Blog Series, Part One--Tell Your Story, because Your Life Matters

Why You Should Tell Your Story

    I just spent a couple of days with my younger sister, who lives some distance away. It was special to be reminded of happy times when we and our children were young. Later, life brought heartbreak and difficult days to both of us but now, we can laugh again. We’ve lived some stories that deserve to be told.

        My sister raised her family before going back to college and becoming a businesswoman. She lost two of her three adult children. Byron died in his early twenties in a plane crash, along with four other pilots on their way to fight wildfires in California. Cancer took Tami’s life. She left behind a husband and pre-teen daughter. Then my sister’s marriage imploded.
   
        In spite of multiple griefs and her own battle with cancer, she carried on with her artistic and expert gardening pursuits and is active in the community. Now she is rebuilding her life with a good and caring man. She has a lot to teach others about bravery in the face of heartache.
   
        Her stories matter. What she did, said, thought, and felt changed her own small corner of the world. Her life has meaning and consequences, and so does yours.

        Each of us makes a difference to someone, somewhere. By telling your own stories, you can continue to affect people’s lives long after you are gone. So, tell your story because your life matters.

    In the next few posts on Sun Breaks, I’ll offer more reasons why you should tell your stories. I'll also include some "how-to's." Stay tuned.

Can you imagine a story behind this picture?

Honey Bees Bring Summer in January

The first full week of January 2015 blew in with icy rain and low dark clouds. Bare branches swished above fallen leaves lying black and sodden on the ground. Not much indicates that summer lurks beneath them, just waiting for the proper time to burst forth.




But in my cupboard I’ve got a couple of jars of last summer’s nectar—honey from the Nixon honey farm near Innisfail, Alberta. When I spread it on my breakfast toast, it conjures a  picture of blooming fields and hard-working honeybees.

The Nixon honey farm has seven thousand hives scattered over the prairies among fields of canola, alfalfa and other crops. The bees forage in these fields to produce that honey.

 Each hive consists of boxes stacked four high, on pallets.  Each queen bee lays 3000 eggs per day. She fills up the lower two boxes with eggs. This is where the bees live and care for the developing young. The top two boxes are supposed to be for honey storage but sometimes the queen starts laying eggs in the upper boxes too. If she does, the box is set aside until the bees develop.

When the boxes are filled with honey, they are replaced with empty boxes and brought in to the factory. They are stacked in a “hot” room for several days while the wax softens and becomes easier to work with.

Meanwhile, bees that inadvertently came along inside the hives escape to the steamy windows, trying to find their way outside.

In the extraction room, contract workers (hired from Mexico or the Philippines) bring pallets of boxes from the hot room. They pry the top off each box with a special tool, and scrape beeswax from the edges and tops of the frames that are hanging in the box. Then they lift all the frames at once from each box with a machine that inserts them into a slanted conveyor.

As the frames move up the conveyor, someone scrapes along the fronts of them so the honey starts to flow from each frame. Honey, wax, and numerous bees all drop into the trough beneath and flow down to a spinner. The spinner separates the honey that then flows up through pipes to other machines, which filter out the remaining bee parts and wax. The pollen, which has health-giving properties, is left in the honey. The pure honey is then packaged in various-sized containers for shipment to customers.

Nixon Honey Farm sells creamed honey, flavored honeys, and concentrated pollen. The beeswax is sold to people who use in in cosmetics, candles, and for other purposes.

Many people believe that honey is one of nature's most perfect foods. It never goes bad. Because of its antibacterial properties it has long been used for healing cuts and scrapes (or sore throats and coughs), and bee pollen can build up immunity to seasonal pollen allergies.

As if all this isn't enough to make us appreciate these industrious insects, bees also pollinate much of the food we eat. Without them trees wouldn't produce fruit and grains wouldn't produce seed.

And we wouldn't have the taste of summer to remind us that January won't last forever!

When Christmas Came by Postcard

Christmas at our house is over. The grandchildren have gone home. The presents under the tree are reduced to piles of crumpled paper and empty boxes. Leftovers promise quick and tasty meals for a day or two. But the nativity set remains to remind us of what it was all about, the tree still glitters, and a collection of antique Christmas postcards holds a place of honor on a wall.

