Jeff Goins is a writer of several best-selling books, a keynote speaker, blogger and founder of Tribes Writers, an online writers group and yearly event for writers and creators called Tribe Conference. He lives with his family near Nashville, Tennessee. Today we will discuss his story and his newest book, Real Artists Don’t Starve.
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Show notes –
Spark My Muse podcast: Episode 6 – The Skinny on Wine Spritzers and Friendship as Creative Fuel
Photo by Brett Bastello – Personal Creations (click for link)
Today’s episode covers the skinny on wine spritzers and also how friendship fuels our creative muse.
This episode is brought to you by the book Dog in the Gap 10 essays inspired by the life lessons learned while befriending with the family canine. Heart warming, full of wonderful photography and good humor. Click the links to learn more to get a copy.
The Bonus Edition is just a $1 more and it contains lots of extras and goodies.
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What is a wine spritzer exactly and why now is a good time to make one?
First, what’s up with the word “spritzer”?
The word “spritzer” comes from the German spritzen “spatter, squirt, spray, sprinkle”.
(additional note: just saying it involves some spritzing, right?)
The wine sprizter is just a simple drink combination of chilled wine and something that sparkles, such as sparkling mineral water, club soda, or seltzer water.
It’s consumed more for refreshment than anything else!
(It’s easy on the liver.)
• Drinking wine in warm weather or in the hot sun is always a bad idea. The spritzer is a good choice for summer because of its lower alcohol content, less calories, and being less inexpensive than straight wine consumption. Serving them is a great a way for you or your guests to not drink too much before the hambergers are ready at your cookout.
Too much wine (or any alcohol) during the summer will dehydrate you and you can quickly feel tired or ill.
Spritzers are mixed in various ratios and sometimes fruit juice is added. The two most common are 50/50 or, 1/2 cup club soda to 1 cup of wine.
• The Spanish use red wine, fruit, and lemon soda. That sounds delicious!
I think wine or juice Spritzers are the go-to outdoor party beverage that provides a less expensive refreshing treat for outdoor entertaining and outdoor fun, sunny get-togethers, and bonding with friends. (They can be made without alcohol for teetotalers or children too–just skip the wine and add more fruit juice.)
• For parties, you can fill a punch bowl with the right ratios.
Some of my favorite wine spritzer recipes!
The Super Simple Spritzer
Just two ingredients:
6 ounces of a reasonably priced of white wine – or a blush wine–
plus 6 ounces of 7-Up (or try sprite or ginger ale).
Sublime Citrus Spritzer
2 lemon slices, 2 lime slices, 5 ice cubes.
4 ounces of your your favorite white wine and 2 ounces of lemon-lime seltzer.
Peach Dream Party Bowl Spritzer
6 quartered peaches and 2 tablespoons of honey.
Mix into a blender and puree. Place in a pitcher and chill for about two hours, then mix in a bottle of white wine, and stir well.
Finally, add a liter of cold sparkling water or seltzer.
Garnish with mint and extra slices of peach.
Citrus Ice Cube Party Pitcher Spritzer
2 lemons, zested
2 small oranges, zested (or 1 large orange, zested)
1 bottle white or blush wine
3 cups sparkling water
Directions:
Place the zest as a mixture into an empty ice cube tray, add water and freeze for 3 to 5 hours.
In a large pitcher, combine the wine and the sparkling water and then the citrus zest ice cubes.
Stir and serve.
White Wine and Fruity Sweet Party Spritzer
1 bottle of sweet white wine
3/4 cup white grape juice or apple juice
1 liter bottle desired-flavor low-calorie sparkling water, chilled.
(optional and delicious Assorted fresh fruits (such as raspberries, blackberries, pineapple, sliced kiwifruit, blueberries, lemon slices, lime slices, halved strawberries, or red grapes)
Directions
1 In a large punch bowl combine wine and grape juice.
Just before serving, slowly pour in sparkling water.
If desired, garnish individual servings with fruit. Makes 10 (6-ounce) servings
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Friendship is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy all friendships die.
Friendship, unlike cooperation, is unnecessary to human survival.
Friendship, like philosophy and art is one of the things that gives value to survival.
how friendship differs from the other three types of love by focusing on its central question: “Do you see the same truth.”
