Hot fries

 When I was a kid, the summer church camp I attended had a canteen that was open after play time in the afternoon and after the evening service. I was allotted $1 a day, which amounted to one drink and either one bag of chips or candy item. 

In Junior Camp, one of the crazy things available was a bag of hot fries. At least once every year, someone would throw out a hot fry challenge.  All her friends would buy a drink, and one person would buy hot fries as the snack. A fry would be passed out to everyone in the circle, and you'd eat it and wait one full minute. If you took a sip of your drink, you were out. The next round everyone still in would eat 2 fries. I made it to the three fry round once. 

The bag from my childhood was snack size, was a Tom's brand, and only cost 50 cents.

Why am I remembering this now? We were preparing a care package for my nephew, who loves spicy foods, and saw this in the grocery store. It ended up not fitting in the box, and during a Zoom class this morning I decided to see if my mouth still found them hot. It does, though not quite as bad as in my childhood.

throwback

Lately I've been recalling songs or bits of songs that I remember from my childhood. There are some mental images in my mind that I have no photo of and could never recreate for anyone, but they are still there, clear as ever.

The church I grew up in had hardwood floors. The floors were from the boards of the original church building, and the pews had been made by the men (hence they were too tall for almost everyone else and there were wooden foot benches for many of the women who were under 5'). By the time I cam along there were carpet runners in the aisles and up front. But between the pews...pure hardwood. And when the men started tapping their feet to the music, it was like a drumbeat.

This song came to mind last week while we were all fervently praying for my cousin's wife. Clint Short was a WWII vet, a German POW, who had a beautiful voice (and big feet). I can hear his heel tapping out the beat as his head bobbed and he sang this song. As a kid I often wondered if he was trying to get the music leader to speed it up (he tended to sing songs super slow), but now I wonder if he was simply meditating on the words.

Have faith in God when your pathway is lonely.
He sees and knows all the way you have trod;
Never alone are the least of His children;
Have faith in God, have faith in God.

Have faith in God when your prayers are unanswered,
Your earnest plea He will never forget;
Wait on the lord, trust His word and be patient,
Have faith in God. He'll answer yet.

Have faith in God in your pain and your sorrow,
His heart is touched with your grief and despair;
Cast all your cares and your burdens upon Him,
And leave them there, oh, leave them there.

Have faith in God though all else fall about you;
Have faith in God, He provides for His own:
He cannot fail though all kingdoms shall perish.
He rules. He reigns upon His throne.

Refrain:

Have faith in God, He's on His throne,
Have faith in God, He watches over His own;
He cannot fail, He must prevail,
Have faith in God, Have faith in God.

snack time

Today in the grocery store I saw this:







I never knew bugles came in flavors. When I was a child, bugles were simply strange shaped corn chips that came in a box...a red box to be exact. And we (my sisters and I) loved them because they fit perfectly on our fingers and we would pretend we had very long fingernails.  Then my brother came along, and he'd make comments about eating his fingers and chomp down very loudly, so they became just something to eat after that. I mean, eating fingernails is a gross thing. So he killed the fun in eating them off our fingers.

But I was very surprised when I went online to get the picture to discover that there is actually FOUR flavors now - corn, nacho cheese, caramel, and chocolate peanut butter. For some reason, those last two don't sound appealing to me. I like both of those flavors, but simply cannot imagine them on corn chips. Perhaps that is why Food Lion only carries the original corn and nacho cheese - its clientele has a simple palate.

Sometimes it's nice to have a childhood throwback.

frog houses

When I was a child, my grandmother would let us play in the mud. Well, for North Alabama, that meant the red clay. One of my favorite things to do would be burying my hand or foot. When you'd pull it out, it would leave a little mound. My grandmother would always laugh and say we were making frog houses. I thought she was being silly.

This year in my garden, despite planting marigolds (which is supposed to naturally deter moles or voles from digging up your plants), I've been seeing a lot of holes between a quarter to a silver dollar in size. I've wondered if it was still the moles, or if it was the bunny rabbit, field mice, or snake. And this week while cutting grass, I saw something. I inched closer, then realized the animal was sitting on top of another animal. I ran in to get my camera, and when I got back outside, they were side by side, but still sitting in the hole.

