Happy New Year

Yesterday I told my daughter I would not be cooking lunch/dinner for New Years Day, today. Her first reaction was of total shock. How could I be doing this to her? Not cook New Years dinner. That was totally unacceptable and then she began to realize I really did mean it. I wasn't cooking dinner today, period.

Then she had to get into gear and figure out what she needed for her dinner. How could she possibly cook her own turnip/collard greens and how could I, as her mother, let her and her family down. They would surely not have any more at all this coming year.

I explained she had a perfectly good pressure cooker I had given her for Christmas just last year and she just put them into the pressure cook, add a few chicken bouillon cubes, a buch of water, a bit of sugar and cook that stuff for a good hour.
I also informed her that Bush made a pretty tasty black-eyed pea in a can if she didn't want to spend her entire day in the kitchen. As for the pickled peaches, she had my recipe. I could help walk her through any problems she might have, but I was NOT going to cook New Years dinner.

Then feeling a bit sorry for her Daddy, she suggested we come over to eat with them.
"No, thank you, I am planning on staying in the house for the entire day tomorrow. My present to myself. My New Years Resolution, so to speak. No cooking on today's New Year's day.

She continued to try to make me feel guilty by calling me every five mintues from the grocery store. And I might add, she was taking precious Grandmomma time away from her sweet baby girl, but she didn't seem to mind. I think she was thinking maybe I would change my mind if she kept being a nuisance. But I did not. I did not intend to cook New Year's Day 2009.

I went to bed with a perfectly clear conscious. I would enjoy myself fully, alone with only Granddaddy and me to do our own thing. I had already planned to pull out my frozen pittance of collard greens/turnip greens, whichever it was. I could open a can of peas and Granddaddy and I would be dining in elegance if I added a side dish of Candied Tomatoes. No excess cooking or cleaning up. It was a done deal.

This morning I got up and thought since I'm not cooking a big meal today I will make a recipe I had seen on the internet earlier for Sausage/Gravy with Biscuits. I've tried to make this before but I just didn't have the recipe I wanted. This one appeared to be the winner so I made it for breakfast. I want to tell you that was a delicious/scrumptious/wonderful recipe without a lot of trouble. I will definitely be trying it again someday. It isn't something you need to eat every day but it's certainly good for occasional breakfasts.

Then my perfect day began to unravel, so to speak. My sister called and wanted to go walk. It's been a good two or three weeks since we've been able to walk due to my brother-in-law having some medical problems and us keeping a grandbaby to help her sick mommy out, or so Mommy could go in to work, etc., etc.

Then the guilt began to pile on. Maybe we should get back to walking again, so just as I was getting ready to tell her we would walk, caller-id showed my son was trying to call us. I told her I would have to call her back. My son was calling to invite us over tonight to eat our usual New Year's fare. I'm sure he wondered why I was trying hard to stifle a good laugh that was building up inside me. He had no idea I had committed myself to a day at home alone, no cooking, etc.

I accepted the invitation and decided I would also tell my sister we would walk.
And, he was inviting his sister and brother-in-law over, also.

Then while we were walking I decided I might better call my daughter-in-law and let her know I was alright with cooking and bringing the collard/turnip greens. She welcomed the chance not to have to cook those greens. Nobody seems to want to cook greens. They talk an hour but other than that, frozen one are no problem. Once they are adjusted you need not worry about them if you have enough water in them.

Well, since I'm tooking the greens, I might as well cook the candied tomatoes. I'll just surprise them with another sidedish that I would keep a secret until I pulled it out to heat it up. These were the thought that were running through my mind.

After walking I started the collards and worked on the candied tomatoes. It really wasn't that much of a problem. I didn't have a lot of clean up to do and since I wasn't cooking the whole meal, I wasn't as tired as I would have been had I done it al myself.

Earlier I had talked to my daughter and she gets a nasty attitude with me. Why did I say I would go to her brother's house but not to theirs for New Years? Oh, get over it, won't you? Well, her baby's daddy wasn't too happy with me either, but I'm sure that isn't the first or last time that will happen!

We all made it over to their house at the approximate alloted time in time to watch my son smoke up the house with his cooking of the country ham. It's a miracle the fire department didn't make a run by to make sure everything was alright, it was sooo smoky. All windows and doors were raised and opened to help eliminate some of the smoke.