Anne Lamott
In the course of the years a close friendship will always reveal the shadow in the other as much as ourselves, to remain friends we must know the other and their difficulties and even their sins and encourage the best in them, not through critique but through addressing the better part of them, the leading creative edge of their incarnation, thus subtly discouraging what makes them smaller, less generous, less of themselves.
My essay:
Pertaining to sparking one’s muse. Good friends, that offer selflessly the balance of honesty and gentleness, toughness and acceptance, encouragement and motivation breath life into our lives and our art. Being social creatures, as humans, we crave social bonds even though they inevitably cause us pain at times. Isolated, for too long, we shrink into ourselves with self-delusion, self-absorption, unwarranted loathing and aggrandizement.
Aloneness is a dread for many or a craving for those misfit. And even those misfit hope, sometimes, to find someone else in the dark that might recognize him and name him and finally tell him he is well enough and valuable. Only in the mirror of friendship can we have solid footing and might be drawn out into our best selves. Erotic love has too much fire and entanglement for that. Agape love too much work and abdication. Brotherly love too much responsibility and duty. Only a soul friend can birth you into your actualization most purely.
Friends and confidants help us be continually born into the next stage of development. We risk with them and they with us and the synergy makes us stronger. At its best it is a fountain of grace sourced in Originator of Love and Goodness.
Do you have a question or do you have an idea for the show? Please let me know! :)
The cost is prohibitive. Monetary success is doubtful. Potential buyers (probably you) will wince, and balk and hem and haw and most will click away…
So why bother?
I wrote a book for the 2%. It’s something I had to write down for my kids, and to leave something behind that I want to be most remembered for. That path means you have to do it differently, because–to put in bluntly–publishers want a sure-sell and are trying to make money. They don’t care about the things I care about.
I raised the money to make this book. In 2 days on Kickstarter I got the funds to do design it and do a small run and mail off copies to those who funded it. Now I’ve put it on the market at a high price. Chances are you won’t want to buy it. If you do, you will understand why I had to do it. There just isn’t another way–and that’s okay.
I give (and have given) a lot of things away here at the website. Resources, information, tips, ebooks, graphics, etc, and I plan to write more things and create more things at modest prices. But, not for this one. It’s high-end and worth a different route.
If you get a copy, let me know what you liked the best about the book.
I hope you enjoy it!
I wanted to be more intensional about my mindset in 2015 and I created something for myself to do each morning and evening to super charge that. It’s a simple worksheet that takes only 3-7 minutes in the morning and in the evening. And you see results and improvement after just a few days.
It’s free, so you why not give it a try and see for yourself.
You can download it, distribute it, use it in groups, or for yourself.
Just print out a copy for each day, or keep a journal and use the worksheet as your guide.
Habits and rituals for re-centering on what matters are a huge boost to personal improvement on all levels (career, relational, emotional, physical, spiritual, etc). A format (or roadmap) makes it easy to start and execute, but most of all, easier to stick with it until it can transform your thoughts and actions.
If you think that you’d like the new year to get off to a great start or if you feel like you need a guide to get back on track, this is a great resource, I promise you. Simply, download it free, print it, and try it. If you like it, let me know, or tell me what would improve it.
In a goodwill gesture and love and warm fuzzies, I am releasing these to you and the world under a Limited Creative Commons license. (CC). They are free to reproduce, use, and distribute with author attribution to me (Lisa DeLay).
Today, I’m happy to feature a friend of mine, Thomas Turner. If you’ve read this blog over the last few, Thomas and I have been on each other’s blogs. (See his bio at the bottom)
He just created something that will enrich your Advent Season and give your family a deeper based from which to praise, worship and pray to prepare your hearts for the Christ Child this Christmas.
I urge you to get this book (see how to get it free at Noisetrade below) and include the reading of it in your supper time ritual like we are doing in my home.
Thomas Turner is the Strategic Partnerships Research Manager at International Justice Mission and curates Everyday Liturgy, a source for worship and liturgical ideas. He is happy to be living back below the Mason-Dixon line again after a lengthy sojourn in the NYC metro area. You can follow Thomas online, on Facebook and on Twitter.
The cost is prohibitive. Monetary success is doubtful. Potential buyers (probably you) will wince, and balk and hem and haw and most will click away…
