Carey Jane Clark

Wordful Weekend

February 23, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

Back in November, I began a middle-grade novel (a middle grade novel is one aimed at the “tweens” age group) with the working title Truth and the Tepawani: An Adventure in the Amazon for NaNoWriMo. I decided last-minute to take the plunge and try to write for National Novel Writing Month, and didn’t really think I’d get as far as I did. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write an entire novel in a month. The minimum word goal is 50,000 words. But this word goal is actually on the high end for a middle-grade novel, which is more at home at around 30,000 to 40,000 words (unless you’re writing fantasy).

In these posts, I hope to bring you inside my writing process and share a little of what I’ve learned of the art of writing fiction in the 10 or so years since in the midst of diapers, first teeth, nap times, and interrupted nights, I began making it a serious pursuit.

I finished NaNoWriMo 2012 at 32,905 words. I was immensely satisfied with that accomplishment–and exhausted. I decided to rest a while, and then Christmas came, and then the preparation for Chinese New Year, and–you see where this is going, right?

But last week, I picked things up again and even had a breakthrough, and I’m very close to calling the first draft of this book done. And then it will be time to revise, revise, revise.

And to start the next one. This time, another book for an adult audience.

But what’s the current book about? It’s the story of a 12-year-old boy who spends his summer vacation with his missionary cousins in the Amazon basin and makes an astonishing discovery certain to turn modern science on its head–if the evidence hadn’t mysteriously vanished.

A Journey Begins

February 22, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

This is a difficult post for me to write. On one hand, I’m excited about the journey ahead. On the other hand, this is more transparent than I enjoy being about this particular subject matter.

Before I had children, I had been underweight most of my life and had struggled with digestive health. I had been called “skinny” from the time I was born.

Fast-forward to not quite 11 years ago when I had my first child. About two weeks after he was born, I had shed almost every pound I had gained and was back in my normal clothes. The same thing happened after my second child.

Not so after my third child.

At the time, I blamed the fact that I hadn’t exercised as much during the third pregnancy as I had with the other two. But as time went on, it seemed I would never get my body back.

By the time I got pregnant again, I looked pregnant before anyone else should have been able to detect a pregnancy. When I lost that baby to miscarriage, I no longer had an excuse for how I looked. That miscarriage happened in 2010. It was followed by two more. In the meantime, my exercise routine went in fits and starts. I would exercise, get fit, continue to exercise into the pregnancy, but when the miscarriages occurred, I was exhausted. I didn’t realize at the time I was chronically anemic–just one of the reasons I wasn’t able to carry a baby to full term. In the process of digging to the bottom of the causes of these miscarriages, I received some excellent nutritional counselling, and at that time, I eliminated gluten from my diet.

Things around my middle got better, and again when I went on a candida diet in the fall of 2012, but it seemed no matter what I did, and despite renewing a routine of cardio, weights and pilates, a persistent “muffin top” remained.

Revelations

Recently, I experienced two revelations. First, I encountered Bethany Learn and her exercise program targeting diastasis recti. I had recalled reading about this condition on another blogger’s site, but it never occurred to me that this could be my problem. Her situation seemed extreme, and by this time, I was convinced that age had taken hold and I was giving up on every having the same level of fitness I had enjoyed before Sprout was born. But when I learned about Bethany’s program, and read the symptoms of diastasis recti and the information about how to check yourself for the condition, I realized this was me!

The second revelation is one of the reasons this post is so hard to write. In preparation for my launch on this journey, I knew I needed to take measurements and a “before” picture. Let me get more real than I’m comfortable with here: I am the queen of holding in. People still tell me all the time how skinny I am, although I know better (and so does my daughter, who refers to my middle as my “pillow”). For this picture, however, I literally had to let it all hang out.

But when I did, something surprising happened. While my middle is not what I want it to be, the camera doesn’t lie. The picture is not as bad as my mental image of myself. So it was obvious that I have more than just physical work to do on this issue.

I’ve committed to Beth to journal my journey to better fitness here. As part of the process, I’ll be doing the exercises she offers in her online program, Fit2B, for three months. During that three months, she suggests 10-minute workouts, four to five times per week.

I plan to check in here from time to time, with milestone updates at the six week and three month marks.

Want to join me? Click here for membership information to Beth’s online studio.

