Mork Calling Orson

  

My hat’s off to any and all participating in the full 50k word NaNoWriMo.  You are dedicated, hardworking, inspirational…and if I may be so bold and not too horribly offensive…mentally deranged.

I tried one day to hit 1700 words (the average word count needed per day to hit a 50k goal over 30 days) and my last paragraph read something like this:  Because I’m trying to find things to write about to get all my words in so I can stop writing. Ok really don’t need to get all my words in. Need to write for 5 more minutes. This isn’t very fun. Tomorrow I will actually write something resembling a blog post. I had the idea for 50 shades of brown – poop color coded underwear that hide skid marks depending on if you picked the right shade of brown for that day. This idea sounds like a Tommy Halvelford (Parks and Rec) idea. And I think I just spelled his name wrong.

I was supposed to be writing my “story”.  However, I came into this challenge with no characters, no plot, no ideas.  Oh wait – I had one thing – the name of my protagonist.  And you know how I picked out that name?  My name spelled backwards.  Yeah, because that’s the level of skill we are dealing with here:  Bits and pieces of weird and obscure information that randomly pop into my head.

On a side note:  I have noticed lately that I write in puns.  Usually unintended, although I will often notice them when I am editing and may point it out with a “see what I did there?” in case you aren’t Belgian and didn’t notice.  I just re-read my 1700 word travesty and found this: I wonder if I should try fleshing out my character more. Like, make her fat.  Really, Sue?  This is why mommy drinks.

My subsequent writing has been a mix of blog ideas, adding more to my “story”, such as it is, and journaling.  And I am keeping to my original goal of 500 words a day, 15 minutes per day except weekends, where I try to get in an hour so I can do editing on all the garbage I wrote earlier, because I almost had a mental breakdown the first day of writing without editing.  My OCD was on FIRE.

Even taking that into consideration, this has been a very positive experience so far.  Number One – I’m writing every day and Number Two – I’m having fun.  Now, how many of you who read “Number Two” instantly thought of poop?  You are my target audience for “Fifty Shades of Brown”.  If you think I’m not writing that, you are so very wrong.  That shit’s gonna be a best seller. <—- Pun alert for you non-Belgians.

And yes, I realize that if I have to point it out, it’s probably not that funny.  But then again, I think, “What if they miss it?  It’s so funny!  I’m so funny!  Sue is great!” so I always point it out.  WHEN I NOTICE IT.  If you see any I haven’t deliberately noted, please let me know.  You will be given a large reward of Nothing, but you will have bragging rights and I will respond to your comment with “_________ is great.”  allowing you a nanosecond of being greater than the greatest person in the universe:  Me.

Poopingly yours,

Sue

Clean Your Plate. #CFFC

I’m way behind on my blog and wanted to do a quick little blurb so you all know I’m alive and kicking.  Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge (#CFFC) this week is about our Sense of Taste so I figured it was the perfect venue for something short and sweet (see what I did there?  Now that’s talent.)  Grab a quick couple of food photos, pop them in my blog and viola.

Do you have any idea how many food photos I have?  Neither did I.  Holy cheese on a cracker.  Apparently I like to eat.  And before I like to eat, I like to photograph it.  And then eat some.  And then photograph it again.  And then photograph the empty plate.  No starving children in China at my house, that’s for sure.

It took me forever to whittle down my food photo collection to a few that are actually in focus and have some sort of visual aesthetic.  So not only do I take a lot of pictures of my food, I am so excited to eat it I can’t seem to take a decent photo. Even so, I still had over 20 photos to consider.  Man, do I like food or what?

I finally decided to go with tasty regional treats – food items that fairly scream “WISCONSIN!”

First up:  Booyah.  And not the “BOO-YAH!” yelled as an exclamation.  Booyah as in Chicken Soup That We Don’t Call Chicken Soup Because It’s Really Called Booyah.

Most booyah is made with chicken, potatoes, carrots, and cabbage, along with other random vegetables like onions, green beans, celery, etc. and then maybe some beef stock or something – hard to say seeing as most recipes are family secrets handed down from generation to generation.  It all gets chucked in a ginormous iron kettle and cooked outside over an open fire, and served Burn The Top Of Your Mouth Off Lava Hot.