I have a hunch I know what daughter-in-law will be getting for Christmas next year. A new pan to replace the one I'm sure he's ruined to the set of the expensive ones he gave her last Christmas. I think sometimes men just do things like that to get "fired" from the household chores!

Everybody seemed to like the candied tomatoes. I suspect it was because they served a general purpose of covering up the taste of the collard greens as they were consumed by those grumbling, unappreciative children of mine. I think I can make a pretty mean pot of collard/turnips greens if I do say so myself. Someday they'll appreciate it.

For now they are so intimidated by the idea that they had better eat their greens or black-eyed peas or stand the risk of having bad luck and/or no money for the coming year. I'm not willing to take a chance on it, myself. I want to insure that I will have at least some money even if I have to eat the greens and peas, but then again, as I said, I like them and since I grew up on them it's not that hard for me. But just because they can, they continue to grumble, year after year after year. Even my son who has never, ever been a picky eater can't seem to cultivate a taste for them.
My daughter on the other hand, has seemed to acquire a bit more of a taste for them.

It turned out to be quite an enjoyable evening. Nobody was overly stressed out by having to prepare huge amounts of food, the kids had more than ample room to play, which would have been a different story had they met at my house, and just in general everything was great.

The boys enjoyed visiting with their only little girl cousin and she was in heaven with the room full of little boy toys to play with. She blended right in. Where or where has my little lace gone?

If I dared make plans for myself again, it might be that tomorrow I will stay inside all day, no cooking, no cleaning, just enjoying a quiet day semi-alone to catch up on some much needed sleep. We'll see.

I've already fallen asleep while trying to type this. Who knows what I said above that wasn't really true! But I'm not reading it over again before I publish it.

It looks like I've already broken my first and only resolution by going out and by cooking. I don't think I want to even try to make anymore if I can't at least keep simple resolutions.

Nah, we all enjoyed that broken resolution.

And, little Sophie, the newest little granddaughter puppy has gained five whole ounces this week. She's getting there.

My daughter missed the best photo of the night. Annabelle and Sophie were standing at the glass door looking out. Annabelle with her little face pushed up to the window and little Sophie so tiny with her little front paws stretched out onto one of the lower window panes standing by her new found buddy. It was a winning photo for sure, but two-year olds and puppies move at flash speeds and wait for no one, so I was the only one who was able to capture it in my mind. How precious it was. A shared moment, for sure.

Good night and a very happy and prosperous New Year.

Cookie Dough making time

So, today is cookie dough making time. It's best for the dough to be made in advance so that the heat from little hands and big hands don't make it all hot and runny, so since we are to be making Christmas Cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve we must have the dough ready. That, and we need to make sure the dough is even fit to make cookies with.

We brought Annabelle back over to our house and started our cookie dough making. This was a recipe I had gotten off the internet claiming we would never use another recipe in our life-time, so I was up for the challenge. It has a half-pound of pure butter in it so it certainly should be scrumptious as it clogs our veins. But most cookie recipes call for at least 1/2 cup of shortening so that shouldn't be a real big problem. It's just that it's pure butter. Then again, they say pure butter is better for us than all that other stuff, right.

We pulled out all the goodies that were to go into the cookies, along with the old 1980's version (Oops, I can't believe I thought it was a 1980's mixer, it was really bought in the late 1960's, around 1969/1970 because Santa brought it to me for Christmas not long after we moved into the house two of my grandbabies were born while living there. Anyway, it was prior to 1971-72, so moving the time frame around a bit I know it was somewhere between 1969-1972, but most likely the earlier dates. It was the time when Avocado Green and Harvest Gold were just coming into style in kitchen wares and after all-white appliances Avocado Green looked very trendy and appealing to me, and I had to have that color instead of white. Huh, what was I thinking; now I would chose the trusty old white, hands down in appliances as well as bathroom fixtures, etc., but then I am getting a little off track here with dating this thing, just trying to be accurate as I can. And I know, this whole interjection would have driving my English teachers completely bonkers and me, too, were I trying to be so grammatically, properly worded, etc. correct, but I'm NOT!) of the trusty old Kitchen Aid heavy duty mixer than hasn't seen use for sometime since the big kids left home. I could tell it was really excited about once again being used for cake or cookie making, despite the brush-burning smell I encountered when I tried to use it on low speed. But it kept chugging along. The old Kitchen Aid had prepared many, many, many cakes, breads, cookies, etc. for two prior children during the years since it had come to live at my house. It continued to be faithful through that batch cookies for a sweet little girl's contribution to Santa on Christmas Eve.

