Blog Archives

My Favorite Mugs

6/26/2019

I'm a teacher, which means I have a lot of mugs. They, along with Starbucks cards, seems to be favorite gifts from students.

Some of my mugs, though, are very special to me. I reach for them over and over. This is one of them.

In 2017, my husband and I sold our house in Albuquerque and moved to the other side of the Sandia mountains. Because what had been a five minute commute was now going to be a 50 minute one, I decided to leave the school at which I'd been teaching for a decade and find a new job on this side of the mountains. When someone left this in my cubby hole during the first week of school (with a sweet welcoming note!) I knew that I had made the right decision.

This is my go-to weekend cup because it's huge. I can fill it up and dare myself to have a complete scene done before the coffee's either gone or cold. Most of the time I don't win, but the challenge goads me on.

Jennifer Bohnhoff writes novels for middle schoolers, young adults, and up. In her spare time she teaches language arts to 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students at a middle school out in New Mexico's eastern plains. You can learn more about her and her novels here.

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Inspiration in an old Bottle

6/12/2019

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When my mother in law passed away a few years back, my husband was left to sort out a lot of her belongings. There were clothes and furniture and household items, many of which were sold in a garage sale or given to charity.

But there were also boxes of old papers and pictures to be sorted through, and so many told stories that my husband and I hadn't known. We'd known that my father in law had been turned down for service in World War II. We hadn't known that he'd then joined the Minnesota Home Guard, nor what that service entailed. We found receipts for wedding rings and hospital visits, and other little chits and scraps that hinted at the long and interesting life that had come to an end.

The jar sitting on the author's desk with all her notes and notecards.

We also found things that either didn't give away their story, or whose story were - and remain - a complete mystery. A small white jar falls into this last category. This jar has a metal screw-top lid and a red and green label that says that it once contained Peredixo Cream, a greaseless massage requisite that was sold by the American Druggists Syndicate Laboratories of New York City. The back of the label says that it is an exceptional toilet preparation that is cleansing, soothing, cooling and refreshing to the skin, that it should be rubbed into the skin twice a day, and that it will not grow hair.

The real mystery to me is that this jar wasn't packed into the box with my mother in law's hairnets, brushes and toothpaste; It was tucked into a box of papers and receipts. This led my husband and I to conjecture that perhaps it once held paperclips, or rubber bands, or push pins. I'm sure many of you have a repurposed jar on your desk corralling these kinds of small items. The jar ended up sitting next to our printer, waiting for one of us to need a small jar for some purpose. It sat there for about a year and a half.

This spring, I began research on my latest book, which for right now, at least, has the working title The Determined Will, a phrase taken from Into Battle, a poem from the English World War I poet Julian Grenfell. My story takes place on a ranch in southern New Mexico, and in a World War I casualty clearing station in France.

In my search, I came across a digitized copy of Everybody's Magazine. It had short stories by Frank Norris and O Henry, poems, articles on childcare, politics, and health issues. And in the back were lots of advertisements.

To my surprise, one of the ads was for Peredixo Cream!

Further research told me that this was a very popular cream in the 1910s and 1920s. It was touted as "the original Peroxide Cream," and claimed to contain a healing agent

called peredixo.

Harvey Washington Wiley, an American chemist known as the father of the FDA, reported that it was nothing more than soap, water, and starch. Eventually the public caught on and the cream stopped being a best seller.

Having something from my time period sitting right on my desk seemed far too serendipitous not to utilize! I felt compelled to write this little jar of cream into my novel. It shows up in Chapter One when my heroine comes in from riding fence. Agnes is a spunky, rough and ready cowgirl. She is not the type to keep face cream on her bureau. But her older sisters, who all married and moved away from the ranch are. They are also the kind of sisters who, concerned for the welfare of their tomboy sister, just might give her a jar of a miracle working cream. Agnes uses it not to catch a husband, but to sooth her sunburned, chapped skin.