Summer church picnics, local festivals and family gatherings are where you will find booyah, often sold as a fund-raiser so bring your empty plastic ice cream buckets and be sure to buy some to take home.  It’s best eaten with a cold beer in one hand and a handful of saltine crackers in the other and perhaps a piece of homemade bread on the side slathered with real butter.  Follow that with some Belgian pie or raspberry torte and a hot cup of joe.  Or another beer.

Booyah! Served at the Belgian Heritage Center in Namur, WI.

Speaking of beer…..that just happens to be my next photo.

Yeah, yeah – Wisconsin cliché’ but at least I didn’t photograph it with a brat (“brat” – pronounced “braht” -meaning delicious regional sausage that you set on fire with your grill while praying you don’t burn down the neighborhood and then eat it’s charred goodness on a bun with onions, mustard, ketchup and sometimes sauerkraut depending on your ethnicity).  But only because I didn’t have a photo of one.  I must eat all my brats before I think to photograph them.  This also happens a lot with cake.

Wisconsin is the land of sky blue waters and a LOT of beer, but New Glarus Spotted Cow is the best beer in all the land.  IN ALL THE LAND I TELL YOU.  Do not argue with me on this, beer heathen.

It’s also only available in Wisconsin, so if you want it, you gotta come here to get it.  It will be worth the trip.  I promise.

Ice cold Spotted Cow on a hot sunny beach.

And for my final entry:  Friday Night Perch Fry.  Because A) we are as regionally Catholic as they come and B) the Great Lakes and Green Bay have a strong commercial fishing industry, with much of the catch being yellow perch.  Which are delicious deep-fried in batter and bathed in tubs of tartar sauce so you don’t actually know you are eating fish because fish are gross.  I do like perch except when they get ‘fishy’ and you never know if you are going to get fishy perch so I usually just get fried cod instead or better yet a steak.  In fact I think my photo is actually cod, not perch.  But who cares.  My point is that we eat a lot of fish on Friday’s, and perch is super popular and most people eat it except me because I’m a weirdo.  And fish are gross.

Friday night fish fry at Gibraltar Grill in Door County, WI

And that’s a wrap, people.  Oh wait – here’s a collage of cake just because you can never have enough cake.  The two people in the one photo are my parents.  You can tell the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.  Nobody in our family will get kidnapped.

Caketastically yours,

Sue

The more you weigh, the harder you are to kidnap! Stay safe! Eat cake!

PS.  My apologies on my short blurb getting sorta long, so I guess I should have explained that I meant “short” by Sue Standards.  Cuz ya know, I always gotta write a book.

PPSS.  Don’t forget to check out the other entries at Cee’s Photography!

 

Older Than Dirt: A Photo Challenge – Part 1

Okay, so the theme isn’t really “Older Than Dirt”.  It’s Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge:  Older Than 50 Years.  

Technically, I could include photos of myself, as I am over 50, but I haven’t quite reached “dirt” status and hope not to for a while yet.  I thought about adding my parents but that could cause me to fall in ranking from “Favorite” to “Disowned”.

Last June we had a mini family reunion on my dad’s side.  Some of my cousins flew in and we went to visit my grandparent’s home, their cottage, the cemetery in Champion where our ancestors are buried, etc.  It was a lot of fun to catch up and see everyone.  Some of us haven’t seen each other in 30 years or more!

I have a lot of photos and stories to go with them, and had been wondering how to tell it without boring everyone to tears.  I mean, it’s interesting to me, but how to make it interesting to you?

Then Cee announced that this particular challenge would last until August 6th, and I realized it was the perfect venue to share my favorite photos and stories, and hopefully not make anyone want to poke a sharp stick in their eye.

My first photo is of the barn built by my ancestors, who came over in 1856, or thereabouts, from Grand Leez, Namur Province, Belgium.  This is the Walloon Belgian ancestory, and for some reason the vast majority of these immigrants chose NE Wisconsin.  My dad claims they all got the same set of bad directions.