I had not let the butter set out long enough, so I did have a little problem getting it to mix with the sugar in short time, but we worked through that. We came to the eggs. Somehow eggs just attract trouble with us. Annabelle wanted to crack the eggs herself and without my help. She saw me try to crack them on the table. That didn't work because it was a a flimsy work table I had set up so she could help without a lot of trouble. Then she wanted to crack them on the side of the dish. I wasn't quite quick enough. She cracked it and opened it with her little fingers before I could stop her, then a few bits of eggshell flew into the broken egg. At least most of it hit the bowl this time. There was a small amount of egg white that got on the floor and possibly my pants, but there's no time for cleaning that up when you've got an octopus working with you, so I left it on the floor for the moment. The second egg went without much trouble.

She helped with measure and mix telling me from time to time that I had her fork. The spoon was Grandmomma's. The fork was hers. Or the 1 cup measurer was mine and the 1/4 one was hers. She tried to keep me straight. She was giving the job of pouring the flavorings into the sugar/butter mixture and the salt, baking powder and baking soda into the flour mixture then stirring that with her fork.

Next she was given the task of using her 1/4 cup measurer to add the flour to the sugar/butter mixture. But, not before we had a taste test. Of the plain flour. She decided she needed test-taste a spoon, and I mean a soup spoon-sized serving, of plain flour, no sugar added. She had no problem with eating plain flour. I know of no real health problem from kids or anyone for that matter eating plain, plain flour. But, Granddaddy had a major problem with it. So much so that while he was discipling her for it, he failed to get the absolutely cutest picture of the whole cookie-dough making time!

Now anyone who knows me, knows that I just can't tolerate eating after anyone, and little kids are especially included in that. However, lately I've come to the conclusion that it's going to be cooked and those germs will be cooked out in the end, besides her hands had been thoroughly cleaned right down to her nails being scrubbed, 100% clean. That's another story.

Anyway, this was to be a funtime for her to make cookies and just enjoy herself, so I sat back and let her do it. It was a little harder for Granddaddy. I told Annabelle's Mommy that Granddaddy never could have stood staying home with them because he constantly finds something to tell them they cannot do. I say, if it isn't harmful to one of them or me, let it be a fairly good learning time, so I don't care if the flour gets dropped on the floor with the egg white or if a spoonful of flour goes into their mouth. Just don't miss getting the cute pictures for goodness sakes.

Then when she finally got down to business adding the 1/4 cup amounts of flour into the butter/sugar/eggs, she accidently turned loose of the measuring cup and down it flew into the batter. Luckily I was there and cut the mixer off before it did any damage to the mixer, but we got a picture. Now that was cute.

I had bought her a little pink apron and chef's hat which I forgot to put on her until we had done a lot of work on the cookie dough, but I did get it on her at last and she looked cute until she decided she had enough of that silly apron and hat. "Apron off! Hat off!" So be it.

We finished our cookie dough and she wanted to lick the big, big spatula. Mommy lets her. So I let her, too. Granddaddy was a bit put out because he thought she should just have had a little of it and not the whole spatula. I'm pretty good at cleaning a beater so there wasn't that much left, but she worked on it the best she could. I put the rest of the dough into another bowl, cleaned the mixer bowl out really good and then gave the rest to Granddaddy, who complained again. Later I looked over and there was Granddaddy fighting with Annabelle trying to keep her from licking his bowl. Those two! Really. Oh, and earlier he had even dared fuss at her for trying to sneak a little sample from the top side of the bowl!

Later I looked down and there was a Hansel and Gretel stream of flour from the table to the refrigerator. Don't know what she was looking for there. Also, the camera had flour on it and Granddaddy's chair arm also was covered. But she's really a pretty neat little cook.

After eating out (we had to let the dough set in the refrigerator at least two hours before rolling it out. Got to harden that butter again, you know) we came back and I sneaked a small ball of it from outside and rolled it out into a nice sized star and a couple of small hearts so we could sample. This was a new recipe you know, so I had to make sure it was going to work. I put it on parchment paper and cooked it in the toaster oven at 400 for about 5 minutes. It was perfect. At least for me. Not too brown, but just right on the bottom and top,both.

