A Grateful and Happy Heart

As we are flowing through the season of much giving, kindness and charity may we remember to always have that spirit throughout the year.  I am grateful and blessed in so many ways.  Trials and tribulations come and go...good friends and family are forever! 

I have been a busy albeit injured Santa's helper!  Apparently, yellow jackets have nests in the ground (who knew) and do not like it when you pull weeds and trim bushes around their nests...I'm just sayin...someone could win some money from the scene in my flower beds...flailing arms, tripping over light post, landing on rear end on sidewalk...numerous stings later...I am on antibiotics, steroids and anti don't scratch yourself to death medicine.  I don't know whether to lie down and go to sleep or run around the block ten times!

Sunday's dinner welcomed most of our children, grandchildren, adopted parents, my mom and of course, yours truly and the dearest husband!  We are not a Norman Rockwell depiction of any holiday.  I like to refer to our gatherings as organized chaos.  It works for us and we have a great time. 

I purchased some cutout boys and girls to keep the grandchildren occupied...imagine my surprise and delight watching the grown up children design and color "people" with as much  joy as the young children.  It was a glorious day, not without a tear or two or a frustration or two...we prevailed with loving and thankful hearts.

I am still on a pay it forward/random acts of kindness mission...there is ALWAYS someone that needs an uplift!  I like living a life that is filled with compassion, joy and giving with a dose of complaint free days (I am working on my part of living in a "Complaint Free World")  I have a purple bracelet to remind me!

Peace and Love Ya'll!

P.S.  someone is going to New York City with a group of gal pals...she is just a little bit giddy about it!
start spreading the news...I want to be a part of it...New York New York

My Brother's Keeper

Traveling in the 60's with Dad!  My younger brother James, always Jimmy to me.  We were an inseparable pair until I started school.

I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see. I sought my God, but my God eluded me. I sought my brother and I found all three. ~Author Unknown 

Hi Bro,

I just noticed that the trim on your socks don't match.  Ha Ha!  I think you got that from Dad.  I always wondered if he was color blind or if he wore some of those combinations just to annoy Mom.  I called Mom a few minutes ago because today is difficult for her.  We sure miss you.  I was talking to my grandson about you and realized you have been gone for seven years and he just turned six.  Maybe your spirits connected somewhere.  He is quite a character and some kind of cute!  The girls and I are going out for dinner tonight and we'll raise a toast to you and to everyone else we get to missing this time of year.  I am somewhat dismayed to mention that I have not made it to Mt. Ranier yet.  We plan a trip to the left coast, I mean West Coast next year.  (Carl's friend Rick lives in Cali and he always calls it the left coast)  I think some of your pals from the AT have already hiked the Pacific Coast area.  I realized that while I do love to hike...I am not the one who will go into the woods for months (or even days) at a time.  I will climb a portion of that mountain by proxy although I imagine you have a much better view of it than I do.  Say hi to Dad, Dot Dot and everyone else...I love you...til we meet again. 

Love, Your Big Sis

There's no other love like the love for a brother. There's no other love like the love from a brother. ~Astrid Alauda

Appalachian Trail - Springer Mountain, Georgia to Katahdin, Maine approximately 2179 miles.  How many can say they have hiked this great Eastern trail or done it more than once?

Trail name: PapaSquat

September 30, 1961 - November 17, 2003

A Special Veteran

Hi Dad,

Thinking of you today.  You always looked so handsome in your full dress uniform.  You were so proud to serve your country.  You sacrificed time with family and your health for many, many people that didn't even appreciate what you were sworn to do.  We appreciated you, always have, always will.  I miss you...I have my "conversations" with you and there are times I would give anything to sit across a table from you.  Sometimes (more often than not) a girl just needs her Dad!  Thanks for being an awesome human!  I know you have a great crowd to hang out with and I miss them as well.  Til we meet again...I love you!

(July 24, 1934 - December 24, 1982) 

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

This poem by Mary Oliver really speaks to me as it does to many, many other people!  I love what I love and have quit making apologies for who I am or who I am striving to be.  Impossible to believe that it is November, the year 2010 is winding down...it has been quite the rollercoaster ride for me.  I have been choosing a word of the year for several years now.  Boy, Howdy...did the word Release really stir up some interesting dirt.  I am tired albeit in a very good way...shifting through all the "stuff" that no longer works in my life is painful, exhausting yet exhilirating!  I am coming out the other end with a better knowlege of my loves, my purpose for me, my family and my world.  Currently pondering my word for 2011...a cautionary tale...be careful of your chosen word...it may put you to work in a BIG way! 

I am happy knowing I am a mass of contradictions, aren't we all.  What have you learned this year and are you totally grateful for having that experience?