This is actually almost true.  From what I have read, most were under the impression they were coming to rich farmland, only to arrive and find the entire area covered in a vast, dense forest.  I’m pretty sure they were not jumping up and down for joy upon their arrival in the New World, but they had just traveled 10 billion miles by crappy boat and crappy roads, so their choices were travel back 10 billion miles or clear the land.  They cleared the land.

So, we have this caravan of 5 cars or so, driving down Conard Road (my maiden name and yes, named after our family.  We are obviously kind of a big deal).  I’m in the lead with my parents and my Uncle Jim – all well into their 80’s but the only ones who have any inkling where on this road the original homestead would be.  I was beginning to wonder if we were on a wild goose chase when my dad and my uncle both said “This is it right here.  This is Harold’s old farm.”

In case you are interested, Harold was my grandfather’s cousin.  Harold’s father, John, and my great grandfather Julian, were brothers.  You can read more about Julian here: Walking With Grandpas.

The house was newer – probably about 30-ish years old, but the barn was obviously old – possibly original.  Anywho, we all piled out of the cars and milled about on the road talking excitedly, pointing at the barn, wondering what the little doors were for (all of our guesses were wildly incorrect), and snapping pictures.  This went on for about 15 minutes when a man cautiously came out of the house and slowly walked toward us.  Being of non-confrontational Belgian descent, I’m sure he was wondering if he should come over and interrupt us to find out what was going on or meander aimlessly around outside until we all regained our senses and left.

We made it easy for him, and walked over and introduced ourselves.  Turns out, he was Harold’s grandson, our third cousin!  We bombarded the poor guy  with a million questions:  “How old is the barn?”  “What are the little doors for?”  “Are you still farming?”  “Boxers or briefs?”

We found out he had no idea how old the barn was – just that it was “really old”.  The little doors were for pigs (who knew?) which he did not keep but apparently our ancestors did – he only kept a few steers, but his uncles had a larger farm on the adjacent road (also our relatives – I told you we were a big deal!).  We held him captive for another 15 minutes or so, and closed the deal by making him take photos with us out in the road, times about 20 smartphones.  We were all happier than pigs going thru little doors.  He, on the other hand, was probably scarred for life.

Actually, Randy (his name, btw.  I somehow managed to forget that detail in my narration) was a very good sport and actually seemed to enjoy himself once he realized we weren’t serial killers or zombies.

Below is a color picture of us minus my parents and Uncle Jim – who were in the car waiting for us because 80+ year old bones aren’t very cooperative when it comes to standing around in the middle of the road for ages.

RUN RANDY! SAVE YOURSELF!

And that’s how we met our 3rd cousin, Randy, and got to see the old Conard homestead.

Sue

PS:  Part of the reason for this mini reunion was for my cousins to see Uncle Jim.  He is a Catholic priest with the Maryknoll Fathers and has lived as a missionary in Africa for almost 60 years.  He comes home to visit about every three years.  That’s another story all by itself!  Interestingly enough, he had visited Harold back in the sixties to learn artificial insemination, so he could improve the stock of cattle in Africa.  Neither he or my father had been to the farm in over 50 years, but they both remembered once they got there.  Thank goodness for that or we would still be driving around.

 

Beauty of a Woman Blogfest: Skin Deep

A couple of days ago, I let you all know I would be participating in the Beauty of a Woman Blogfest, sponsored by August McLaughlin, and inspired by the Sam Levinson poem (click the link to go to her site and check out all the entries, which will be posted Friday.  I promise it will totally be worth your reading time).  Here is mine:

Most of you have heard the term, “Beauty is only skin deep”.  Probably someone used this statement to console you at one point or other in your life, when you felt intimidated or inferior to someone who used their physical beauty to belittle you.  At the very least, you heard it in passing.  But is it?  Is beauty only skin deep?

Like many women, I have struggled with body image since I was a little girl, and first heard someone tell me I was fat.  I have dieted, exercised, cried, lamented, criticized, rationalized, judged, and binged my way thru the last 45 years.  I once described myself as a “Big, Beautiful Dutch Woman”, as a tongue in cheek way of trying to accept myself for who I was.  It was mostly a bravado filled, fake it till you make it statement.  But I think I am finally ready to own it.

