Blisscraft Life With Christina Katz

Like most kids in the ’70s, I grew up on Kool-Aid. Even today, our homeschool group serves Kool-Aid to the kids at lunch. I think that moms give their kids Kool-Aid because it’s cheap, it quenches your thirst, and it tastes good. (At least to a kid, that is.) But it’s not a healthy food choice.

About 20 years ago, I lost babysitter after babysitter because of my oddly behaving son. He was even kicked out of Sunday school because they didn’t know what to do with him. I knew we had a problem; I just didn’t know the cause. After putting the entire family on a special elimination diet we discovered the boy’s trouble was food coloring. Well, wouldn’t you know? The Sunday school teacher gave him Kool-Aid and cookies for snack time every Sunday.

If you want to serve your family a healthy alternative to that brightly colored, mind-altering drink that comes with the instructions to “add water and stir,” I have the solution for you. I call it the Natural Kool-Aid Alternative. It is sugar-free, dye-free, and has a lot of extra health benefits because it’s high in vitamin C and bioflavonoids. Here is the super-simple recipe.

Natural Kool-aid Alternative

To make half a gallon of Natural Kool-Aid Alternative you will need:

Two cups of boiling water
Two tablespoons of hibiscus flowers
One to one and a half teaspoons of stevia leaves
One teaspoon of peppermint leaves

Pour the boiling water over the herbs and let steep 15-20 minutes before straining into a pitcher. Add a couple of cups of ice and fill the rest of the way with water. Stir and enjoy.

The hibiscus flowers give your brew an alluring red color that is natural and just the right amount of tartness that really quenches your thirst. Stevia is an all-natural sweetener with no side effects, and the peppermint gives it that refreshing coolness you want on a hot summer day.

If you’re wondering where to buy hibiscus, stevia, and peppermint, check out your local health food store or an online bulk herb supplier. Buy plenty because your kids will be coming back for more.

Carol J. Alexander writes stories of hard-working folk—farmers, homesteaders, homemakers, and parents—for magazines like BackHome, Grit, Urban Farm, Hobby Farms, From Scratch, and regional parenting publications all over North America. She recently published All-Natural Thirst Quenchers: Beat the Heat without The Junk, a collection of drink recipes, available on Amazon.

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1. Can you remember the first half of your life?

2. Can you remember the second half of your life?

3. Can you remember what happened yesterday?

4. Can you remember what happened an hour ago?

5. How many prescription medications are you taking?

6. Do you have anyone in your life who protects and champions your name, legacy, and personal well-being?

7. Do you feel like you receive excellent care and complete respect from your caretakers, physicians, and other hired professionals (like lawyers)?

8. Do you think the discovery of Watchman would have been handled differently if you had been a man or a younger person?

9. Do you feel like your legacy as a great writer has been mass-gang-raped by the sale and marketing of a manuscript you expressly never wanted published?

10. Do you feel like your longtime fans and other intelligent, curious people have stood by and watched a crime be committed in your name, while doing nothing to stop the greedy machine that publishing seems to have become?

I wish you could answer these questions, Harper Lee.

If you could, only then would I consider purchasing your book or any other book from Harper Collins.

In the meantime, I am going to trust my gut feeling of being totally and utterly disgusted by the whole fiasco.

Harper Lee did not lose a fan. HarperCollins did.

I have decided to share favorite author recipes on my blog. And here’s the first one…recommended by me!

When I was a kid there were these cookies called Lemon Coolers. I believe they were from Sunshine and they were covered with powdered white sugar. They were tinted slightly yellow, so if you bit one in half, you would see the lemon yellow color peeking out.

I don’t think I stopped too often as a kid to admire the colors of the cookies. I just wolfed them down because that tart lemony confectioner sugar-covered concoction was so addictive. I loved to eat a bunch of them with milk.

Does anyone else remember them?

I am sure they would not taste as good to me today. However, I sometimes still randomly crave them.

Then one day this past spring, I was hanging out at one of my favorite local farms looking at flowers for my hanging pots, and they had lemon white chocolate chip hazelnut cookies for sale in their store.

I didn’t even hesitate. I scooped ’em up and brought them home, hoping they might taste something like my old favorites. And they kind of did, which made me think that maybe it was possible to make lemon cookies at home that might rival my old faves.

Low and behold, I was right. Here’s the recipe, which Jason adapted from the one we found originally, which is cited at the bottom of the page.

Lemon White Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons fresh organic lemon juice
• 2 cups white chocolate chips
• zest from 2 organic lemons

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Stir flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl until any clumps are removed. Cream butter, brown sugar, and sugar in large mixing bowl. Beat in egg and lemon juice. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in white chocolate chips and lemon zest. Drop by the heaping tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 7 – 10 minutes until edges lightly browned. Do not overbake! Transfer cookies to wire cooling racks after they have set for a few minutes. They are the same consistency as Tollhouse cookies. Enjoy with a big glass of cold milk or icy lemonade.