{This is a Mom Learns Too post. Sure, your kids have been learning this week,
but what have YOU learned. Link up below!}

The Sound of Music

February 20, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

It’s incredible to believe that it’s been a year since JavaMan preceded us back to China to secure an apartment and have our things moved to our new home.

He did such an excellent job finding our apartment. We couldn’t be happier with it. We love just about everything about it.

I’ve raved before about our homeschool room. It’s a wonderful space. And we really did feel like it was complete. However, this week something happened to finish it off to perfection.

When our things were moved to the north, one item was unfortunately left behind–our digital keyboard. So for almost an entire year, we have been without a piano of any kind. We consoled ourselves that our children were still receiving music education through our music appreciation lessons and by studying violin.

But we still really missed the keyboard.

I looked around and had one priced out that I was saving up for. I hoped to be able to give it to the family for Christmas. But it seemed there were other financial priorities, and we couldn’t make it happen. About the same time, I began to really miss playing the piano myself, and wished we could afford to find a digital piano with a full 88-key keyboard and weighted keys. It was one of those moments where I heard that quiet whisper, “If you really want it, ask Me.” So I did. And in January, I received miraculous provision of the money needed to buy a Casio CDP-120 digital keyboard, complete with weighted keys.

We had to wait until businesses opened after the Chinese New Year in order to buy it, but on Monday evening it arrived. We were all so excited that homeschool the next day was filled with music study. Sweetpea and Pumpkin did their best to remember the pieces they had been practicing with a piano learning system they had been studying previously, but they also had a chance to try their first few lessons on a new system we’ll be reviewing for the TOS Review Crew next month.

You’ll really want to stay tuned (pun intended) for this review. So far, my children have given this product the most enthusiastic response I have ever seen them give a curriculum! Mark your calendars. My review is due out on March 20.

What do you do for music education in your home?

Our China: The Local Market, Part 3

February 18, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

This week, I’m continuing to give you a taste of the China we know by taking a last look at the Chinese market. And I have a treat for you–a special recipe our family loves made from ingredients we buy at our local Chinese market.

While pork is much more commonly eaten here than beef, (beef is considered expensive), we don’t eat pork, so we frequent the lamb and beef lady. There is only one stall selling beef at our market to the three or four that offer pork, and during Chinese New Year, that stall was closed for eight full days (so was the chicken stall–fortunately the supermarket was open).

Here I can order my meat chopped, ground, or in 片儿 piǎn er (thin strips that resemble bacon). These thin strips of beef or lamb are used for special recipes. I can have it ground or chopped, at my request. price of beef has gone up recently, and now both lamb and beef cost almost $6.00 per jin.

As promised, here’s a special recipe that uses lamb 片儿 (lamb in thin strips). But if you don’t happen to have a Chinese grocery handy that sells the 片儿, then thin stir-fry-type slices will do. This is a very northern dish. We never ate it in the south–in fact the 片儿 were hard to come by there, and much more expensive. This is the recipe, as it comes from my bilingual cookbook, Chinese Cuisine Beijing Style (out of print but worth getting your hands on if you’re serious about Chinese cuisine), but I always double it. The method of cooking, with separately mixed sauces, is very typical of Chinese cuisine.

This recipe disappears pretty quickly at our house. Serve over rice, of course, with a side of bok choy, cooked this way (you’ll thank me).

And here is the photo of this recipe, straight from my cookbook, and complete with authentic food stains created while cooking this fabulous recipe :)

Coriander Lamb

1/2 lb. thinly sliced lamb
1/2 lb fresh cilantro
1/4 cup shredded ginger
2 teaspoons garlic cloves

Sauce 1

1 Tablespoon cooking wine
1 Tablespoon salad oil
1/2 Tablespoon cornstarch (I use arrowroot flour instead)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Sauce 2

1 1/2 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 Tablespoon cooking wine (try to get the kind sold at Asian groceries)
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Directions

Marinate lamb in Sauce 1 for 20 minutes. Wash coriander and cut into 1″ sections
Heat a wok, add 4 T oil. Stir-fry minced garlic and ginger root until fragrant. Add lamb and stir-fry over high heat ntil lamb color changes slightly (I fry it a little longer).
Stir in coriander and Sauce 2, stir-fry quickly and serve.

Enjoy!

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