So here I am, 35 years later, realizing that my grandmother was right all along...frogs DO have houses in the ground!!

A week ago today

A week ago today we were very tired, and when I called the hospital to see how Mom's night went, Dad said they would be coming home before the day was out. I know that hospitals can take a very long time and that lunch time would be the earliest she would be home, and early to late evening could also be a very real possibility. Dad didn't want us to drive back to B'ham and told us not to come. So we did something I've wanted to do for a long time but have never had the time to do when "go home". I visited what was "home" to me. And it was good, and it was heartbreaking.

 The town of Cordova is slowly rebounding from the two tornadoes that devastated the area six years ago. There's a new town hall, a new fire station, as well as several other changes. But the picture above is one of the views that absolutely made me gasp. The parking lot where I took the photo is from the Cordova Free Will Baptist Church, where my Dad pastored. For the 14 years I lived there, the only thing you could see from this spot was trees. The brick building to the left (part of the Methodist Church) was not visible, and is across Green Ave. The white building with blue awnings is down the hill and halfway across what used to be downtown. It would not have even been visible from the Methodist parking lot when I was growing up. Its location is the old hardware store my uncle managed, but is now the new Piggly Wiggly (aka "The Pig"), the town's new and only grocery store. (The old store was at the base of the hill and was damaged by the tornadoes. 3 of the 4 people who died were in that area.) And the white houses in the distance? That's clear across the railroad tracks, not far from the post office. Had I not known where I was, I don't think I'd have recognized my little mill town. It reminded me of all those small towns you pass through in the mountains. I so wish there was a before picture to show you just how stark the difference is.

 The parsonage front view from Green Ave. It has a different roof from when I lived there, and the two trees are cut down from the front yard. I loved those trees only because they offered shade when cutting grass. But the growth of trees and shrubs in places they shouldn't be (there's two sets of steps not visible here), and the crawl space door is totally gone. The house looks abandoned. I know the church is all but gone and they don't have a preacher, but with so many people needing homes I would have thought they'd have at least rented it out.

 And the view from the back side, but is/was used as the main entrance. Left is the garage and washer/dryer hook-ups, the indented area is a screened in porch. First three windows is the kitchen area, next two was the den (sometimes used by us a bedroom), the next double windows were a small bedroom, then the last two windows goes to the larger bedroom which my sisters and I all shared at various points.

 The screen door is missing to the porch. And our family put up the basketball goal, though this is not the one we installed. And another shocking view to the left of the house...used to be solid trees. Driving down Green Ave was always like driving through a canopy of greenery in the spring. It looked like a forest across the road.

Several houses have burned in the neighborhood or simply been neglected. It was so sad to see. So many good and happy memories from that little part of town.

But it was nice to have a few hours to drive around and show Bobby where I went to school and places that he's heard stories about but never seen. And I now understand how Mom's generation who lived there when the mill was open and the mines were running full force would shake their head during my youth and talk about how the town used to look. I fear in 20 years there may not be a town unless things change.

grass

Today is what I hope will be the last day to cut grass for 2016. The leaves are falling. I'm wearing 3/4 sleeves and pondering pulling on a jacket. The pecans are screaming "Fall is here! Fall is here!" (Okay, they're simply beginning to open their husks which means the pecans are almost ripe and they will start dropping in a few weeks.) There are no insects flying around and stinging me, nor mosquitoes irritating me, and I'm not sweating. It's the perfect time of year to cut grass.

And since I mentioned my sister yesterday, I'll mention her again today.

Cutting grass always makes me think of her.

Growing up, my dad had very bad allergies. Every time he cut the grass, he would barely be able to breathe or talk for the next 24 hours. So once I learned how, I joined my older sister in cutting the grass so he wouldn't have to. On those really hot days, we'd alternate. I'd take two rows, she'd take two. And on we'd go. And after we'd both finished 4 rows, Mom would be there with a glass of ice water for both of us.