I would not share these cookies with anyone the first time you make them because you are going to want them all to yourselves. But maybe next time, if you decide to share them with others, you might give them a little dusting of sifted confectioners sugar while they are still warm on the cooling rack. And this will fancy them up just a bit. And possibly remind you of Lemon Coolers if you used to love them as much as I did.

~ Recipe adapted from The Baker Chick who adapted her’s from Nestlé

Christina Katz is known as The Writer Mama, The Prosperous Writer, and for her ability to gently motivate writers to achieve bigger and better goals in their careers sooner. When she is not writing, she is probably eating or working out so she won’t have to feel guilty about what she’s going to eat next. Her latest recipes for writer success includes fun and interactive video classes, a monthly goal-setting dream team for writers, and books and tools that help writers become more professional and therefore more successful. Be sure to sign up for her ezine, The Prosperous Writer, so you can be among the first to get the latest news and the steepest discounts.

When you care enough to write down your goals, stand back. Wonderful things are about to happen.

~ Henriette Anne Klausner, Write It Down, Make It Happen

 I love working with writers on setting and reaching goals.

This is something I have been doing for over five years, but for five years I was the one who was outlining what the goals could/should be.

Now I am teaching goal-setting differently. Now I am teaching goal-setting as something that each writer is responsible for herself.

I love teaching goal-setting this way because it puts the goal-setting power 100% where it belongs, which is in the hands of the individual writer.

What I believe is that there is only one right direction for every writer, and that is the direction of her dreams.

So, don’t let my dream or anyone’s dreams get in the way of your plans. Your desires are as unique as your fingerprint.

No two fingerprints are alike, and no two writers’ plans will be exactly alike.

If you are imitating anyone else, stop. And start listening to what your gut is telling you about the best direction for your writing career.

I can offer you goal-setting advice and help you with the habit of setting goals and evaluating your progress.

Sign up today for the next round of my Become Your Own Writing Coach & Multiply Your Productivity x 10 and watch your writing career results change.

You’ll become more mindful, more productive, and enjoy your work more.

I will send you a fifteen minute coaching video the first Tuesday of each month and a collection of goal-setting worksheets to help you identify and describe the goals you will work on.

I will also ask you for feedback every month to find out how you are doing on your goals and see if you have any suggestions to improve the accountability process.

After that, it’s just you caring enough about yourself to set your writing goals and reach them.

Are you ready to feel more successful by the end of next month?

Then I hope you will join us.

Learn more right here.

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If you are reading this post, you might not be getting the best deals on my writing career development video courses.

This is because only subscribers to The Prosperous Writer get the best deals.

Why?

Because I want to reward the folks who are my biggest fans. And my biggest fans all subscribe to my ezine.

So are you one of my biggest fans?

If so, please subscribe to my ezine so you can benefit from the best deals and special offers I share there.

I will also give you a free gift just for subscribing!

But what about subscribers to my blog, shouldn’t they get great deals, too?

They do. And if you are looking for discount offers, you will find them right here at my easy-to-navigate website.

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What does it mean to be a prosperous writer? It means spending your days writing articles, interacting with editors, creating written products of various stripes, and marketing your work.

Being a prosperous writer means spending your days creating, expressing yourself, and dreaming up new ideas.

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As a subscriber, there is no pressure to participate in special offers. But when you do, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are saving the most money.

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The school year is about to begin and I look forward to helping your writing career blossom as the year progresses!

Discounts on the following classes expire Friday, July 31st:

The Art Of Short Article Writing For Nonfiction Writers (subscribers can add editing services from Christina Katz) More Information

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Meet Hank. Is he the cutest or what?

What if you had a normal, healthy rambunctious little boy — two actually — and then you found out that one of them was not going to grow up and live a long life?

What if you found out one of your sons was literally was going to have the life sucked right out of his muscles, little by little, year by year, and instead of growing stronger and stronger, he was going to grow weaker and weaker?

This is the diagnosis that Iris Dunaway and Solly Perry have had to grapple with regarding their son Hank.

Hank has Duchenne, a type of muscular dystrophy. And there is no way to cure it.

home for hank from Jesi van Leeuwen on Vimeo.

I’m sharing this video and this fundraiser for Hank over at GoFundMe.com in hopes that folks who feel called will give to this cause. I don’t think it’s possible to put ourselves in Iris and Solly’s shoes without wanting to do something that might help.

Iris is a special person to our family because she was Samantha’s babysitter when she was a baby. I found Iris by posting a request on a Western Washington University job board.

