Happy Birthday Catie Bug! ! !

Happy Birthday to a bright, funny, lovable and talented young lady!

You are a treasure for sure - think we will keep you! !

Love ya

OXOXOX

AC

"Sweet 16"

Happy Birthday Alicia! !

You are a beautiful young lady and I love you so much!

The time has flown past like the wind - and you are the kite on the end of the string - reaching for the stars. But keep yourself grounded and you will go far!

Hugs and kisses galore,

For a young lady I simply adore!

OXOXOXOX

MOM-MOM

Happy Birthday Rease! !

Today is Rease's birthday - a whole 8 years old! Where, may I ask, has the time gone?

She is just a bubble -always smiling (even when she's in trouble). I don't think she can't smile!

Makes you want to gobble her up!

Good Ol' Home Cookin'

I was up rather early this morning - before 6:00AM - and for a Saturday without kids - that's very early! (actually, these days, anything before noon could be considered early -LOL!) I started coffee and checked my email - as though I would be swamped with an in pouring of notes!
Went to get my coffee and that's when I smelled a wonderful aroma of what smelled like green beans with a slab of ham in them, being cooked! The tasty smelling aroma was wafting in my window, calling to my fondest memories of my mom's home cooked meals. Of course, I obliged and let my thoughts go back to the days when my mom made some of the simplest, but most yummy foods. For some of you, these meals would be considered meager, but for me - well, they were wonderful. Let me just tell you of a few meals that were my personal favorites: Top of the list - Navy bean soup with homemade cornbread. I could eat this stuff til I burst! Don't know how she did it - beans ALWAYS tender, and the brothy part wasn't "goopy" (for lack of better description). The corn bread was baked in an iron skillet - crispy on the bottom and crumbly inside! She always sliced onions to go with it. Following closely behind- green beans with ham in them. Yep - good ol' ham - right on the bone! Watch out you cholesterol gurus! We usually had beef with them - and - you guessed it - corn bread! It felt to me, she cooked this meal the better part of the day - and the smell starved me. On Friday nights we would have homemade hamburgers and the toppings. Oh - I can't forget her potato soup - oh my word, I have tried and tried to reproduce this. It was the best (in my opinion). Somehow she managed to cut the potatoes into tiny (I mean less than 1/2") cubes - perfectly. It wasn't a "traditional" potato soup - the broth was very thin & buttery, with a milk base and seasoned just right, not thick and creamy like most potato soups. These meals were big meals in comparison to the way we usually ate - but we ate well. It seems like an oxymoron - My mom died of a massive heart attack at 44 as a result of high cholesterol - but when I think of how she prepared her food - it seems ironic. She fried chicken and burgers, but the fat was drained off onto paper towels before we ate. Her ground beef was well drained before it went into other dishes, and she always skinned her chicken before cooking. Never, until I was married and on my own, was the beef fixed any other way, than in boiling water with potatoes. Never had I seen someone eat chicken with the skin on it! ! ! (thought that was horrid!)
Was this a "southern" way of cooking, or just the way it was done out of necessity? Don't know, don't care - just know that I really, really liked it. I don't do navy bean soup - because I can't capture the essence of it - the taste, the way it made me feel, the simplicity. I don't do green beans the old fashioned way, or her potato soup - for the same reasons. And of course - my roast beef is baked. Rarely do I do "old fashioned" burgers, and they usually aren't pan fried - the grill has taken the skillet's place.
I tell myself I am eating "healthier" now, than then. But. . . . is that really so? Whatever fat was in that food was burned off in a matter of minutes, because, along with good ol' home cookin', came good ol' outdoor runnin'! ! !
Progress is good - but sometimes - the old way seems better.

"400 Mile Yard Sale" - Part 3

On the way to Harrodsburg, Jenny had spotted a little white church that she wanted to stop at and take pictures. We decided to hit it on the way back. There was an old rock wall/fence on the property, which was common throughout the whole "journey". The whole setting made for a great photo backdrop. It wasn't until she had started taking pictures of the girls on the wall, that I noticed it - a most beautiful thing - an "old rugged cross" made of old tree branches. It really seemed to be as old as the church - "Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, Established 1839". (I know it probably wasn't - but it was fun thinking it!)