I recently read a blog post that compared yesterday’s postcard to today’s Twitter post.

The first commercially manufactured postcards came to the United States in 1893. They were cheap back then, needing only a penny stamp, or a two-center later on. The pictures on the front could be romantic drawings or cartoons bearing their own message. Black and white photographs were eventually used, and still later, color photographs. There were postcards for Easter, for Valentine’s day, or every day. No one considered that their missives could someday be eagerly sought after by collectors.

Click to enlarge.

Instead of sending elaborate, expensive Christmas cards like we send today, many people sent their greetings via brightly-colored postcards like these. These were part of a shoebox full we found while readying Hank’s house for sale.

A well-loved card

Not really Christmas-y, but the message reminded people what was important during WWI.

 A vertical line divided the back with space on the larger half for the recipient’s address. The small half was meant for the sender’s message, which had to be very short, like a Twitter post.

Hank remembers that many of his country relatives did not have telephones when he was a boy. If they planned a Saturday trip to town for groceries, they might jot a postcard to his parents letting them know to expect company for supper.

More elaborate cards might be embossed, as was this 1911 one-cent card.

I’ve been a letter writer all my life. It started when my cousin Ruth and I learned to write. We lived a day’s drive apart and we sorely regretted not getting together very often. So we wrote postcards to each other, crowding as much of our 2nd and 3rd grade adventures into our miniature letters as we could. Our friendship grew, one penny postcard at a time, and lasted for a lifetime.

Christmas Questions

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:  The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Emmanuel. Isaiah 7:14



EMMANUEL, JESUS BOY

Child of Mary and Joseph, on your Galilee housetop,
Searching the stars on a dark Nazareth night,
Did you know of the angels who sang on your birthday
And the shepherds and wise men who longed for your light?

Did those uncounted stars, like the sands of the ocean,
Stir slumbering memories of your Father’s vast scheme?
Did they hint to your youthful mind’s wonderings, dreamings
Of the uncounted souls you would someday redeem?

Oh Emmanuel, Jesus boy, thank you for coming.
Though our hurting world struggles and crumbles apart,
You bring hope to forgiven souls, joy to the grieving,
And Christmas still lives, ever new, in our hearts.

Poem © Joan Husby

Red Balloons and Christmas Balls

Don’t you love the harmonies God creates in life? He specializes in what people often call coincidences but are really connections that surprise us, make us think, let us glimpse him at work behind the scenes.

    Our last Northwest Christian Writer’s Association meeting seemed full of these delightful connections, as several speakers, none of whom knew what the others planned to talk about, zeroed in on the same ideas. The presenters approached their topics from different directions, with different emphases, yet the meeting had a cohesiveness that would have been hard to plan. Here’s an example:

    Monique led off the meeting with a talk entitled, “The Red Balloon.” She told about walking with her friend and a five-year-old who was carrying a bunch of colorful balloons. Suddenly the only red balloon escaped and floated away. “My red balloon!” the child wailed. In vain, her mother showed her she still had lots of pretty balloons. She sobbed, “But red is my favorite.”

    We’re frequently like that little girl, Monique pointed out. Though God gives us so much to enjoy, we focus on our “red balloons” and if we lose them, we grieve, never seeing the good things all around us.

    Next to speak was Leslie Ann, with a “rubbish writing” exercise to help authors overcome the dreaded “brain freeze”...caused not by cold ice cream, but by the freeze-up of the fluid words and ideas we depend on. She flashed a picture of a decorated Christmas tree on the screen and said, “Take the next three minutes to write what comes to mind as fast as you can.”

    What do you know? There in the center of the tree was one red ball, the only one among all the ornaments. I don’t know if anyone else made the same connection, but here’s what I wrote:

    “A red balloon in the center of the tree. Was this planned? No, it’s a Christmas ornament. Monique’s red balloon represented something loved and lost and took the place in the child’s mind of the much God had for her. The red ball might represent God’s treasure—the much (Jesus)—loved and given up by God for us. How we grieve when we don’t have God’s perspective. How much we miss.”

