By, Gina Meyers
How do you pay homage to a television show? A show that completely changed my life. A show that changed millions of people's lives and still reruns even today. "Weeelll" as Samantha Stephens would say, you just wiggle your nose and go for it! Before I wrote The Magic of Bewitched Trivia and More Book, I was an aspiring writer. After writing the Bewitched Book, I became an author. Not only that, I became a Bewitched Expert and traveled the United States on a book signing tour, and started a fan club, that reached people in Japan, England, Australia, and even some prison inmates down south. My children got to join in the fun of exciting Bewitched talks, Halloween Parties, book signings, trivia contests, mall extravaganzas, meeting celebrities, traveling to Salem, Massachusetts to see the Samantha Statue and so much more. They got to go on the radio with me, participate in an internationally televised television show (called Bewitched Fanatical), help me prepare for television segments, create food for television segments, join in the newspaper interviews, etc. I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy magazine interviews, live television cooking demonstrations, participating in fun Bewitched related events.
My favorite memories are too many, but I'll try.
1) Having a book-signing in Glendale, California at The Barnes & Noble with Kasey Rogers, Louise Tate, the "bosses wife". A boy came for his fourteenth birthday to my book signing as his birthday present. I remember my son Lucas was a baby at the time and my husband took him for awhile during the event. Me, my daughter Lauren, Kasey Rogers, and her mate, Mark Wood laughed and had a great time. We met many fans of Bewitched that day and each person had a story to share.
2) Hosting a Bewitched Bash at our custom home in North East, Fresno. The best part was donating proceeds to NAMI and Make A Wish Foundation. The amount of work that went into the party and my type A personality when it comes to details I wouldn't wish on anyone, however, the event was very fun and memorable.
3) My (former)husband surprising me with a Bewitched Play in Shell Beach, California. A dinner party murder mystery Bewitched theme was held at The Cove in Shell Beach.
4) Staying at The Historic Hawthorne Hotel, where the Bewitched Cast and Crew stayed during the filming of their Salem Segments.
5) The librarians in Salem giving me dozens of newspaper clippings about Bewitched.
6) Aloha, my Bewitched Book Signing in Hawaii. The best part was being presented with a lei.
7) Oscar, the manager, at the now defunct San Francisco, California Fisherman's Wharf Barnes & Noble. He always made me feel welcome.
8) The countless events at the Edwards Theater, now defunct Sierra Vista movie theater.
9) The complimentary coffees, double chocolate frappuccinos that everyone in the family was allowed during my autograph parties at Barnes & Noble.
10) The hundreds of people that I have connected with as a result of Bewitched.
It all started because I loved a television show. From that passion grew a joy of writing trivia tidbits, honing in on my marketing skills, creating events, hosting trivia contests, creating culinary classics. Bewitched, spans decades and generations. It unthaws the proverbial TV Dinner and brings it to life with a charming cast of characters that everyone can relate to. We all have had an overbearing boss, or a neighbor that was just way too noisy, a kooky cousin, crazy relatives and a mother or father-in-law who just gets our goat.
It's magical, like life.... Thanks Bewitched for making my dreams into realities, cheering me up on bad days, being there through it all, and teaching me so many lessons.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Saturday, May 31, 2014
You Always Want To Be Samantha!
You always want to be Samantha!
My childhood neighbor and friend Rosalie and I would often
get together after school and play. My idea for playtime involved acting out
scenes from the television show Bewitched. I chose myself for the role of
Samantha. Samantha Stephens is a blonde, sexy wife and mother, with her
cauldron hooked to the rotisserie. She can twitch her nose and get anything she
wants, but she abstains to make her husband think he wears the pants in the
family. Serena, Samantha’s cousin, dark haired, is a free spirited, hippy,
single witch on the prowl for anything that suits her fancy. Serena purrs when
she wants and an occasion howls too.
Rose never wanted to be Serena, she always wanted to be
Samantha. She was forever going home and crying to her mom Rachel whenever I
suggested it was Bewitched Playtime.
(Though, I honestly didn’t know I was upsetting Rose).
“Why does Gina always get to be Samantha?” Was a typical
tome said by Rose to her mom. She didn’t really tell me though, so it was only
when we were filming for a reality show called Bewitched Fanatical that the situation came full circle, or so I
thought.
In 2005, I was living in my “dream house” with my version of
Darrin and Tabitha and Adam Stephens, when I got the call from a television
producer that I had been recommended by Mark Simpson, The Bewitched Collector, to be the co- guest on a reality show about fans of the
television show Bewitched.