The place was so serene - almost sacred feeling, until you turned around and saw the traffic ride by!

We took a few more random pics on the way home of beautiful country and a quirky looking man in a suit - no - he wasn't real, but his belt and necktie were!

We topped off the day with a visit to Hobby Lobby - my new favorite place to visit, dinner - which we didn't have to cook, since we had leftovers from the graduation and ice cream from Sonic! ! !

We really couldn't have planned a more perfect day. We laughed, posed, prayed (going around that mountain I prayed a lot) and filled our tummies with goodies! God was so good to us that day - it was a well needed, long time coming, heart warming time. And all because we decided to go to a "400 Mile Yard Sale". You never know how things will end up - you just have to keep your mind open and let the "chips fall where they may", and that day, they ALL fell in place!

"400 Mile Yard Sale" Part 2

On the return home, while still in Harrodsburg, we did stop at a little yard sale on a hill. When I got out of the van I saw the most beautiful view. In the valley of this land sat an old barn with a tractor or something parked under it. I asked the lady tending the yard sale (Ms. Nancy Mathias) if she minded if I took some pictures. She was most gracious and filled us in a little about the property. It belongs to a man that lives in Lexington. He is building what she affectionately called a "tree house" on the property. It is somewhere around 127 acres and backs up to the Kentucky River. There was also an old building - could have been a shed, or a smoke house, or maybe an ice house -sitting on the property.

The trauma from the "mountain ride" is subsiding! ! !

It just amazes me to see so much beauty in one place!

"400 Mile Yard Sale" Part 1

While we were at Jenny's for Christian's graduation, we found out the "400 Mile Yard Sale" was going on. I don't know where it began or ended, but it ran thru Nicholasville, Wilmore, Harrodsburg, and beyond. We decided to check it out. There wasn't much activity along the way (we only went to Harrodsburg, about 30 miles). The ride to Harrodsburd was - what can I say - quite a ride! We had to go along a mountain - rock wall on one side, and a steep drop off on the other (insert swimmy head here). We also passed over a bridge over a muddy river beneath (insert nausea here). I tried to get Sarah to take pictures along the way (because I couldn't move) but she - being like me - felt it was safer to look straight ahead - as if we could will the van to stay on the road! ! I told Jenny that if we broke down, the only way off was to CRAWL ! ! (preferably against the rock wall - LOL! ! ) The pics here are from our return ride home. Alicia - God bless her - wasn't afraid to take pictures.
The most memorable part of the journey (thank goodness - since this part just about did me in) is yet to come!

Tattered Comfort

The other day I was in the pantry looking for something to eat :). Helena comes in and asks me to sew her blanket. She had her little finger poked through a hole. It has a trillion holes in it and the edges are very frayed. I told her I couldn't sew the holes. She said that was ok - just the edges - she liked the holes. I said I would see what I could do (no - I haven't sewed it yet).

I couldn't get that yellow blanket out of my mind. I know just about every one of my nieces and nephews, as well as my own three, have had some kind of blankie, snugly, lovey, bear, or any other sacred comfort item that they couldn't part with. You don't know how many times we have had to go back to the store to find Rease's bear because she dropped it - it was a serious mission looking for that thing, praying all the while some other little tyke hadn't discovered it and claimed it as their own - or worse yet - it had been thrown away! Or watch Matt, my oldest nephew, stand at the close line (or at the dryer) until his silky blanket was dry . He wore every bit of silk binding off my sister's regular bed blankets, as well! !

Well, back to the yellow blanket. I was thinking (hmmm. . . .) that tattered blanket is much like my memories. I have "holes", if you will, in some of my memories. Like that blanket, well used and time worn, but the bulk of the important stuff is still there. Held in tact by the "binding" of my soul. As long as that binding is there, the solid part of the blanket will be there, too. The feelings those tattered memories bring is like a favorite blanket, warm and comforting. I figure, the holes must not be so important, or they wouldn't be there, or maybe I've just let go of the bad memories, and that is where they were - I like those holes!

At any rate, I wouldn't trade my "tattered blankie" and the comfort it brings, for anything.