One of the hardest things to teach children is to try again when they’ve failed their first attempts at doing something. Failure is often met with tears and protests. Tying shoes, snapping fingers, blowing bubblegum bubbles, riding a two-wheeler without training wheels, and learning the nines-family in multiplication are some of the recent examples that come to mind.
How exciting it is, though, when a child finally succeeds! They are so excited, they want to keep getting it right over and over and over….. well, you know what it’s like to hear a kid whistling the same prolonged note until you have to politely ask them to go outside and see if the birds can understand their new skill :)
Making tamagoyaki, a sweet, rolled Japanese style omelet used for breakfasts and bento, is a skill I haven’t mastered. I haven’t attempted enough times to be comfortable making it for guests, but I’ll get there! I always seem to get impatient and turn the burner up too high when I make eggs.
Representing perseverance in this month’s five-item giveaway is the bane of my existence : a 18×12 cm makiyakinabe or the “roll-bake-pan”. These deceptively cute little pans are coveted by Japanese foodies as they prove to be tricky to find in the States. This one is coated with a dark, non-stick coating. I’m also including a two-set pack of 33cm bamboo Japanese Kitchen chopsticks, two floral linen pot gloves and an adorable cotton pocket apron. At least you’ll look cute while you flop… I mean flip…. those omelets! (I’m not bitter…. really!)
To enter, in the comments of this post, please leave a story about perseverance or thoughts on encouraging others to keep trying when they feel like giving up. You must leave a pertinent comment to win!
My hope is that this giveaway will help others to keep trying whatever it is they are working on, be it making new food, learning a language, trying to pass an important test, getting published or even persevering in grace through a difficult relationship.
Want to improve your chances of winning? Add these skills to your giveaway repertoire :
Please leave your comment and complete bonus entries by 9PM EST, February 3, 2010.
The winner will need to provide their mother’s maiden name, social security number, and a valid US credit card number + three digit secret code. JUST KIDDING! I will, however, need their name and mailing address which will be kept strictly confidential.
If they’re agreeable, I’d like to interview the winner and feature them in a future post. I would consider including links in the post to the winner’s blog, favorite cause, home business, etc.
Winning contestants may not enter my subsequent monthly giveaway contests for a year following their win. In other words, if you win in February, 2010, you cannot enter again until February, 2011.
From Christine, last month’s giveaway winner: Thank you, so much, Sarah, for the origami paper and books! We are having a blast with it. I am so glad that you included book number one because that is about as advanced as my origami skills are. ;) Maybe one day I will advance to book #6. Thank you, again, so much for the great fun you sent us and for praying for my baby! I hope you are having a blessed day!
Oh I have a great perseverance story! I’m a 2x cervical cancer survivor. First diagnosed when I was 14 ordered to have my annual twice a year. In remission until the summer of 2007 when I had to undergo a hysterectomy & praise God; I’ve been in remission since! :)
Tweet’d :) (@nikowa)
::hugs:: Nikowa! Encouraged by your perseverance and rejoicing with you for being in remission :)
Sarah, I saw your blog and I thought you all would enjoy this story as a side note on the kids trying over and over again. We pulled out the Super Nintendo from forever ago that we still have, we have the game that has all the Mario’s on it. Landen has up to this point not played any video games. We decided to let him give Mario a try… So funny! At first he couldn’t figure out how to run and jump over the two little mushrooms or even jump on them and squish them. When he finally figured out how to conquer the mushrooms, he got to the second tunnel that is larger, and he died several times because his time ran out due to the tunnel being too large and not getting the right sequence of buttons to get on it or over it. After he mastered the tunnel then came the dreaded first hole…and you know I lost count of how many times he died trying to get over that whole. He was determined he was going to beat this game, so next we told him about the third tunnel being a secret passage to go down, but he was unable to jump and stay on the tunnel, so he would fall off and continue till he fell in the hole again. Matt and I were enjoying seeing him try his hardest to beat this game, we would try and talk him through it, but we refused to play it for him because he needed to learn for future boards. He was ecstatic when he finally was able to land on the third tunnel and get through to level 1-2, we are now working on getting through the tall stacked blocks without running out of time! I thought Tom, You & the kids would enjoy that :-) He may need some lessons the next time you all are in! Thought it may bring a smile to your face today!! Miss you all! Love you!
I think the Cooking With Dog version of Tamagoyaki looks easier.
Cool video! I could see my “Mr. Incredible” mastering those with some practice with that special pan. He is my example of perseverance since he persevered through 10+ years of seminary master’s classes at several different institutions (in different states even) before graduating. With a family and full-time job(s) this was not an easy feat!
I would like to share my experience with Bentos and things related to them. I have been trying to get a bento box for about 3 years and still haven’t gotten it. I started by looking my whole country in pursuit of it and found nothing. Sometime later I found a few websites that sell bentos but at the time I couldn’t afford any more expenses. When I got the money, I went forward and did everything to buy them, but for some crazy reason, I couldn’t do it! Some problem on the internet card thing and an lack of options for payment. I still didn’t quit and tried all of the websites I knew. There always seemed to be a problem I couldn’t pass through. This year, when I re-started school, some friend introduced me to one of his friends who is married to a japanese woman and they have a baby boy. I was thrilled to try and speak some japanese with him (or at least I tried) 3 months later, he shouted on the corridor “I’m going to japan on the holidays!” He asked me if I wanted something from there and here0s another chance! I asked him to grab me some bento things and gave him the money for it. Currently he’s in Japan on his holidays and will be back next month, hopefully with my bento boxes.
