Welcome Cara Putman. I’ve heard people call you the Do-It-All-Mom.Watching you at the ACFW conference taking care of all of us and your children with a smile on your face makes me think the name applies. How did you get that nick name?
My friend Nicole O’Dell has dubbed me the Do-It-All-Mom among a sea of really qualified columnists. Do-It-All-Mom? Me? It’s a wee bit intimidating. Ya know?
So I’ve been thinking about it. Do I do it all? Yes, I’m a mom to the four amazing kiddos in the picture. I am forever grateful that God has entrusted them to us.
Yes, I’m an attorney, but I’m definitely in a season of slowing that down. I stay involved in a couple areas, but I’m not doing litigation, my favorite area, because it doesn’t fit with my life right now. A choice I’d make again — even though I love litigation.
Yes, I’m a contract lecturer at a University and adjunct faculty at a community college. I LOVE teaching and am so grateful God opened these doors. Lest you think otherwise, remember this too is part time.
Yes, I’m a writer — between the hours of nine and midnight most weeks…because that’s when my kids sleep.
Yes, I’m a homeschool mama — it’s a joy and honestly frustrating. If I can be real, I love watching my kids learn. But there are times I long for them to join the school bus crowd. However, God has made it clear this is for us right now, so I do it willingly. Even if it means teaching algebra to the oldest and reading to the 3 year old. I don’t know how one room school teachers did it.
Yes, I serve at our church. It’s the least I can do for the body God has planted us in and for God. He’s given me so much. I’m more than willing to tithe my time and talent for Him. Besides, I’ve long known I learn more when I teach.
Yes, I do a lot. But I hope you’re getting a sense of season. There are ebbs and flows to each of these. I love my class at Purdue, but right now it’s not a year round commitment. Maybe some day it will be. I love the law, but it’s no where near full time right now. How do you balance it all in this do-it-all-right-now-life?
Cara, I had three sons and didn’t home school. Most of the time I would have to say my nick name would have been Let-It-Slide-Mom. Thank you for a glimpse of how you balance everything. And as Cara asked, ” How do you balance it all in this do-it-all-right-now-life?
Here’s my review of Cara’s book.
A Wedding Transpires on Mackinac Island by Cara C. Putman
A delightful tale with surprising twists and turns. I’ve been to Mackinac Island and wondered what it was like for residents. Did they dislike having the tourists? Did they really bike, walk or take a horse drawn buggy taxi? Putman answered all of those questions for me.
A Wedding Transpires on Mackinac Island is what I call a nice bathtub read. The story is engaging and at times gets your heart rate up, but not so much that you want to run while looking over your shoulder.
I enjoyed returning to Mackinac via the pages of this book. Back Cover Copy When Past and present Collide, God Still has a Plan
Attorney Alanna Stone vowed long ago to avoid Mackinac Island. although it may seem like the perfect place to heal, for Alanna it holds to many memories of a painful past.
But an exhausting high-profile case and an urgent plea from her parents has brought Alanna home. Moving into the cabin next to Jonathan Covington doesn’t help her. Jonathan may have been her first love, but he was also her first lesson in betrayal. Now Alanna must protect her privacy and her heart. Then secrets and a murder intersect, an she’s thrust into controversy again as tragedy turns public opinion against her and potentially her family.
For years, Jonathan has stubbornly resisted the urging of his family and friends to date, believing he’s already found the perfect woman. With Alanna’s return, he begins to wonder if he’s waited to long for someone who isn’t the right one after all.
Will Alanna and Jonathan be able to lay aside the past and let God heal their hearts?
How many times have you tried something and failed and then tried again and succeed? Oh let me count the rejection letters in my drawer–nope, that would take way to long. But I kept trying and soon I succeeded.
What about activities you’ve tried and failed at and then didn’t try again and now regret? Mine is acting. I tried out for one play, freaked out and didn’t try out for another.
