Photo by Ian Wallace
I’m proud to give you the first guest post by our daughter Faith Weaver. Faith is a dancer, writer, and an incredible young woman-of-God. Watch for the link for her coming blog for her first novel! (She is also the amazing photographer of many of the photos I use on this blog, including the one below of her writing desk!)
It sticks to the roof of your mouth. It adds just the right amount of savory to chocolate. It makes everything sticky. And it helps writer’s block. Yes, that’s right. Peanut butter is a magical property that can seep into your brain cells and unlock the deepest blocks when it comes to writing. So, when I think of peanut butter, I don’t taste peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and Reese’s on my smores. I don’t think of sticking my finger in a brand-new jar of Jif (family tradition that grosses my husband out). I think of writing.
When I was young, my mom taught me the love of writing, just as she did my sister. I would sit beside them as they wrote, listening to them tap the keyboards as they poured out their thoughts, and then suddenly, silence. The quiet consumed the room as they 
thought of what wonderful words they should type next. Then came the well-known sound of the backspace bar as sentences were written … re-written … deleted … changed … written the same way as the first time … and then deleted again. Finally, one of them would grab a jar of peanut butter which was never too far away, and they’d scoop out a spoonful to eat as they thought. Somehow, the magic never failed and soon they would be back to typing away.
Eventually, I became curious and asked what was so special about the jar of peanut butter, to which they replied that the peanut butter was “Writing Peanut Butter,” and it helped with writer’s block. It was like joining a secret club! My excitement over sharing something so special with my mom and sister, whom I idolized as a kid, made me feel like I was walking on clouds. And the biggest surprise: it worked! The peanut butter was actually magic! As I grew, I always had a jar of peanut butter beside the computer, and when I moved out, it was the first thing I bought for my home office. (NOTE: Generic brands aren’t magic, they’re just messy!)
Now, as the Montrose Christian Writers Conference draws closer, I am spending more and more time in front of my computer trying to write furiously. But with extra writing comes extra writer’s block, and I will be forever grateful that my mom and sister instilled me with the great peanut butter secret. Dipping a spoon into a jar of creamy goodness (crunchy peanut butter is an abomination) always starts my creative juices flowing again. I like to think the stickiness is pulling the block away, leaving a fresh path of thought in its wake. As I’ve said before and I’ll say again: “Writing Peanut Butter to the rescue!”
*** What does opening a new jar of peanut butter mean to you? Please, share your story! Click on the words beside the date of this post. Scroll down to the box with the heading, “Leave a reply.” Thank you for sharing!
*** The week after the writers’ conference always means anticipation! It’s also the end of my Christmas-in-July events. Check the post next week to see what I’ll be doing to anticipate the actual December 25th celebration of Christ’s birth!
This week’s story word begins with a capital letter: July. Most people in PA think summer, Independence Day, swimming, picnics, and vacations. I could stories about those, some funny (one vacation in Potter County when I slept in a bed with my aunt, woke during the night, whacked her with my stuffed horse, then lay down and went to sleep), some exciting (the 4th of July fireworks display in Galeton, PA, where we sat right under the place they exploded and had embers cascading over us), some scary (the year 1995 when I went into premature labor around eight weeks into the pregnancy and was put on immediate bedrest for the duration … all went well in the end, daughter #3 only three weeks early).
everything Christmas since I shoved off the covers Christmas morning, anxious for Mom and Dad to call us to come down to check what filled our stockings. Fun traditions from my childhood Christmases spilled over into our daughters’ lives, including a few new ones. I’ll share about those in detail over December blog posts (I know, teaser!).
One hot day, our daughter, Faith, brought me a delightful surprise—a Christmas-in-July gift! She’d stopped at our local florist for a bouquet of red, green, and white flowers. The owner searched for a tiny Christmas notecard and a plastic Christmas tree pick to add to the festive holiday ensemble. Faith had also picked up a new notebook and a two-pack of pretty designer pens for me to use on a special writing project. And she topped it off with a cold bottle of Starbucks’ vanilla Frappuccino.
When I think of words which entice memories from all five senses, pickles come early on the list. I see mounded dirt covered with green vines, tiny hands moving the leaves to peek at midget cucumbers growing. I feel prickly skins as I scrubbed them prior to slicing and dicing for canning. I smell pervasive odors of onions and vinegar as we mixed them with the pickling 
spices. And taste … ah, those canned bread and butter pickles, a bit sweet, a bit tart. My senses reel with the memories.
At the roller rink where I spent my teen years, they offered live organ music to skate by. I can still hear lilting melodies perfect for free-spirited wheeling around the floor. Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” melted into “Rockin’ Robin” from the 1950s. We “shook, rattled, and rolled” with Bill Haley’s hit, then slowed for a couples’ skate to Bobby Darin’s “Dream Lover.” 
Today, another pickle brings me much joy, and since it IS Christmas-in-July time, let’s talk about it! Early in our daughters’ childhood, we found a unique ornament—a blown-glass pickle with a story. Always drawn to things with stories, we read how the pickle tradition started in Germany. Parents hid the ornament in the Christmas tree after the children fell asleep. Christmas morning found the kiddos scrambling to be the first to find the pickle, for the one who did received an extra gift! We bought that pickle and continue to hang it today, granting the find-ee a special gift (usually something to share with everyone—a box of Pop Tarts or cocoa).
pumpkin (not the jack-o-lantern kind, but the let’s-bake-a-pie kind) and turned it into a goose! She stood it up, painted eyes on the small head-end, painted the stem-beak black, and added a felt scarf around its neck. I smiled at her ingenuity and creative spirit. Set by our Ben Franklin stove with a few gourds tucked around his “feet,” he made quite a fetching fall display.
legaciesletloose 