And it’s about time, I guess.  I am one year away from my 50th birthday, and I don’t think I want to waste any more of my precious time or energy worrying about measuring up to someone else’s idea of beauty.  I have better things to do, and frankly Society, I just don’t give a damn anymore.

I’m tired of worrying if someone will notice my size 11 feet, my man hands, or my jiggly belly.  Tired of wondering if someone disapproves of my loud laugh or inappropriately placed comment.  Tired of feeling exposed and vulnerable just because I am a size 16 and not a 10.

At the top of my blog, I reference a scripture about our bodies being the temple of the Holy Spirit.  I originally chose that as a way to remind myself to feed my body and spirit with healthy things, to keep it prepared to be God’s servant.  But now – now I see it as the defining start to beauty.  It begins with God’s accepting and loving Spirit entwined with mine.    Fearfully and wonderfully made.  Oh hell yes.  Because He is the Author of this piece of work I have held in judgement and loathing for so long, and He sees His creation as beautiful.  Who am I to argue?

So I will embrace the goofy German woman – unconventional and glorious – who hams it up for the camera, loves the spotlight and relishes the laughter from her audience.  Who giggles at off-color jokes and makes funny faces.  Who sings “Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz” loud and joyously in the bathroom and whistles her way thru life.

Weirdo Fun

But I will also embrace and accept the judgmental side of this woman, who can be quick to criticize and use shame as misguided motivation, and I won’t beat myself up anymore for having these traits.  I will continue to ask God to help me channel them into constructive behaviors, to use them to problem solve and organize, love and accept.  To use them to fuel my determination and spirit, to reach my goals and God’s.

I will embrace the Belgian woman, who loves puns and word play, and really, really dumb jokes.  Who loves a good fluffy book and a bag of chips with her butt plopped on a sandy beach and nothing but blue sky above.  Who is nurturing and gentle, kind and encouraging.  Who comes thru the door at the end of the day, and can’t wait to see her family.

But I will also embrace and accept the lost, passive side of this woman, who can spend too much time as a wallflower and go unnoticed in a crowded room.  Who is uncomfortable with people she thinks may be above her and not assertive enough to claim what is hers.  I will ask God to give me strength to believe in myself, to step forward and accept a compliment, and to recognize my worth in any situation, among any group of people.

And finally.  The big, beautiful Dutch woman.  I will embrace this woman most of all, as she is the one I have had the biggest love/hate relationship with.  Her big hands, breasts and feet have been the prime source of contention and ridicule in my life.  She is the one I see in the mirror when I get out of the shower, that I cover as much as possible to avoid having her be seen.  She is the one I have been ashamed of.

But this woman is also the one who has brought me the greatest joys.  She gave me the strong legs that pedaled 100 miles and ran 13.2…twice!  The strong arms that carried my babies and helped my husband with chores.  A body that at 49 can keep up with the 20 year olds in the gym (well, maybe the 30 year olds).  A body that nurtured, grew, and birthed the two greatest gifts God has ever given me – my kids.

Me and my “babies”

She has cellulite and scars.  Saggy skin (not to mention the direction the ‘girls’ are headed) and stretch marks.  Age spots, moles and wrinkles.  Bunions and cracking knees.  Her feet hurt, she can’t remember where she put her car keys much less the name of the person she just met, and she has some old-fashioned values her kids don’t always appreciate.  But she is beautiful and lovely and gets up every single day and does what I ask her to.  So, from this day forward, I will love, accept and cherish every single square inch of her.

Several years ago, I started trying to see other people – family, friends, enemies and strangers – as God saw them.  I tried to picture them thru His eyes, and it truly has helped me grow as a person, to be more loving and accepting of others, to be kinder and more forgiving.  But I left someone out of that equation.  Me.  Today I will begin a new journey, of remembering to see myself as God sees me – fearfully and wonderfully made, a home to His Spirit.  I will truly believe I am His temple, that my beauty starts in my core where His Spirit resides and engulfs mine, bubbling joyously to the surface.

Beauty is not skin deep.  It is Spirit deep.

Blessings,

Sue

The beginning – my parents wedding – German on the right, Belgian and Dutch on the left.