    Maybe that sounds like rubbish to you. But there’s a kernel of truth there—a connection that I can ponder and expand upon later. And in the exercise I gained a valuable technique for unfreezing my brain when I think I’m stuck.

    God loves to bring harmony out of rubbish. Telling about his work is the joy of the Christian writer.

Making Memories with Family Traditions

Some time ago I promised to share more about last summer's trip to Innisfail, Alberta. As always when we are with our Wislen and Shaw cousins, the trip was not so much about the travel but about sharing experience as family. While we were visiting cousins Vicki and Allen, a friend brought them  fresh peaches and other fruits that don't grow on the plains of central Alberta. The fruit was ripe and wouldn't wait, so we had a canning party!

Hank's job: peeling peaches

Vicki and daughter Katrina starting the kitchen prep

Barbara and Hank trying to keep up with the kitchen crew

Katrina and her mom celebrate the results of our work with pictures

A tradition when our Canadian family gets together is the evening hymn sing. William is the chief pianist and the rest of us choose the songs. He's adept at adding fun flourishes to the good old hymns. The beautiful voices blend and harmonize. The television in the corner is mainly used for DVD's. Who needs tv when you can make your own music?


 Another tradition beloved by the younger folk is the "Root Beer Tasting." It's similar to a wine tasting, with overtones of spoofing. Cousin Bill brings the root beer from a Washington state specialty store which sells dozens of varieties of the drink. The objective is to evaluate the different kinds Bill has picked out and decide which are the favorites.

 

William gets in the mood with a fake mustache, plus extras for eyebrows.

Clarissa, Troy, and Katrina wait to get started.

This takes thought....

and serious consideration!

Too much root beer!

 My favorite part of last summer's trip was not the beautiful scenery or the places we visited, memorable as all that was. It was being part of a multigenerational family, sharing their faith and their creative goings on. Thanks, Vicki and Allen and all of your family members, for including us!

Creative Gifts for Christmas or Anytime

 Wouldn't you like to give or receive a collection of personal care products like this? Or tuck something from the assortment into the toe of each Christmas stocking you fill?

My creative stepdaughter Carmen runs a summer farmstand on her Emerald Aisle Farm (the former Hardpan Hill). Besides garden produce and flowers, she offers mini greeting cards, specialty soaps, candles, lotions, lip balms and scented oils...all but the oils handmade. These specialty items are also offered in her Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/asunlitwalk?ref=hdr_shop_menu .

(The round tins can hold either candles or Carmen's own concoction which she calls "Extreme Balm." The balm is healing and soothing to sensitive or irritated skin. She applies it to her hands before putting on her garden gloves or starting other outdoor chores. My husband says it feels great on his chapped, dry hands.)

Carmen says her Emerald Aisle Farm products are made with pure Washington rainwater☺and other healthy, luxuriant, and conditioning ingredients.  A one pound assortment of soaps sells for $20, one and a half pounds for $28, plus $5.95 shipping for either size. Visit the Etsy shop for other prices, or to order.

 Carmen uses scented oils in many ways, one of them a version of aroma therapy. She says smell the oil first, and if you love it, use it. Adding a few drops to the melted wax at the top of a candle scents the room for hours. (Blow the candle out first before adding the oil, then light it again. Some oils are flammable.) By law the oils must be sent by UPS or Fedex.

Recipe for Emerald Aisle Farm Potpourri:

* Collect plant materials like petals, cones, seed pods, short pieces of thin twigs, mosses from logs or trees.
*Lay out to dry in single layers for two weeks or longer.
*Place in a coffee can with lid.
*Add one dram oil (1/16 ounce) per 1 cup dried material.  Shake it twice daily for a week.
* Add more petals and other materials. Don't fill the can more than 3/4 full. Shake it daily for two weeks.
*If the scent isn't strong enough, add more scented oil. The secret to holding the scent is to put it on something with pores, like the sticks or cones.

Wouldn't it be fun to make potpourri with the kids for gifts?

Watch Carmen's blog below for more creative ideas.