This may be a keeper recipe. We'll see after we use it on Wednesday for Santa's cookies. It's much easier to work with than our usual store-bought stuff.

Now, do I dare try this with the three little grandsons when we see them on Christmas Eve. I'm thinking, "Let's not be too stupid and do it from scratch with six little hands going at it, but maybe make the dough up in advance and take it and let them help roll them out and cut them." Or just forget the whole thing? I'll run it by their Mommy before we mess up her house too much.

And the cookies had a delightful taste, if I didn't already say that. We may do it all over again another day. Just not Christmas Eve. Not from scratch.

Since Granddaddy was sound asleep with The Little Princess while I was writing this up, the pictures didn't get downloaded from the camera. Maybe another day when I've nothing else to do. And maybe the pumpkin pie ones will go on someday, too.

Somebody's awake right now waiting for me to go 'pay' with them, so off I go.

A chickens got what?

When my husband and I returned from our honeymoon and was settling into the life he never promised me, it was necessary to do our grocery shopping. Those were the days you couldn’t run into the McDonald’s or Burger King for a fast hamburger; you really had to go home after a hard day at work and cook something.

We made our way to the A & P Grocery store four blocks, more or less, from our home. As we carefully walked the aisles of the store, watching the pennies we had to spend for the weeks’ groceries, we stopped at the meat counter. I picked up a package of meat, looked at it in total amazement and said to my husband, “A chickens got what? Look, this package says ‘chicken breast’. A chicken doesn’t have breast!”

I grew up on the farm and OUR chickens didn’t have breast. They only had backs!” He would try to persuade me to put the package of ‘funny meat’ back saying it wasn’t any good. I wouldn’t like it. But I was intrigued. I had to have it, so I bought it over protests from him. He preferred the red meat called roasts.

A little background on the two of us: He grew up in a minister’s family; I grew up a poor girl on a farm. He and his family ate their meals every Sunday with some of the families in the community; we struggled to feed a family of four children and two adults living off the land. Every Sunday the people in the community where he lived would serve them chicken along with all the good vegetables from their gardens. Yeah, pretty much every Sunday. Back to my family: We only had chicken when we had the preacher and his family over for dinner. Chicken was a luxury to us, not just another weekly meal.

When we had the pastor and his family, our chicken became the ‘sacrificial lamb’. We didn’t have that many chickens so each one we killed for the pastor was one less we had on the farm. That, and we were bonded to those chickens. Sometimes they had names. We fed those babies every morning with leftover cornbread and biscuit scraps.

I had to listen to him as he complained about how ‘they had to eat old chicken every Sunday.’ He had to listen to me as I complained because 'I never got to eat a part of the chicken that wasn’t the backbone.'

He probably was able to sit at the dining table with his family. I had to eat in the kitchen most times, alone, because the bigger kids got to eat at the dining table, and either I couldn’t be trusted with what I might say or did say, or there wasn’t room. Most likely it was the first thing mentioned and not the latter, but for whatever reason I was assigned the kitchen and Mama always gave me the backbone. (Had I been seated at the big table I probably would have questioned why everybody else got the good parts of the chicken, and I got stuck with those backbones. My mother knew her child and any injustices I might have felt would have been brought up anywhere, in front of anybody.) Anyway, that is why I have questioned that chicken had anything but backbones.

My husband’s attitude towards chicken always bothered me once I learned how unappreciative he was of what those families gave up for them to properly feed their pastor and his family on Sundays. Those chickens DIED for him and he never appreciated it one bit. Now if he had had to eat the backbones I could understand his resentment, but no, he got the good pieces. He did recognize that chicken breast in the grocery store, remember?

I’m still not over it. But I get my revenge now. As long as I cook the meals I can have chicken as often as I want. I just can't fry it like my Mama could. Hubby does now have the option of going to Burger King or McDonald’s or some other place, but most of the time he’s just too lazy, so he’ll eat chicken. He still has an awful pained look on his face, but he’ll tolerate it.

Now I’m glad to know that chickens really do have other parts. I’ve learned to like the wings and the drumstick as well as the breasts.