Now, I have a self-propelled push mower for the trim work. But we do have a big yard. I tell myself while I'm working that this is nothing compared to what it was growing up. But I have to confess, the hotter it is while I work, the more I wish I could trade off with my sister and Mom would show up with ice water. Sometimes we truly take things for granted and don't realize how much those little gestures help and mean until they're not there.

my poor mom

It's not overly clear or visible in this photograph, but my legs are COVERED in band-aids. (I'm the one on the right.) And I hated them.  But what I did love doing in the summertime, was raking up mounds of leaves and making small "houses".  Basically it was a waist-high maze that was the outline of my pretend house. And leaves, especially old wet ones from the previous fall, are excellent breeding grounds for mosquitoes. (As was the pond behind our house.)  As long as I can remember, I have been a food magnet for mosquitoes. And their bites leave HUGE whelps. This particular summer was exceptionally bad. And when things itch; I scratch. Scratching creates scars, which I scratched. And that summer, which seemed worse than any other, my mom, in her desperation to get me to leave all the bites and scabs alone, slathered me in band-aids, forbid me to take them off, and placed any and all leaf piles around our property (which was very wooded) on my list of restricted places. Looking back as an adult, I realize this was as much (maybe more) a punishment for her as it was for me. I did find other things to do, but those bites seemed to take FOREVER to heal. It's a wonder my Mom is still sane after all I've put her through.

This summer has reminded me so much of that summer. My legs and arms have been COVERED with bites and whelps like no other summer in my adult life. It's been so bad I've quit counting the bites, have been washing my legs and one arm in hydrogen peroxide to help relieve the itch, and have been wearing pants in public (yes, even in this heat!!) because my legs looks SO bad.

My mother-in-law, after visiting Alaska, claims that cold weather does not kill of mosquitoes. She said Alaska was full of them. Sometimes I think maybe I should live in a colder climate in the summer, but then I remember that, and realize it wouldn't make a difference. Early in our marriage, Bobby was amazed at how we could go to the pond at night. Within 10 minutes, he would not have one bite at all, but I would have 10-15 whelps appearing on my arms alone. Mosquitoes are not my friends, and am I greatly looking forward to fall and winter.

sheer genius

When I was a child, I would beg for Mom to let me stay with Dad at work while she shopped for groceries. I would have been 4 at the time, as I was not in school and Dad had not yet become a preacher. He was a pharmacy tech, and the pharmacy where he worked at the time was behind the grocery store. It's name was Geriatric Pharmacy and it always bothered me to no end that they spelled his name wrong on the door. (His name is Jerry, and I was convinced it was named after him.)

Thanks to a game called Chutes and Ladders, I knew how to count to 100, and my older sister had taught me to count by 5s. So Dad would let me help him "push pills".  Medicine came in these HUGE bottles, and one of his many jobs was to drop two/three pills (depending on the order) at a time into a machine that looked like a huge rotary dial machine, and it would seal them into little packets. Dad would hand me a large bottle. My first job was to count out 100 pills. When I finished I would turn and tell him how many I had left over. I was always amazed when he'd frown, come over, look at the pills and go "Hmmm. I think you better count again. I think you might have 96 pills there (or 98, or 99). And when I recounted, I was always amazed that he was right. (And keep in mind I often lost my count and had to start over.) I was convinced that my Dad was a math genius. Now when I have to buy a bottle of vitamins or pills, I laugh inside when I see the count on the outside of the bottle. My Dad might not have been as much a math genius as I thought he was, but he was a genius at keeping me occupied. When I had finished counting and had finally reached the number he said I should have, he would turn on the machine and I could drop them two at a time into the slots. One time I dropped a bottle and it spilled into the machine. Too many pills went into a slot and jammed. He not only had to clean up my mess, but he had to sort out all the mispackaged pills and redo everything. I had to draw and sit in a chair the rest of that trip. I'm not sure, but that may have been the last day I counted and packaged pills as well.

I'm not sure who took this photo of my Dad at work, or why, but I'm so thankful to have a digital copy of it. It brings back a LOT of memories.

Christmas lights

In the last few days we've driven by at least two houses that had trees or wreaths decorated with either blue or blue & green lights. I thought it was very pretty. I would have never considered blue a Christmas color, but blue is one of my favorite colors and I'm finding I like blue & white or blue & silver decorations when I see them.