In the mean time I’ve been able to buy 3 bento books without a problem, which gave me more hope, to finally getting those lovely boxes.
I have tried making a tamagoyaki on the square pan on a friend who’s a chef. Tamagoyaki pan has been almost the same thing, there aren’t any in my country. I usually make it on round pans and cut the ends to make it square, but yes, it is incredibly hard to make it right on the first tries. My chef friend once joked about making one everyday for 5 years should make my technique better (he actually does this O.O)
http://cookingffun.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/pan-fried-shrimp-garlic-lemon/
Wrote about it at the end of today’s post.
Sarah, I love your giveaways, especially how you tie each one to some bigger theme. Perserverence… my daughter is slowly learning this. I remember as a kindergartner, she was struggling with properly writing the letter “d” using the corrcet sequence of strokes. We worked on it in the morning and were both beginning to feel frustrated when I realized I needed to rush off to a ministry meeting at church. I left her with her grandmother and told her we’d try again tomorrow. I returned from my lunch meeting and errand running time in the afternoon and saw that she had been working on her own, writing out “d’s” on her magnadoodle toy. And they looked great! I asked her if she asked grandma to help and she said no. I was so proud of the fact that she took initiative on her own and didn’t give up. She later applied this to teaching herself how to use chopsticks.
I have a story of perseverance that happened just this past weekend. I was babysitting my little cousin, who is about three years old. I decided to teach her how to draw one of those hand trace turkeys.
The first time I did it, she watched pretty carefully, and when I let her try, she only drew around one finger before she decided she was done. She was unhappy that it didn’t look like mine. So we repeated the process a few times until she finally drew what resembled a really fat hand turkey (since she traced pretty far around her fingers). I asked her where the mouth and the feathers were, and she drew them in the right places! She was so proud of herself. I was pretty proud too. It’s hard to teach kids how to try again if they mess up, and some of us can’t seem to grasp the concept later in life, but if we keep trying, we can all succeed in what we’re trying to do!
I’m also going to Tweet about this contest under my Twitter name, SammiGene to get a bonus entry. :)
http://cookingffun.wordpress.com/
added to blogroll! ^^
I’ve seen so much perseverance in my life (most recently in my many attempts to spell perseverance correctly for this comment), but when I saw this I immediately thought of my older sister.
My sister is not related to me by blood, or even adopted. She was just a medical foster child from Haiti who did have a family back home who loved her, but she had to leave them to come to the U.S. and get treatment for her scoliosis. Her spine was curved to the degree of some of the worst cases recorded.
She faced a lot of hardships in her quest for medical care so she could return home. She was originally staying with a family in Oregon when not long before she was supposed to enter the hospital, the doctor who offered her care for free quit. She then came to live with us, where she underwent several unsuccessful treatments (including having a steel ring bolted into her skull) from doctors unwilling to do the risky spinal surgery. She struggled with depression from being separated from her real family, but stood strong through it all, doing whatever the doctors told her she had to do to get better. She returned to Haiti post-operation with a perfectly straight back almost four years ago now.
Her and her family and even their house also survived the earthquake, by the by. : )
I have gone on about 40 interviews in the past three years and possibly applied for thousands and thousands of jobs (more than is sane to keep count) – all in my search for a perfect job. Everytime I get offered a job, I get made redundant before a year is up, and my search continues. Either that or I land myself with a control freak manager, and the search continues again.
Aaarggh!
But I persevere. My previous manager had told me that in times of redundancies, it is my perserverance and continious encouragement to my colleagues in the same boat that keeps the team’s spirit up – seeing that I have been continously been at the edge of being jobless, it doesn’t faze me anymore!
ps: RT-ed this on twitter as well! hooray! Thanks for offering this up – I have just made my first tamagoyaki on a round pan and definately need practice and preferably a REAL pan!
.-= notabrownbag´s last blog ..Bento no. 9: Freezer stash saves the day =-.
We’ve been through a rough time for the past several months and even before that because of the economic downturn; my husband lost his job last fall and was unable to find another until just this week (praise the Lord!!!). In the last month, I have moved to another state, enrolled my daughter in school, and started a new job. None of these things would have been my preference, but sometimes you have to persevere and make the best of your situation. My daughter enjoys school so far and seems to be adjusting well, and I like my new job and am settling into new routines. Would I rather still be a stay-at-homeschooling Mom? Yes, and one day maybe that will be an option for us once again. In the meantime, I will continue to move forward, persevere, and take advantage of new opportunities instead of lamenting what I don’t have any longer.
.-= Shauna´s last blog ..a new routine =-.
I also retweeted. @shaunarum
.-= Shauna´s last blog ..a new routine =-.
Sarah,
I wrote a post on my regular blog, called HelpNotes, about your giveaway, here. The link to it is:
http://helpnotes.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-version-of-persevering-for-now.html
My post shares some things God has been doing while teaching me perseverance. It also shares some details about my story of how God wants our family, and me, to persevere, while serving Him.
God bless you!
Sarah,
I just wrote a tweet and sent you a “message” on twitter.
My name there is ElElyonsFriend. (just exactly as I’ve typed it, there, please).
God bless you!