*Disclaimer: this may not have been exactly how it went down in the grocery store, but it's pretty close. The rest of the story is pretty accurate. I really did know what a chicken breast was. I wasn’t that much of a hayseed that I didn’t know there were other parts of the chicken. I remember times my brother and I would fight over the pulley bone, (That's at the top of the chicken where the breast pieces join) and he would always make me snap mine off short, so he’d have good luck and not me. I’m sure he was lucky enough to eat that piece of meat on the pulley bone, too. Yeah, we would fight over chicken in my house!

I’m pretty sure that trip to the grocery store was the first I learned about his true attitude about chicken. If I had known it a week earlier, I probably wouldn’t have gone through those marriage vows. That’s a pretty big cultureal divide between two people. I mean, how can anybody who grows up in a preacher’s family not be appreciative of families who gave up their chickens so they could eat?

We didn’t go to the grocery store for our meats like they did. No, no, I’m sorry they didn’t either. The neighbors also kept them in meat during hog-killing days. That’s probably another reason he and his dad never cared that much for pork.

As an afterthought, the backbones of a chicken don’t have much meat on them, but if the bone is floured up and fried real good, you don’t always miss the meat. It just all tastes like….chicken?

Coconut Baby Dolls

Even though Christmas is behind us at this point, I wanted to relate something I had intended including during the Christmas holidays, and just got too busy with other things and forgot to include it.

When my Mother was a young girl each Christmas Santa Claus would bring her a coconut as part of her Christmas. She would carry that little coconut around until finally her mother or daddy would get it from her and use it in the baking.

I never got one myself from Santa, but I can imagine it must have been lots of fun having a Coconut Baby Doll to love for a few days. It must have been just as sad when its little face was cracked and all the goodies were removed! I'm sure most of you have seen a whole coconut at some point in your life time, with it's little eyes, nose and mouth. You punctured those holes with an ice pick and drained all the coconut milk from the insides and used it to help make your coconut cakes moist and delicious..

The goodie was very hard to get out of the shell. It required a good whack or two with a hammer. And then when you did get it opened there was still all the brown inner tough skin that had to be pried out and then peeled from the white coconut. Then came the grating. There were a few bummed up knuckles from getting them too close to the coconut. It was all very time-consuming but my Mother could bake a good coconut cake, especially at Christmas.

I'm sure she never worked with a coconut without having happy childhood memories rush over her as she worked.

I had intended to get The Little Princess a coconut for Christmas this past year, just to share a tradition fondly remembered by her Great Grandmother. I forgot this year, but maybe next year I'll be better at remembering. She'll be able to better appreciate it next year anyway.

Monday, December 24, 2007 - Christmas Cookies

**Disclaimer: Just because it ain't proper grammar, correctly spelled, or doesn't follow the rules of English 101, 102, 103, 505, whatever, doesn't make it incorrect (to me, at this particular moment of writing). This is my blog, and if you don't like my construction of sentences, my split infinitives, improper use of grammar, misplaced commas, improperly used semi-colons, etc., don't criticize. And if you happen to be an English teacher and came across my blog accidentally, please feel free to use this as the means of teaching your students the way NOT to write. If you're still offended just get your own blog, and see if you can do any better! But keep coming back, because I'm having lots of fun. I really do know better, I just ain't in the mood to do better! When you get old you just have to make sure the thoughts get written down, proper or im. Since this is mostly as a record for The Little Princess, that's all that counts. If she grows up thinking I'm uneducated, at least she'll know my thoughts, scattered or otherwise, were recorded because of her. So there!**

Recently the little Princesses' mommy decided we should spend today making Christmas cookies with the Little Princess. In preparation for this, I spent yesterday morning trying to find this cute little child-sized pink sil-pat covered rolling pin from Linens'N Things. (Just for Little Princesses' future reference, it cost $9.99 plus a tank of expensive gas!) But you're worth it!

Weeks ago, maybe even months ago, I had tried to plant the seed in Granddaddy's mind, that this would be such a darling little thing to have to use with The Little Princess when she got older and we could make cookies together. Subconsciously I was really trying to convince him that by the time she was old enough to use the little rolling pin, they wouldn't be carrying such a cute little thing anymore, and sweet Little Princess would miss out on a really fantastic experience. That usually works. All I have to do is say it is for The Little Princess and he immediately agrees with me. This time he didn't seem to catch the hint; therefore, he paid for his lack of hearing what I was saying by having to tromp all over the County and beyond trying to find that rolling pin...which we should have bought when I mentioned it...but we didn't...And he knows the rule he always tells me I should follow...buy it now while you want it, or you'll never find it...But he didn't live by that rule the first time I suggested, even practically begged him to suggest I buy it...Anyway, you understand the problem I was dealing with here.