Growing up, we always had the huge, multi-colored blinking lights. I remember the first time I saw a tree decorated with all white lights (and bows, and candy canes...nothing else). My Aunt Grancis had decorated the tree for my Grandma White, and I thought it was absolutely beautiful. A few years after that I began to see more and more stores carrying strands of just red lights, or white lights, or green lights. When we were in high school, the old faithful lights we had had all my life died. My younger sister volunteered to pick up lights after school the next day. We did go and purchase the lights, and we got ...all white, non-blinking AND put them on the tree before Dad got home. He was NOT happy. Who ever heard of boring ol' white lights at Christmas, especially ones that DIDN'T blink!?! My grouchy old bear muttered the rest of the week about the lights on our tree, but every time my sister and I walked by, we'd look at it and smile. We thought it was fabulous. And as an adult, I have white lights on all my trees. Although, I did consider getting red lights for my Alabama tree (it's a small white tree), but I ended up going with white. :)  I imagine when I go home the lights on the tree will be colored and blinking and it will make me feel like I'm at my childhood home. But there's just something majestic and beautiful about white lights in a dark room. I think I'll keep mine the plain but elegant white. Unless Bobby requests colored lights, and then, well, he might just have to get his own tree, haha!

transitions

Recently I read an article about the transitions in food over the years, and how it could be seen through cookbooks. They were able to pinpoint when people started using processed foods and microwaves within a  few years by the number of casseroles. I couldn't help but think if we looked at group cookbooks now,  they'd probably have a lot of crockpot soups and freezer meals. I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I just found it quite interesting. And this morning as I was thinking through my favorite Christmas goodies over the years, I was a little surprised to realize it follows the trend as well.

Growing up, making Russian TeaCake Cookies was one of my favorite Christmas baking events. They're really not Russian, and ours were always more cake-like (in hindsight, I'm wondering if Mom simply wanted the process to end and intentionally rolled the dough out thicker than required, of if she just really liked them fat and cakey). I loved eating the dough (a big no-no today that I think is a bunch of nonsense), loved using cookie cutters, but I really wasn't all that crazy about the finished product...unless we were allowed to put icing on them. And then they were incredibly good. We also had homemade apple pies (many people call them flapjacks) that were folded in half.  Perfect for a child's hand, but still so big that Mom made us split them. We had instant oatmeal chocolate cookies, "No Bakes" my Granny Rea called them, and Hawaiian Pie on Christmas day (all kinds of fruit with pudding and cool whip and sweetened condensed milk on a graham cracker crust) and fudge.

And then my middle school years rolled around. Mom was working and wrestling with the beginning symptoms of her lupus and arthritis (neither of which received a diagnosis until 20+ years later). Goodies became brownies (from mixes, not the homemade kind we used to make), Ritz cracker peanut butter sandwiches dipped in chocolate, chocolate dipped pretzels, chocolate chip cookies, and fudge.

High school was much of the same as middle school, except we girls started experimenting, and peanut butter balls, sausage balls, and Martha Washington candy got added to the mix.

I don't fix a whole lot of Christmas goodies anymore. It's just the two of us, and I think that's one of the things I miss about having my family with me for the holidays. Granted, even if I lived nearby, they'd be doing things with their families so it still wouldn't be the same. I try to make some of our favorites when we have a party or have someone over so we have plenty to share and still have a little bit here at home. And one of my goals while I'm home at Christmas is to master the art of mini apple pies. A friend of mine posted a video on Facebook that made it look so much easier than how my Mom always did it, and I am so tempted to try it. If it works, I'll be sharing and I might be starting a new trend!

dated

Last week my oldest niece helped plan an college activity. They did a 1980's throwback party. Seriously. So while I'm digesting the fact that college kids today see my tween and teenage years as historic, a friend from high school posted this on Facebook (and I've edited to cover their names):

Conversation on the way to school this morning as we passed the Bankhead House.

Child - "mom, did you see that house right there, the big one?"

 Parent - "I do"

Child - " It has clothes in it from the 80's!"

Parent - "the 80's"

Child - "Yes! And from a battle!"