I invited Rose and her mom Rachel to be a part of the
filming of “a day in the life of a Bewitched fan”. So, in August of 2005, TV
Tropolis, a Canadian Television
Production Company, sent a crew over to my home.
Rose, as usual was a
good sport about the whole day. She graciously did not mention my monopolizing the
role of Samantha, however, in between takes, Rachel imitated Rosalie when she
was little.
“Mommy…. Why does
Gina always get to be Samantha?”
Fast forward to 2013… A friend came over for a
publishing/brainstorming meeting.
She looked at a large painting I have of Mary and Elizabeth.
She pointed to Mary and she said, “I’ll be Mary and you can be Elizabeth .”
“Ok”, I said. (Smiling).
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Getting honest about gluten by, Cookbook Author Gina Meyers (Gluten-Free Polenta Bread Recipe too!)
Getting Honest About Gluten
By, Gina Meyers
Many people have an issue with gluten. Gluten is found in
grains such as wheat, barley, kamut, spelt, tritrale, and rye. People with a
condition known as Celiac disease have a sensitivity to gluten. A gluten-free
regime is a lifestyle that excludes the protein gluten. Gluten, in individuals
who suffer from Celiac disease, causes an inflammation in the small
intestines. It is believed that restricting rye, wheat, and barley from one's
diet, reduces symptoms of Celiac disease and helps prevent complications of the
disease.
Luckily, a lot of grocery stores and restaurants are getting on
board with Gluten-Free products and Gluten-Free Menu items. These handy tips
and Gluten-Free Polenta Bread will help you to organize your Gluten-Free
cabinet. Surprisingly, many foods do contain gluten, be on the lookout
for: Bouillons, Broths, Licorice Candy, Salad
Dressings, Flavored teas, Imitation seafood and Soup and soup
mixes.
Good Gluten-Free Foods are: Beans, seeds, nuts in their
natural, unprocessed form,Fresh eggs,Fresh meats, fish and poultry (not
breaded, batter-coated or marinated),Fruits and vegetables, Most dairy
products, Amaranth,Arrowroot, Buckwheat, Corn and
cornmeal, Flax, Gluten-free flours (rice, soy, corn, potato,
bean),Hominy
(corn), Millet, Quinoa, Rice, Sorghum, Soy,
and Tapioca.
Gluten Free Polenta Bread
1 cup of rice flour or almond flour, your preference
1 cup of Polenta
3 teaspoons of baking powder
½ teaspoon of salt
½ cup of sugar
1 egg
1 cup of low fat milk
¼ cup of vegetable oil
Directions: Place all of ingredients (except rice flour) in mixing bowl and blend with a wooden spoon. Once mixture has been mixed, add the rice flour and continue stirring. Add a little bit of Extra Virgin Olive Oil or spray with cooking spray an 8 inch pan and pour polenta mixture into rectangular shaped pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven on the middle rack for 20-25 minutes. May also bake as muffins in muffin tins for 18 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Italian Pignoli (Pine Nut) Cookies, by, Gina Meyers
Italian
Pignoli (Pine Nut Cookies)
1 cup pine nuts
1 tube 7 ounces of almond paste *cut into small pieces
2/3 cup of sugar
2 eggs (whites only)
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
Directions: Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix paste, sugar, egg whites and lemon juice in a mixer. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil on a cookie sheet and form Pignoli Cookie Dough with a spoon. Drop about a teaspoonful of dough on the greased cookie sheet. Gently press additional pine nuts onto the top of the cookie. Bake for twenty minutes.
1 cup pine nuts
1 tube 7 ounces of almond paste *cut into small pieces
2/3 cup of sugar
2 eggs (whites only)
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
Directions: Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix paste, sugar, egg whites and lemon juice in a mixer. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil on a cookie sheet and form Pignoli Cookie Dough with a spoon. Drop about a teaspoonful of dough on the greased cookie sheet. Gently press additional pine nuts onto the top of the cookie. Bake for twenty minutes.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Bewitched, Bedazzled, Bewitched
Bewitched,
reminiscent of all great television sitcoms, shows us our place in life. It gives us a glimpse of the family we would
like to be a part of, the job we wish to land, the person we would like to
become, the friends we would like to have, and the dreams we wish to
fulfill. Like a fairy godmother’s magic
dust, a good sitcom covers reality with fantasy and illusion and provides the
modern liberated child in all of us with the security of reruns on the
tube.
Bewitched teaches a valuable lesson, that there is
“magic” in us and it is waiting to be freed.
A talent cannot be suppressed; a gift cannot be ignored in order to
please someone else. In Samantha’s case,
her talent was witchcraft, and she tried to please her mortal husband Darrin by
abstaining from her craft.
A
gift is irrepressible and eventually it will emerge. Look at all the chaos that
occurred when Sam tried to suppress her talent.
Bewitched
showed fans that we all have special hidden talents/ “magic” that need to be
explored.
The Magic of Bewitched: Trivia and More book is
meant to be informational, fun, and a treasure to add to your Bewitched collection. You, the reader,
are invited to the “magic” show.
We
want love to be magical. We want to live
simply and happily. No one wants their
life to be humdrum, married to an individual that sometimes acts like a
dum-dum, live in a home in the middle of doldrums, with average children. We all desire to be special and unique. Not only do we want to meet Mr. or Miss
Right, we want it to be a mystical experience.
In a life that has countless trying moments, we deserve something
magical to cherish. Just go back for a
moment in time—look down memory lane.
What are your fondest memories?
Do they seem unreal, like a dream?
That is exactly why Bewitched
was so appealing. It made us secretly
wish that there were real witches like Samantha that turned mundane life into
magic!
Bewitched Banana Blueberry Bread
1- 6 ounce size of Light Vanilla Yogurt
2 bananas
½ package of Frozen Blueberries
1 Tablespoon of Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon of Baking soda
2 eggs
butter (optional)
2 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
½ cup of vegetable oil
Directions: Mix
all ingredients (excluding flour) with an electric mixer on medium speed,
scraping sides with the spatula until well blended. Add flour and blend. May
add the blueberries early since they are frozen. If using fresh blueberries,
wait until you have added the flour, then spoon in and fold fresh blueberries.
Spray (or grease) a loaf pan and bake in a 350 degree oven for forty minutes,
or until a tooth pick placed in the center of the bread comes out clean.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Put God First
Put God first.
Putting God first means not being afraid to being open to
God’s divine calling in your life. First, forgive yourself . That is the only
way that you can truly FEEL God’s love. God loves you. Whomever you are,
whatever you do, wherever you live. Forgiving yourself means letting go of the
idea that you have to be a perfect human being.
Second, you have to believe in miracles and share these
miracles with those around you. I have been a witness to many miracles.
Miracles are a sign of God’s activity validating the divine message and the
messenger. You can put your trust in God. I believe the worst thing a person can
do is to deny God’s miracles.
Monday, January 21, 2013
I Have A Dream Speech on Equality with an ESL Lesson
Do you treat people equally? If you are a parent, do you favor one child over the other? Have you ever treated someone differently based upon appearance? There are a whole slew of things that make us different, and so many things that we have in common.
Respecting our differences.
Do you assume something about a person’s character if they have tattoos? What about body piercings? What about the type of clothes they wear or how they speak? What if you saw a disabled man or woman trying to get on the metro (bus), would you help him/her?
Do you treat people equally?
Aim: fluency based lesson: speaking, writing, and reading
Definition of: The Golden Rule: treating others the way you want to be treated.
Questionnaire
1. Is it ok to insult or make fun of people as long as they don't hear it? Why or why not.
2. What do you dislike most about the way people treat one another?
3. What do you think is Martin Luther King's message in his, "I Have A Dream Speech"?
4. Do you think racism exists?
4. Do you think racism exists?
5. Do you think people are afraid of differences sometimes?
6. What are some ways you can treat people lovingly and kindly?
Vocabulary
A put down
An insult
Respect
The Golden Rule
Positive traits
Characteristics
Negative traits
Personality
Anaphora (repeating words at the beginning of neighboring clauses, “I Have A Dream”, repeated eight times is an example, Anaphora is commonly used in speeches)
Alliteration (Device used most commonly in poetry, when the same consonants are repeated, “She sells sea shells down by the sea shore.” Alliteration is used for poetry mainly).
Fluency
Listening: Aretha Franklins’ “Respect” song
Writing: assignment
1) Have you ever been made fun of for something you couldn't change?
2) Have you ever had a Dream like the Dream that Dr. Martin Luther King Junior describes in his I Have A Dream Speech?
Writing: Dr. Martin Luther King uses Anaphora in his speech. By repeating the words, I Have A Dream. Write your own speech using starting each of your five sentences with, I Have A Dream……..
On the board (write on easel)
Do's and Don’ts list for treating people that are different from us with respect, identifying behaviors that are both positive and negative traits.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
Gina is the publisher of Serendipity Media Group, a marketing, promotions, and publishing house. http://www.serendipitymediagroup.com
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