Recipe for Love

Isn't it wonderful how certain sights, smells and tastes can trigger sweet memories? When I walk into a kitchen that smells like coffee, bacon and eggs I'm immediately transported back to my Mamaw's kitchen. She believed everyone should have a good breakfast, and no one got away in the morning without one at her house. Her homemade pear preserves and plum jelly were always on the table and I've never tasted any quite as good since those days. When I cook a pot roast, I'm reminded of my Mom's Sunday dinners. The roast cooked while we were at church and when we came home that wonderful aroma met us at the door and made our mouths water.

Even more precious are the recipes left by these two wonderful women. I inherited both of their recipe boxes and I love to sit and look through those index cards. The ink is faded and the cards are yellowed with age, but the handwriting on them is still clear and brings them close once again. I can picture them sitting at the kitchen or dining room table copying recipes onto those cards. My mother loved to use colored ink and a fountain pen, so her cards are mostly written in purple, peacock-blue and red. My Mamaw preferred a blue ball point pen or a pencil. Often, there are notes written after a new recipe was tried making changes and recommendations. Occasionally I find a recipe card written by one of my aunts, or a friend of my mom's. There are even a few written by my dad! He loved to cook and there are a number of cards with his speciality dishes written in his bold flamboyant script-always in black ink. Seeing the cards and their familiar writing makes me feel that a part of these loved ones is still with me, even though they have been gone for many years.
Things have changed since the days of handwritten index cards and recipe boxes; my daughter and I keep our recipes on our laptops and email them back and forth. Still, I plan to hand down those precious recipe boxes to her. I know she will treasure them too.

Thank you!

Welcome to my new followers and thank you everyone for all your kind comments! My back seems to have been appeased by a few days of rest and a heating pad. I had a good chiropractor back in West Texas, but I have been reluctant to go to one since we moved out here. You never know what you're going to find when you have pick one cold and go hoping they don't make things worse or try to sell you a bunch of treatments and x-rays that you don't need. I know what I really need to do is lose weight and do strengthening exercises. Unfortunately, my willpower is as weak as my back!

Back to the attic room today, but with a modified plan. I have most of my stuff sorted out and ready to put in place, so instead of more sorting and lifting, I'm going to re-box my husband's stuff and let him sort it at his convenience. It's a long, large room so there's room for storage and as well as a nice sized place for all of my sewing and crafting. I'll be painting the room when the weather warms up as it's a dark grey/green right now and there are no windows. (It was used as a "media room" by the former owners, but that's not something we were interested in having.) One thing I do intend is to have all of the Christmas decorations in one corner where I can find everything come December!  Guess I'd better get to it!

Why is it...

...when you finally get the chance to do something you've been dying to do, things blow up?
We have a "junk room" that I've been itching to dig into and make into a sewing room (as well as storage). I finally got started this week. I've been bending and stretching, moving boxes, bagging up trash etc. all with no problems and reached a place yesterday where I needed to stop and do some sorting. This morning I settled in a chair with an audio book on my computer and boxes of stuff  to sort and guess what happened-yep, I reached over to my computer to adjust the volume and WHAM! my back went out. So now I'm reclining on the heating pad with some Ibuprofen. It figures. Hopefully back at it soon.

Brrrr

Yesterday was cold, dark, and foggy but was brightened by an unexpected visitor for lunch! Grandson #1 and his mom drove out yesterday while the girls were in school. He's the happiest little guy!

Not still for even a moment!

Today is warmer, but stormy and rainy-too bad we don't have our day-brightener here today!

Number One!

From here:

To here:

It's been quite a year!

Happy 1st Birthday to sweet grandson #2!

Back to Reality

We had a proper Southern New Year's Day yesterday, eating our black eyed peas for good luck coupled with Dirty Rice Casserole!  Having the leftovers today mixed together to make Hoppin' John. (Black eyed peas and rice.) I guess it's not true dirty rice because I use breakfast sausage and ground beef instead of chicken livers. Never been a giblets kind of girl! We've had a cold and windy start to the year, but sunny and bright. Typical January weather for us. It will warm up tomorrow and Saturday, then turn cold again for next week. Nice and dry, though.

We took down the Christmas tree this morning and will be getting the rest of the decorations squared away today too. I always leave some of the greens up through the winter, so I'll just put the specifically Christmas stuff away.

Hoping 2014 will prove to be another good year. I don't make resolutions as such, but I do have some goals for this year. Most importantly, I want a stronger, deeper relationship with my Lord. I feel that the spiritual part of my life has been pushed to the back burner and become very shallow. I want to change that. I also plan to eat in a more healthy way and start walking more. I'm ready to get a sewing room put together, so I'll be mucking out the attic room and getting that set up! Then I hope to start learning to quilt.

Whew!! That all sounds pretty ambitious, we'll see how things go. The main thing is to accomplish what I can and not beat myself up over what doesn't get done! Anything I do will be better than doing nothing, right?

Wishing everyone a blessed New Year!

2014!