I guess the 80's for her would be like the 50's for me growing up. 

Talk about starting the morning off feeling old! 

So if I had any doubts about the matter, I am officially old and historic!  And to make matters crazier, I'm wondering if items from "a battle" would be items from WWII, Vietnam, or the first Gulf War, which my generation fought in. Kind of crazy to realize such a defining time in my life is not the "latest" war.

a hard week

My mind has drifted south to Charleston, SC a lot this last week.  And while I've prayed for the families of all the victims and the survivors, I have to confess my mind and prayers keep going back to three little girls.

Church -  the building holds so many memories for me, specifically Dad's office. That's where I hung out while sermon notes were typed, helped with printing and folding the church bulletin, rested during services while I was sick (Preachers and their wives don't always have the luxury of staying home with sick kids), made phone calls during extra-long choir practices or meetings, read books, was bored to tears, as a teenager sat and pondered what it would be like to make an appointment and chat with Dad, but never, ever, ever did it cross my mind that it would be a place where I would hover and hide with Mom while hearing my Dad and fellow church family members die. And that room will be an even harder room for that child and parent to face in months to come when it must be cleaned out to make room for the next pastor.

I think about the young girl who was in the Bible study with her Grandma and Dad, whose Grandma had the presence of mind to cover her and play dead - the horror and nightmare of such a scenario.

I cannot comprehend how anyone could shoot innocent people, especially an 87 year old woman.

I know how much a church hurts when a faithful member dies. Imagine losing 9 at one time - of your diehard faithfuls, as my Dad used to call the Wednesday night crowd.

There's a church family who is hurting beyond belief right now, and they will for a very long time.
There are devastated families whose lives will NEVER be the same.
There are three little girls who had fathers who loved them, men who were faithful to God, men who will no longer be there to guide them through the turbulent teen years and conflicting college days. Three little girls whose lives are forever altered, and not in a good way.

And as social media and national media has moved on to politics, my heart grieves even more.

May the balm of Gilead be so ever real to those families as they say their formal goodbyes this week.

butter bellybuttons

First, there's an update on  the Quilt page.

But my main post for today resulted in my husband giving me one of those very strange looks.
I opened a new container of butter this week. That always brings back a ton of memories.

You know how kids fight over everything?

This always resulted in a small spat in our house.

I always scooped around the belly button. At least one of my sisters scooped it out first thing.  But there was one time, without anything being said, everyone seemed to join me in scooping around it. And then came the fateful day when that one sister opened the lid to butter the toast and said "Who left the bubble in the middle?" and immediately scooped it out. I was aghast. Dad declared our argument petty and silly. I laugh about it now and sometimes wonder if God sees the things I get so bent out of shape about as an adult as trivial as the belly button in a bowl of butter.

And now? I scraped around the sides about a spoon deep before attacking the belly button. :) Some things just never change.

the things we learn

Last night while leaving a restaurant (aka. fast food place), we saw a cat we hadn't seen before. Let's just say it could be the basis for that cheer that was so popular in middle school (U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi, you ugly, hey, hey, you ugly - and for the record, our Christian school cheerleading squad was not allowed to perform it....much to our dismay). I pointed the cat out to my husband, who responded as I thought he would - " I don't know why so many people find those cats ugly." Over the years I've learned that any animal that I find he cute he'll shrug his shoulders over, and any animal that makes me want to cringe inside, he finds very adorable. I'm not sure what that says about my appearance or our relationship, but it's the way it is. Regardless, during the course of the conversation, I referred to the cat as a "he", only to be corrected by my farmer-man husband. Evidently, male cats are never tri-colored; only female cats are. I've learned the last few years that certain breeds of chickens can be sexed by color (called sex links), but had no idea cats could be.  Cats, birds, chickens...wonder what other animal can be?

The other bizarre thing I've been told is that "aim cannot be taught." We were discussing my childhood summers, specifically time at my grandparents, when my cousin would not allow me to shoot his BB gun because I couldn't hit the target and was "wasting" his BBs. I also had (and still have) a problem driving a straight nail. For some reason they always go in at an angle or bend. My husband thinks I can improve in those areas, but that, like music, you either have it or you don't. I'm not quite sure what to think about that.