Iris was not yet married and did not have any children of her own when she was Samantha’s babysitter. But she was a total pro, and was absolutely passionate about child development. She still is. I could not believe how lucky we got. I still can’t.

When Samantha was two and a half, Jason graduated from Western with his second degree and we moved to Wilsonville, so he could take the job at the high school.

I was sad but not too sad about leaving Bellingham. It’s a cool place, I could say a lot of nice things about it and the people there, but it wasn’t somewhere I wanted to settle for good. But Bellingham will always be the place where Samantha was born, and it will always have a special place in our hearts as long as Iris lives there.

A few years ago, the last time we were in Bellingham, we met up with Iris and her two boys, Hank and Dean, on the green behind Village Books. Hank rode his bike all over kingdom come and I pushed Dean around on his little scooter toy until I was worn out. Both of the boys were completely fearless. By the time we parted, it was clear to me that Iris had her hands full with these two rambunctious little guys…and was totally happy to be their mom.

We did not know then that Hank had an illness. And there was not a speck of evidence of one. And somehow that just makes this reality all that much harder to swallow.

One of the problems with illnesses like this is that in addition to being devastating, they usually comes with huge price tags. In Iris and Solly’s case, Hank’s illness is going to require a lot of money they don’t have and could not possibly raise on their own.

So, if you feel moved to make a donation to A Home For Hank, you would be doing us all a really big favor and making a terrible and terrifying situation a little more tolerable.

Thank you so much for your consideration. Every donation is a blessing and a help. You can donate by clicking here.

And if you pray, or even just send good mojo, please send some up to Bellingham, Washington to Hank and his family. Because they could most certainly use it, today and during the many challenging days to come.

This was Hank (front, left, in the Spidey suit) a few years ago, when we all met up in Bellingham.

Here are five things I’ve learned about article writing over the years:

1. You can always rely on writing and selling short articles to give you that “yes” energy that every writer craves.

2. Writing short articles is enriching and satisfying. I’m fulfilling an assignment for an editor today and I can’t wait to get back to work on it.

3. Short wait time. Why wait years to publish something when you can get something published next month?

4. The demand for short articles never diminishes. If anything the need for short nonfiction articles has only increased, which means most writers are going to need the skills.

5. Short articles are an important and profitable part of every nonfiction writer’s professional portfolio. I sell my articles over and over, year after year, and that’s an important part of my business.

Want to learn everything you need to know about writing short articles that sell? My online course, The Art Of Short Article Writing has launched. Don’t miss this chance to learn from a writing coach who has been teaching others how to land their first clips and increase their sales since 2001.

Learn more about my online article writing classes.

I am a veteran journalist, author and coach with over a decade and a half of experience and a wealth of techniques to share. I am focused on making the world a saner, more expressive place. I help folks become more creative for personal enjoyment, professional development and transformational growth. Whether you are a professional creative or hope to become one some day, I can help you embrace your personal strengths, explore your creative possibilities, and evolve incrementally into your most inspiring self. If you are ready to achieve creative consistency in your life and career, email me about monthly coaching calls. To learn more about increasing your creative confidence, please check out my online school. Stay tuned for ways to save money by becoming a Beta User for my next new course by subscribing to The Prosperous Creative. And don’t forget to get these blog posts delivered to your inbox, so you never miss a post. If you appreciate my work—school, products, blog and social media posts—you are welcome to make a contribution of any size at any time. Thank you for your support!

~ photo by Craig Garner

Did you ever wish you had a writing coach who would check in with you each month to help you stay accountable to your writing goals?

Well, I do all of this and more for my brand new Become Your Own Writing Coach & Multiply Your Productivity x 10, and anyone can join.

Each month you will be provided with a 15-minute video recording you can watch at your leisure.

You will also receive several pages of goal-setting worksheets, which I am always expanding and improving based on group feedback.

Let’s face it, left to our own devices most writers won’t reach their goals each month.

By joining my inexpensive ongoing Accountability Dream Team, you will increase the odds of reaching your short-term goals, which will add up to better long-term results.

All this for just a monthly $10 subscription. I hope you can join us!

Past materials are also available on my Become Your Own Writing Coach page.

If you are not sure if this kind of set up will work for you, feel free to check them out at your convenience.

We all know that folks who write down their goals are not only more successful than folks who don’t write down their goals, but also tend to earn a lot more than their less accountable counterparts.

So what are you waiting for? I bet this will be the best $10 you spend this month! Just click on the badge below to learn more.

I teach writers to prosper by building solid, saleable, life-long career skills via video courses, audio coaching, phone consults, and a subscription-based, monthly writing accountability training group. My multi-media offerings empower writers even in a rapidly evolving publishing marketplace. Hear what folks say about my work.

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