The Road More Frequently Traveled

Often you get to blaze your own path...

Sometimes...

you follow the marked path!

In My Kitchen and On My Nightstand

Not so long ago I read a book called The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.  Rose can taste the emotions of those cooking and baking. Curse or Charm?  Hmmm...I often bake when I have something to work out.  Lately, I have been on a cake baking binge which is hilarious given that I am also attending Weight Watchers!

Tonight we have book club.  One of our former members moved to Alabama and as it was not feasible for us to travel...we are reviewing the book she selected, Before Women Had Wings by Connie Mae Fowler  AND I baked her recipe for a Mississippi Mud Cake.   It is OH SO DECADENT!  My rationale, apart from honoring a friend, is that this book is so raw and tragic yet compelling that we DESERVE chocolate.

In between episodes of Top Chef, Just Desserts...I prepared Chaos in the Kitchen's Chicken Salad and Trish's Mississippi Mud Cake and Kerry's Orange Balls.  My darling husband tried one of the orange balls, sighed and as he sat in the living room said to me, "I hear those orange balls calling me "  He is my biggest fan! 

I have realized that I am a FOODIE.  I love cookbooks, cooking shows, fine dining and experimenting in my own kitchen.  Offering up something fabulous to friends and family says, YOU matter...I care...I love you. 
Sometimes we prepare a meal or bake a cake because that is what we do as a kindness in times of trouble or grief or stress or even a new birth.

Baking is a little like magic and I like a little bit of magic in my days.  When asked why she always baked with the window open, Julia said "I am calling to someone" (paraphrased from The Girl Who Chased the Moon)  Serendipitously, (cue Twilight Zone music) the Hummingbird Cake was baked and pink hair extensions attached prior to reading that magical book and Eric made a version of Mississippi Mud Cake on Just Desserts while I was frosting mine.  How is that for Woo Woo?  What special treat beckons your friends and family?

MISSISSIPPI MUD CAKE


1 1/2 c. flour
3 tbsp. cocoa
1 c. butter
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
4 eggs
1 1/2 c. chopped pecans
1 (3 1/2 oz.) can flaked coconut
1 (7 oz.) jar marshmallow creme

Grease and flour 9x13 pan and set aside. Mix flour and cocoa together; set aside. Beat butter for 30 seconds to soften. Add sugar and vanilla, beating until fluffy. Add eggs. Beat in flour mixture. Stir in pecans and coconut. Turn mixture into prepared pan. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes. While cake is still hot, spread with marshmallow creme. Cool completely and add icing.

MISSISSIPPI MUD ICING:

1/2 c. butter
4 c. sifted powdered sugar
1/2 c. cocoa
1/2 c. evaporated milk
1 tsp. vanilla


 

Magic Monday - A Little of This and A Little of That

Time sure does fly when you are having fun!

Salon Bella is doing pink hair extensions and ribbons for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.  My daughter and I now have pink hair.  I am digging it and thinking this may be a new trend for me!  October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  A hair extension and a ribbon is a very small thing done with a heart full of love and honor for our friends who have/had breast cancer.  Ladies...early detection is the key!  Please, please feel your boobies and get a mammogram.

As many of my friends know I have a love for the arts (of every sort)  I was visiting my granddaughter's dance class on Thursday and there amidst the wee dancers was one teeny, tiny girl with natural, beautiful talent.  Sadly, her parents are unable to afford dance lessons for her or her sister.  I am pondering a solution to this...maybe a little chat with the studio's owner will provide a way to enable talented children an opportunity to participate.  After my hair appointment on Saturday,  I had the VW Beetle washed at the Palmetto Dance Center's car wash to support the dancers' competitions.  It was heartwarming to see even the youngest student washing cars to earn money.  I think most things are appreciated more when they are earned.  

After the car washing, it was a trip to the local grocery store.  Spending what seemed like a small fortune...I returned home to bake a Hummingbird Cake for our church Boy Scout Bake Sale.  I encouraged my darling husband to purchase the cake from the bake sale for our family get together on Sunday thus contributing to the boy scouts, my ego and Sunday dinner!  It was a delightful, busy weekend filled with service, fun and family!

Here is my lunch today...EVERYONE is out of the office and I am here with Hummingbird Cake!!!  I am counting it as a fruit...it has lots of bananas and pineapple in it...that is my story and I AM sticking to it.

I first heard about Hummingbird Cake from the lovely Christina.  Apparently it is one of Southern Living's most requested recipes of all time.  It is definitely scrumptious!  What is there not to love about a cake full of goodness with cream cheese frosting?  The recipe can be found here.

So my pretties, have a lovely day...enjoy the beautiful weather...celebrate if you have the day off...you know what?  Just celebrate!!!