Meanwhile the chicken saga and my garden continues. It's to the point that even the dogs bark to let me know when the chickens have jumped the fence into the garden. Those dogs might be useful after all. :)

fabrics of Easter, day 2

While I was in college, one of my classmates grew up in a Catholic area. All the churches in her town, whether Catholic or Protestant, truly celebrated both Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. I was amazed to hear some of her stories and her favorite memories, and could then easily understand how disappointed Easter was to her when she arrived and attended Baptist churches in the South. I think about her now every Palm Sunday, and wonder how people would respond if we started truly celebrating our most important Christian holiday.

Palm Sunday - the triumphant entry. I always thought it stupid as a child when I read fairy tales and a man or knight would place his cape or coat on the ground for a queen or princess to walk over.  It seemed most of my childhood I was reprimanded for "getting dirty" (as in playing in the dirt and pine straw...NOT how today's society uses that phrase). And I was always a bit puzzled by this passage in Sunday school:

6 The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, 7 and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats. 8 Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. ~ Matthew 21:6-8

I get verse six and seven.  I've seen Moms use their coats or sweatshirts to roll up for a pillow or backrest for a small child or elderly relative. I've watched Dads take off their coats at a a cold football game and put it on the hard concrete for the Moms or kids to sit on...a way of helping them stay warm. And using coats to make both the donkey and Jesus more comfortable is a nice gesture...though I would have hesitated because Mom would have had a fit had I used my one good coat to put on a stinky animal that would ride off...with my coat...never to be seen again. Can you imagine how many times you would have to hear that same lecture over and over and over in the months to come? And then you get to verse eight...most of the crowd put their coats on the ground (ancestors of PETA people, perhaps?) but others used tree branches. I would have been one of the tree branch people.  I find it interesting that John's account includes the tree branches, but not the part about the coats, whereas Luke is the total opposite - he mentions only the coats, and that they did this throughout his ride, but no mention whatsoever of tree branches.

As much as I like to think I'd have paid Christ his due homage as he rode the donkey into Jerusalem, I don't think I would have been a throwing of the coat person, especially as a child or teenager. But tearing off a tree limb (even better having to climb the tree to do it!) or waving one up and down  while running up and down the road....that would have been much more in line with my character.

new Christmas decor

Growing up, one of my many favorite Christmas memories was helping my grandparents decorate their gumdrop tree.  PawPaw would go out into the woods, and come back with what he called a "thorn bush".  It didn't have real thorns on it, but the sticks on the end of each branch were pointed and thick.  He would put it in a dish, pour rocks around it to hold it up, and we'd put gumdrops all over the end of the branches. I thought it was beautiful. And throughout the day, people who liked gumdrops would pull them off and eat them.

Several years ago, while visiting Meadow Lights, they had tiny plastic versions of a gumdrop tree stand. I didn't buy one that night, and we went back later to get one, and they were sold out. The next year, we went early, and she said they were only able to get five and they sold the first day. I tried to find some online, but didn't have any luck (at least nothing in the price range I wanted to pay). 

This year I had the crazy idea that all these tree jewelry stands would work. So we bought the gumdrops while at Meadow store, and then began the search for the tree stands. Michael's tree were clearly jewelry stands or the leaves were too Halloweeny. So we went to Target. The aisle where the jewelry stands are was EMPTY. I was starting to think this was a lost cause, when I remembered that sometimes they moved jewelry boxes and stands to the end of the aisle.  They had one. It wasn't the one I had in mind, but it works:

And in the perfect craziness of southern weather, the day I was planning to be inside putting up my indoor nativity set, I planted the flower bulbs in white bag above. It was too nice of a day to not be outside, and that job really needed doing. So my large inside nativity set isn't up this year (but my bear and snowmen nativity sets are), but we do have trees. :)

around the homefronts

Ever seen geese fight?  Well, now you have. These two started at a VERY young age. One we lost to Buster (how do you convince a dog this is not his personal squeaky toy?) and the other now very closely resembles the geese.

Whenever we make the 12 hr drive to my hometown/county, we cheer with every state line and when the hills start showing up. Nothing screams North Alabama like the hills that house the coal mines.

And the stray that showed up last week between our trips...after a trip to the vet today checking fo ra microchip and scouring Craigslist and the pound listings...he's now officially ours. The pressing item now (besides putting his rabies tag and collar on) is deciding whether to continue calling him "Little Dog" or give him a real name.

And Buster, who is VERY jealous of his new friend, though he does somewhat like having a playmate.

And another photo from Alabama...one county away from "home", a site and sound that it SOOO familiar...the clickety clack of the railroad tracks. :)

a childhood food

My husband does not prefer green peas (what my family calls English peas). I happen to like them, especially with mashed potatoes. After being sick on the medicine the Urgent Care Clinic provided, my parents immediately started making bland foods in hopes of getting something in me so I could take yet another round of meds (yeah, rah). Mom had been in and asked if I would try some mashed potatoes and peas, and I nodded yes (no voice on my part and no hearing aids in on her part...a really interesting combination the last 24 hours at home and only my nieces were getting my hand signals and my nephew made squeaking noises every time I tried to talk). Bobby came in a littler late to check on me, and with a bit of confusion and concern on his face, told me they were making a plate that had mashed potatoes and peas on it, that everyone thought I had asked for it, and they were mixing the food together.
At this point, I actually laughed. (Well, at much laughing as I could do without a voice.) When I told him that was how I ate them as a child (I made a well like people do for gravy and filled it with peas), he started laughing, too. I don't think I've had those two items like that since high school, and it was kind of nice to have someone remember something like that about me from my past. Living in an area away from family, those tidbits of information are often filed away and forgotten. And suddenly I was surrounded by people who knew those things, who were stepping in and taking charge, and I could be sick and rest. It was a nice change. And of course, it prompted Bobby to ask if that was how they tricked me into eating green peas in the first place. I almost hated to tell him that was my unique concoction. After all their effort, I hated to send word to Mom I thought pototoes was all I could handle at the moment.
Perhaps I'll have to serve that as two of our veggies during a 2014 meal. But I think I'll abstain from giving him smashed tator tots on a hamburger.  I think he'll draw the line on that one. :)

not quite an epic failure

I ventured out on a limb this afternoon and tried to make fudge for tomorrow's now-not coming company. I've never been very successful with fudge. Today's batch was one of the two I've made that solidified correctly (it didn't break the bowl and it's not too soft).
But it's still not Aunt Pat's fudge. Every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Aunt Pat made fudge with walnuts. I love my Mom and Aunt Linda, but nothing held a candle to Aunt Pat's fudge. It was heavenly.
She died during my second year overseas, and I miss her hugs and smile and...yes...her fudge. It seems so trivial, but it's always like there's a tiny something missing. 
But I do have her recipe now, so hopefully in a few weeks I will bravely stand in front of the stove and attempt yet again one of the foods that my memory holds high on a pedestal.
Meanwhile, I've still got a little cleaning left to do.

the little things

It's funny how little things can remind you of a loved one.
Being in the kitchen, sewing, laundry, fishing...those things always remind me of my Mom and Granny Rea. Working in the garden or listening to someone talk about their family...Ma White.
This past week it was the oddest thing that took me back.. a simple scrambled egg sandwich.

The first one I ever had was from Granny Rea's lunch bag.  We were helping Dad clean and start closing out the Home & Auto store he managed for several years, and Dad was busy with a customer when it came time for lunch. We normally went next door to the Handy Dandy and bought a hot ham and cheese sandwich, but as the customers kept streaming in and the phone kept ringing, Granny offered me half of her sandwich. I had never heard of an egg sandwich. She opened it up to show me what it looked like. It had pepper on it.  To my four year old mind, that was an instant no.  But as time passed and Dad still wasn't free, and Granny kept insisting I not be a chicken and "try it" matched my hunger and I gave in.  And it was good. 

And several decades later, I make them for myself. And as I liberally sprinkle black pepper on it, I think of a blue-eyed niece who reminds me so much of Granny Rea but who thinks pepper will burn her mouth and stomach to pieces, and I smile. I guess history is definitely bound to repeat itself.