Now, I look at the little white jar on my desk, and I don't think of filling it with paperclips anymore. I am filling it with stories, and letting it fill my stories with an interesting new layer of authenticity.

Jennifer Bohnhoff lives and writes in rural New Mexico. She is the author of several historical novels set in different periods ranging from the middle ages to World War II.

She is currently working on two: the one discussed above and one set in New Mexico during the Civil War. Her books are available in paperback and ebook versions from Amazon and other online booksellers.

You can read more about her and her books on her website.

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Eating Morning Sunshine

6/3/2019

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Eating lemon-flavored sweets is kind of like ingesting pure sunshine. There is no brighter, sunnier food than one that is laced with the sweet-tart essence of lemon. Making these muffins is sure to guarantee a bright start to your morning. Just don’t make them on the day that your office will be running drug tests on their employees: poppy seeds can leave dreadfully incriminating markers in blood and urine samples.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup lemon juice

2 3/4 cup manic muffin mix
1 pkg (3.4 oz) instant lemon pudding mix
1 TBS. poppy seeds

Mix the 3 dry ingredients together. Add wet ingredients and stir until there are no dry spots.
Fill muffin cups that have been lined with papers 3/4 full of batter.
Bake in a 350 oven for 20 minutes.

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Movies to Commemorate D-Day

6/1/2019

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June 6 is the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. One way to commemorate this historic day is to watch a movie about it. Here are a few recommendations.

Ike: Countdown to D-Day

This 2004 movie, which originally aired on the A&E Channel, stars Tom Selleck as General Dwight Eisenhower. Instead of the day itself, this movie tells the story of the three months leading up to it. Operation Overlord was quite an undertaking. The weather, other leaders, and sheer luck seemed to be against this invasion ever succeeding.

The Longest Day

If you want a bullet-point detailed list of events that occurred on D-Day, The Longest Day is the movie for you. Filmed in 1962 and based on the book by the same name written by Cornelius Ryan (the book is well worth a read, too! Ryan's sources include eyewitness accounts, journals and diaries, and lots of official records), this epic movie covers the big picture while at the same time giving enough personal vignettes to make the story personal. Plus, just about every body who was anybody in Hollywood appears in this movie.

The Big Red One

This isn't a movie about D-Day per se. Rather, it follows one sergeant of the First Infantry Division through World War II, including its landing on Omaha Beach. Lee Marvin plays the sergeant, and Mark Hamill, fresh off attaining stardom in Star Wars, plays a private whose conscience forbids him from killing the enemy. This epic war film was Samuel Fuller, whose Hollywood bread and butter was B grade movies, and it shows.

Saving Private Ryan

This 1998 movie is also not about D-Day, but the invasion comprises its opening scene. Much more graphic and realistic than the three movies above, this one supposedly left veterans in its screening audience in tears. I can't say that it won't give you nightmares, but watching the first half hour of this movie will make you appreciate what our soldiers and sailors went through that day in a way that the others won't.

Did I miss your favorite D-Day movie? Tell me about it and I'll add it to my list of movies to watch next D-Day.

Jennifer Bohnhoff is an educator and writer. Her novel Code: Elephants on the Moon is set in Normandy at the time of the D-Day invasions. You can read more about her book and the trip she took through Normandy to research it on her website.

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My Favorite Mugs

Inspiration in an old Bottle

Eating Morning Sunshine

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Movies to Commemorate D-Day

Ike: Countdown to D-Day

The Longest Day

The Big Red One

Saving Private Ryan

ABout Jennifer Bohnhoff

Categories

Archives

My Favorite Mugs

Inspiration in an old Bottle

Eating Morning Sunshine

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins ​

Movies to Commemorate D-Day

Ike: Countdown to D-Day

The Longest Day

The Big Red One

Saving Private Ryan

ABout Jennifer Bohnhoff

Categories

Archives

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins