The Story Behind the Memory/Recipe Book

Extreme Sports SCUBA Recipe/Memories Book. story behind the memory/recipe book

These last few weeks I’ve been working on an extremely fun project! It all started because of my Grandma really.

One goal I set for myself was to write a cookbook. Well, I haven’t quite done that yet, but I have written some of my own recipes out of the deal. That’s always kind of fun and an accomplishment. But, I did kind of write a book of sorts.

How did my Grandma start this? Well, she wrote her own cookbook and involved me in the publishing process. We self-published through Diggypod. It was such an easy experience that I decided to bug Deb one day about publishing a book.

Deb, Grady, and their sons Justin and Jared opened Extreme Sports SCUBA in 1997. This year makes 20 years of being in business. Constantly you are hearing stories about this event or that trip. Some fun. A few you wish you didn’t know. Then, some you never want to speak of again, but constantly do… In August I got the brilliant idea that we need to do a memories book/recipe book. Why August because that seems like a random month. Well, August 1997 was when the store opened. 20 years.

We presented it at Dive club meeting. People discussed it and “voted” and the idea was born. I gave myself a job I was totally ecstatic about.

Story behind the memory/recipe book

We asked everyone to have their recipes, stories, and photos turned in by the end of September. That would give us a month or two to finalize the book. Like with most projects, I started to feel like a hound trying to get people to participate. I wanted as many people in the book as we could include. We didn’t want anyone to feel the book was about one person or family, although Deb and Grady are in there a lot. That’s only to be expected, it’s their store after all.

Deb and I went through scrapbooks and digital pictures and you name it. I scanned photos. Looked for stories. Annoyed the heck out of some people to participate. Finally, it was finished. Sort of.

The Process

We had the book semi-finalized. I learned from a few mistakes I felt like got made on my grandma’s book. Once I had all stories, pictures, and recipes finalized, I printed out each page so we could put them where we wanted them. Then we went back and physically placed each page and story where we wanted it. As we did, I placed them into the computer file. That way the hard copy looked just like the soft copy. Once we thought we had all i’s dotted and t’s crossed, I sent the electronic file to Deb and then Dan to proofread. We figured the more eyes we got on the book, the better we would catch mistakes. Once both of them signed off on the book, we printed the book out again.

But I wasn’t happy. Blame my Type A personality or the perfectionist side of me. If a recipe was more than one page, I tried to make it where people didn’t have to flip a page. I wanted this as perfect as I could get it. Perfect is subjective, especially in this instance, but that’s okay. I wanted it the best we could do. If we were going to do this, I wanted it right.

I then joked that the minute we’d send it to print, we’d find a mistake or maybe a story that was forgotten. Well, I can tell you the stories were forgotten. One like Dan and the infamous “Dead cat” also known as a Safari Hunt animal that he found months later. That’s okay. I think we’re going to do the 25th edition. That means we’ll start collecting NOW.

A picture of Tiffiny and her son Austin in the Memory/Recipe Book

Diggypod

The book is awesome in my opinion. I was quite pleased. Again, we used Diggypod to publish it. They are amazing to work with. I wasn’t sure something was right so I called and talked to a customer representative. She pointed me in the right direction. I did what she said and had another problem. Since I wasn’t sure, I called again and got another customer service rep who spent 30+ minutes on the phone with me. He couldn’t figure out my problem either so he waived a fee since I was ahead of the game and contacted them. They’d work with me this time and help me fix the issue free of charge. Guys, now that’s customer service at its finest. I didn’t ask for that.

Then when a third rep got involved and didn’t see the note that they’d help free of charge, so I was back on the phone with them and they helped me yet again. Then we were supposed to have the books on roughly the 30th of November. Guys, they got them to us a week early. The book published a week earlier than their email said and they shipped a week earlier. We got them November 24th.

The Book

I’m so happy with the way they turned out. Instead of doing calendar’s this year, Deb decided to use these as their yearly gift. Switch it up a bit. There were a couple “complaints” that people wanted the calendars so she went back and did just a few, but I’m so excited about these books. I hope everyone loves them as much as we do.

Last night the books were distributed as a whole. A few had been salt and peppered out to people since November 24th when we received them, but last night is the “big” unveiling. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be there. I guess no pat on the back for me. haha. By the way, if you weren’t able to be there either, drop by the shop to pick up your copy!

Truthfully I really wanted to see everyone’s reaction and hear what they had to say. I guess I’ll have to sit and wait for Deb, Grady, or Dan to text me what people thought. Note to you 3… if people hated them, lie to me, please! LOL. Just kidding…. maybe.

A picture of the divider in the Memory/Recipe Book

What’s next?

Well… So glad you asked. In October I got a second “good” idea that has caused me to start feeling like a hound. Dan has assured me I’m not a hound. Pete and Leo are hounds, I am not. Whew!

I started the SCUBA blog for Deb and Grady in September 2013. You may or may not know that a lot of big bloggers do monthly blog memes. Basically, they give you a list and you write every day for that month.

I’m not sure if people like reading the SCUBA blog… but I got the brilliant idea that every day in the month of January, one of our staff or divers would write a blog post. Yes, we’re having guest bloggers! We’re going to cover many different ideas. Then we’ll hone in on some of the best ideas for the rest of the year. Not going to lie, I’m excited about this project too! I sure hope you are as well.

One last thing… Why did we pick January? Well after the fun of the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday season, January is cold and dreary. We thought this would be the perfect month to help you curl up by a fire and read about your favorite sport! Enjoy!

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