I hadn't told The Little Princesses' mommy about it because I didn't think we would use it so soon, and I wanted it to be a surprise for her as well. Let me insert here another thing. While we were out trying to find the rolling pin (as well as something else to add to Mommy's Christmas present,) she calls on the cell phone. Granddaddy can't keep a secret no matter how hard he tries. When she asked where we were, he immediately tells her, which only makes her question more and more, why, what, etc. (As I write this, I'm beginning to realize just how much of her aunt she has in her!) I really didn't want her knowing what I was doing. I wanted to surprise her, too, as I said, but No, he has to continue talking with me doing the crazy dance with arms swinging, etc. to let him now he is to "knock it off, don't say anything!" You'd have to know him to understand how complicated this can get with him. He just keeps getting himself deeper and deeper into something he should have stayed out of to begin with. (Note to self: Whenever you leave him alone in the store, either confisicate his stupid cell phone, or contact cell phone service and see if you can have in-coming/outgoing calls from anyone but you, blocked until after you're back together again!)

Any-who, since Little Princesses' mommy later came up with the idea of establishing a tradition with Little Princess to make cookies at Christmas, so this was what caused me to set out on my search for that now elusive rolling pin. Granddaddy should have known to encourage me to get it when I first showed it to him, but no, he has to learn the hard way! And he blames me for having to run all over town! Hummph!

Back to the cookie making day. We set up Little Princesses' high chair with a flour-dusted rolling pad, that adorable little rolling pin and some cookie dough as well as some of Grandmomma's prized cookie cutters.
(We had decided a couple of days before that since we would have to chill homemade dough it would be best to try using the bought cookie dough in a roll. Another mental note: homemade dough is probably better. Make in advance and chill. This got very soft and stuck in the cookie cutters as well as on the mats and rolling pin.)

We showed The Little Princess how to use the rolling pin and we started our cookie making adventure. She seemed to really enjoy trying to roll it out in the manner far exceeding the abilities of any other 14 month old.
She had so much fun chewing and teething on the end of that expensive rolling pin, probably as much as she did rolling out the dough.

She was covered with flour on her sweet little face, nose, clothes and anything else that was showing. (Who was supposed to be in charge of making sure the bib was in place for this child? Grandmomma can't do everything, you know! Or to use a favorite quote from my Mama, "I can't do everything and work in the mill all day, too!" What made this so funny was she never worked in the mill. Her parents did when she was younger, but not her. Where did that come from?) Oh, but I digress! Focus, Grandmomma, focus!

At one point Mommy said, "That's your cookie, Grandmomma!" My cookie was supposedly the one The Little Princess had just sneezed on! (Yep, it was captured on film!)
I don't think so, Mommy or Little Princess. That is definitely not Grandmomma's cookie. Grandmomma's very funny when it comes to eating after anyone especially one who has sneezed on the food. That cookie was set aside especially for The Little Princess. She was perfectly happy to eat her own. I think she did it on purpose! (This is the first cookie she cut out.

Oh come on. Now you know you can tell it's a Teddy Bear. After all, that's her very favorite animal at this point in her life. The dough just lost its shape because she had handled it so much.

So, Little Princess decided she would also sample Santa's cookies before leaving them for him for tonight. First the raw dough then the undressed cookies, and finally the decorated ones



There I go again, now I'm putting the ending before the beginning. But let's add some more important stuff before we finish those cookies.

Granddaddy's job was to take pictures. Her Daddy was down in the workshop finishing up the Christmas surprise for both her mommy and the Little Princess. It was my job to help Mommy get things organized and just be an assistant, whenever I could.

I turned around to make sure Granddaddy was doing his job (Yes,supervising was another of my jobs. I was a very busy woman.) and there he stands, camera hanging, draped around his neck, his mouth open, staring while The Little Princess makes her cookies. Granddaddy got so caught up in the whole cookie-making affair that he stopped making the pictures. Now who can just stand there and not get pictures of a first-time, memory-making experience such as this for a little girl? Ummm, can we say "Granddaddy"?