What things would you like to try but are afraid of failing? What if you tried and succeeded?
At our house Easter is more than a tradition. For our family it is about celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. Because He rose and I believe that He died for my sins I know I will be going to heaven when I die.
For over 20 years we have gone to the sunrise service at our church. This year the church youth are in charge. That means an exciting ‘Wake You Up’ service. There will be music and this year three of the young girls are doing a praise dance to I Can Only Imagine. I can’t wait!
After the service we make our way to the basement for a pancake breakfast. I won’t be able to eat because of being gluten free. I’m still going though because my kids (now grown) will be there too. It’s a fun time as the people coming to the next more traditional service will also be trickling in for the breakfast. It’s a good time to fellowship and show off our grown kids.
After that excitement we head to my mother-in-law’s house where our blended family gets to hunt eggs with the younger children, eat an amazing lunch and then take a neighborhood walk.
This fun activity came to my through my WANA112 group, Mike Schulenberg invented it and Laird Sapir tagged me. I’ve watched it spin through the WANA112 group like an infection. We can’t help ourselves. We want to share our writing–even if it is only 7 lines.
What is WANA112? Thought you would never ask. We’re a group brought together under Kristen Lamb who taught us how to have each others backs in the social networking world.
Since most of the WANA112 group has been tagged I’m tagging friends in another group I belong to, Grace and Fiction, where I’m sure it will be just as infectious.
These are the rules: 1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP 2. Go to line 7 3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written. 4. Tag 7 authors, and let them know
Here’s mine from a WIP or work in progress in a book I have yet to title. AND I do mean work in progress, this is the messy, commas out of place, fresh writing.
*** Her nose wrinkled and he knew why. The pigs. Their smell clung to everything. He set Sara Beth on the floor.
She wailed.
“Shh! Just for bit, while I help this lady.” He got on his knees and collected a few coins. Sarah Beth crawled up his leg and onto his back. He must look ridiculous crawling on his knees in the mercantile with a toddler riding him like a horse. *** I couldn’t use page 77 as I’m not that far in this WIP. So if your name is below you’ve been tagged. It’s okay if you don’t use page 77, Laird said so.
Sloane Templeton doesn’t just step off the page. She flies off of it taking the reader on one quirky dangerous journey.
Filled with wacky characters Cooking the Books will have you holding your breath right along with Sloane when she discovers overcooked eggs. Her aunt is a wana-be-gourmet chef and Sloane does what she can to keep her aunt out of trouble, but she is on a first name basis with the fire and police departments.
Sloane has a sarcastic wit that leaves you grinning. Her choice in men had me screaming no not him he’s a creep, get away far far away!
Sloan is capable of handling the many frightening situations she finds herself involved in. Who knew going from a computer career to a bookstore her could be so dangerous?
Calhoun kept me out of my bed until I finished the last page. Part of the appeal of Cooking the Books for me was the glimpse of an inner city culture which is a 360 for this small-town Midwesterner.
Cooking the Books is filled with danger, humor and of course snarky remarks. Get this book you’ll love it.
Back Cover Copy
After her mother dies from a heart attack, Sloane Templeton goes from Cyber Crimes Unit to bookstore owner before she can blink. She also “inherits” a half-batty store manager; a strange bunch of little old people from the neighborhood who meet at the store once a week, but never read books, called the Granny Oakleys Book Club; and Aunt Verline, who fancies herself an Iron Chef when in reality you need a cast iron stomach to partake of her culinary disasters. And with a group like this you should never ask, “What else can go wrong?”
A lot! Sloane begins to receive cyber threats. While Sloane uses her computer forensic skills to uncover the source of the threats, it is discovered someone is out to kill her. Can her life get more crazy?
The Carol Burnett Show was on of my favorites. Since it’s National Doctor’s day I thought a trip to the dentist was in order. Do you have a favorite Carol Burnett sketch?
