New things and Old things

Hi friends! I'm back. I know, you didn't ask. Ok, I'm going to write about something old first, save the exciting stuff for later. Oh, the suspense! Just kidding.
  Years and years ago, (sorry, just had to do that) my family lived on an organic produce farm in the foothills of the Ozarks in Missouri. My mom was always a huge believer in eating healthy and my brother and I were always subject to strange vitamins and supplements. (Dolomite comes to mind. Yuck!) Anyway, one of the health fads to pass through our farmhouse was Kombucha. At first I thought mom was making us swallow glasses of vinegar. After a while, though, I acquired a taste for it. Mom had quite the collection of Scobies (an extremely cute name for gross, slimy mushrooms). I knew at the time that I was bolstering my immune system with the strange tea, but not sure what else it was doing to me. Well, in 1996 we packed up our lives and moved to Bolivia as missionaries. We couldn't take the scoby with us (customs might frown upon a slimy mushroom in your suitcase) and thus, it was the end of our kombucha days.
  Fast forward a lot! I have hypothyroidism and it tends to manifest in nasty cycles of tummy issues a couple of days a month. I had begun to buy the fancy bottles of kombucha from the local health store and it helped me immensely. Kombucha is absolutely loaded with probiotics. Your body needs all the crazy bacteria and fermentation that goes on in that glass jar. As the saying goes, sooner or later you become some sort of manifestation of your mother. Here I am making kombucha! Let me tell you how I did it.......First I made a scoby from a bottle of store bought fancy kombucha. I read this blog post. It not only told me how to grow a scoby from the store bought stuff, it also has the recipe for the regular stuff. Here is a picture of my scoby and the tea it is now basking in to make a big jar of kombucha.

The stuff under the scoby is so strong it will curl your nose hairs, but it's still good stuff. I'll just pretend I'm taking a shot. haha. Next, I plan on making some flavored fizzy kombucha like the fancy store stuff. Here is a link for that recipe.


Ok, moving on to new stuff. Most of my friends already know that I self-published my first novel. I'm currently writing my 5th novel in the Jane Austen genre. It took me more than 3 years to get up the courage to self publish. I have been rejected by more than 30 literary agents. That tends to affect a person. I know the stories of lots of extremely famous authors who were also rejected a multitude of times. It proves that the agents don't always know what they are talking about. However, that thought didn't comfort me. Well, I finally asked the Lord to give me courage to go for it. Yep, it's done. Whew. I'm waiting by my mailbox like a school girl for my final proof copy. I love to write!! I have always had a crazy imagination and would dream up entire stories in my mind. It took me just a couple of days write the one I just published. I had the whole thing in my head and I had to just sit at the computer until it was done. My kids have gotten used to giving me space while I am authoring. I love how my step of faith has encouraged them. Now my girls are writing their own books. I love how I can't get them to do creative writing for homeschool, but mom publishes a book and they will start writing up a storm. Ok, so I will post a picture of my book. I drew the cover art and Amazon didn't like it because it's blurry. That is how I wanted it, though. so there.

I will make a special blog post when it is ready for purchase on Amazon!