or overnight

        1/2 butter , softened

        1 cup dark brown sugar

         1/4 cup honey

         1/4 cup milk

         2 teas. vanilla extract

         2 1/2 cups flour

         1/2 cup wheat flour

     1 teasp. baking powder

      1 teasp. baking soda

       1/2 teasp. salt

       * optional topping : sugar, cinnamon sugar , almond bark *

1. Beat butter  and sugar together in a large mixing bowl. Beat in honey, milk and extract until smooth.

2. Stir together dry ingredients and stir into batter.

3. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. If making more than one batch divide into brick sized chunks and wrap individually.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll out dough on powdered sugar sprinkled cutting board. ( I like to use powered sugar instead of flour when I roll out cookies.)   Divide a wrapped chunk into two sections. Roll each section to 1/8 inch thick.. Cut into 2 to 3 inch squares and place on a baking sheet.  I have also made triangles and use my wavy cutter to create a fun edge.

5.  Sprinkle with cinnamon if desired. Bake for 10 – 13 minutes.

6. Remove from pan. Let cool. Drizzle with almond bark if desired. Store in air tight container.

7. Pour yourself a glass of cold milk and sit down for a few minutes to enjoy! You might have to even share with your kids.