These yummy delights are in the Ladies’ Home Journal March 2012–for people who can eat gluten. They looked so good I tampered with the recipe to come up with my version of Pecan Crispers that are gluten free.
Pecan Crispers Gluten Free
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened 1/2 cup coconut oil softened (not liquid) 2 1/2 cups light brown sugar 2 large eggs 2 cups Jules gluten free all purpose flour (if not using Jules add xantham gum) 1/2 cup coconut flour 1/4 tsp salt 1/tsp baking soda 1 cup chopped pecans
Oven should be preheated to 350 degrees Line cookie sheets with parchment paper
In a large mixing bowl beat butter, coconut oil, and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and mix well.
In another mixing bowl whisk together the flours, salt and baking soda. Stir into butter mixture. Fold in pecans.
Spoon 1 1/2 inch balls of dough onto baking sheets and bake until golden. Check at 15 minutes, may need to add up to 5 more minutes depending on your oven.
When done, eat with hot tea, iced milk or coffee, and read a book.
Have you ever been tossed to the ground by a horse?
We had a horse named Lady who was a bit strong-willed. She seemed to sense my ‘beginner’ nerves and made use of that information. While going down hill she lowered her head and off I went. I can’t explain how it happened only that I didn’t want to get back on her back.
But I had to. You can’t let a horse win or you’ll go flying off that saddle every time.
The day I took that tumble I didn’t expect it to become a blog post someday or even a life lesson. Probably because the day I took the fall I was 17 and knew everything.
Since that day life has thrown me from the saddle many times. Sometimes it’s not hard to get back on because it wasn’t a big fall and the horse didn’t run off so I had to catch it. Maybe that’s the day the gluten free meal I made turned out like paste. ( Oh yeah, that was another drop in my life I hadn’t expected no more regular people bread!)
Or maybe that fall is harder like losing your husband at 32.
That was a flattening fall. It took months to even to look up. Then despite my fear of being thrown again, I remarried.
So far so good–I haven’t killed him with my gluten free cooking yet.
There is another kind of fall that I experience. After I finish a crocheting a scarf, making a quilt or writing a book it takes awhile to try another one. I have a new book coming out in May. A Bride’s Dilemma in Friendship, Tennessee. I know those characters so well that I keep thinking about them. It’s hard to take my attention away from Heaven and Travis and turn it onto new characters.
But like falling off the horse, I must get back on or in this case back in my writer’s chair and make friends with those unwilling characters who only want to look pretty–much like Lady who only wanted to be in the pasture.
So many things require us to get back up and start anew. What’s the hardest project you’ve had to restart?
The Pioneer Woman and Kait Nolan both have yummy looking bacon cheddar biscuit recipes. I wanted to try my own version but to be fair I started with their recipe and ended up with something different.
Cheesy Biscuits Gluten Free
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Prepare a cookie sheet by lining with parchment paper.
What you need: 1 3/4 cup gluten free flour ( I use Jules flour) 1/4 cup coconut flour 1/4 cup almond flour 1 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. salt 3/4 tsp. baking soda if not using Jules flour mix you need 1 tsp. xanthan gum 1tsp Italian seasoning 1/2 stick of butter 3/4 cup of butter milk ( I make my own by adding a little less than a tsp. of white vinegar to milk) 1/2 cup of water 1/2 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar 1 egg white 1 cup shredded Italian cheese
How to In a large mixing bowl combine the flours,salt, Italian seasoning, baking soda, baking powder and xanstham gum (if using) and whisk
Cut the butter into tiny pieces, add to flour mixture. Now for the fun! Use your hands to mix the butter into the flour so you don’t have large butter pieces Add the cheese and mix
Add the buttermilk, water, egg white and apple cider vinegar to the flour mixture. Stir well. Mound 12 biscuits on parchment paper (or you could use an oiled muffin pan) Bake 20 min. then check with a toothpick to see if done. They may need up to 5 more minutes.