So that "poor granddaddy" didn't miss the real-life moments, Mommy called Little Princesses' Daddy up from the workshop to take pictures (after all, he had nothing else to do and hadn't been staying up until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning working on this project for the past few weeks. Surely he can stop and take a few hundred pictures,) and in the meantime, in order to keep from missing some great moments granddaddy was supposed to be getting, I grabbed the camera and started taking my own pictures. We only took 692? with my camera and I don't know how many her Daddy and Mommy finally took with theirs. By the way, Mommy, I need copies of those. There might be some shots that look better from Daddy's point of view!

If you look at those pictures on the computer and zip by them fast enough they look just like a movie! So funnnny. Keep that camera rolling, you might miss just the right one!

Back to Granddaddy...Oh stop it! Stop feeling so sorry for "poor granddaddy". That's why he's so difficult to handle. You people keep feeling so sorry for "poor granddaddy".

You can still capture the moment while you're looking through the lens of the camera! Oh, please! I think my granddaughter needs to give her Granddaddy some of those "focus, please, look-at-me-Granddaddy" looks she gives me!

Little Princess had a wonderful time making those cookies, and so did the rest of us. We(I) cooked them and then we decorated them after they were finished. She had plenty of patience waiting until we got them cut out, pried them from the cookie cutter, cooked and got them ready to decorate. See how alert she was during the whole thing?

She had oh so much fun helping Mommy pipe the icing out onto the cookies.

It did require some of Mommy's help since it takes a bit of pressure to get the frosting out of the bag, but Little Princess did help. She would grab a cookie as soon as Mommy frosted it for Santa, pick at the icing, and plop it into her little mouth. My what a sugar high she probably had after we left! Oh, and she had cookie dough hanging from one or both of her little ears in little tiny balls that made her ears appear to be pierced!

Oh yeah, now I remember, my other jobs were to (a) bake the cookies (in case I haven't aleady said that) , (b) take them out, (c) and clean up all that mess in the kitchen

while Little Princess and her mother disappeared to the back for a nap for Little Princess. Or at least Mommy attempted to get her down.

But before that, the funniest part was cleaning up The Little Princess. Mommy and Granddaddy were standing holding Little Princess over the trash can so Mommy could shake her off and clean her up without a lot of trouble.


Now those were precious pictures. You say Grandmomma got pictures? Of couse, as you can see above. Poor Little Princess didn't even complain. She really didn't know what they were doing, I don't think, so she just went along with it.

After all was said and done, Santa had cookies on his plate for Christmas Eve.
He must have eaten them all because the next day when we went over, there were plenty of crumbs on the table where he had devoured them!

One little footnote: Little Princess had an outbreak on her little face. Now since this was store-bought dough, I don't think it would have been from eggs in the dough. I don't think they put raw eggs in store-bought cookie dough, so there may have been something else working on her there besides the eggs.)

It was fun,

until now...

Another little thought to add here: When The Little Princess visited Santa for this years photo shoot, Mommy had envisioned her precious angel sitting nicely in his lap as she looked into his bearded face and stroked it lovingly, smiling all the while. Well, sometimes what we envision comes out a bit differently from what we get. Little Princess screamed anytime she was near Santa and those dreams fell through. However, I have to say the cookie making episode went quite well. We couldn't have asked for better. Good job, Little Princess. I was proud of you.

Even if we didn't build a single memory for The Little Princess we certainly captured a few for ourselves. It doesn't always have to be about The Little Princess, does it?

History repeats itself 27 years later...

They say history repeats itself and I have to agree, it really does. Now 27 years later, short by two days we watched as our little almost 14 month old granddaughter protested loudly at the thought of sitting in Santa's lap. Just as her Mommy did on December 15, 1980.

Mommy had dressed her in a pretty little green velvet dress that had a matching coat, that her Granddaddy's Mother, and the Little Princesses' Great-grandmother, had made for her Mommy when she was around the same age as the Little Princess. Mommy was probably a few months older the year she wore the little dress in the winter.

She looked like a little doll in her little short dress and a picture with Santa would be just the thing we had all looked forward to. Last year she had been perfectly wonderful, but she was only two months old then.

She decided at the very beginning she was having nothing to do with Santa. She started out a bit grumpy with everybody because everybody was trying to make her part with bunny. First Mommy, then Daddy, then Grandmomma and last of all Granddaddy. Enough was enough and she headed straight into a melt down.

She decided she would be totally uncooperative. As soon as Mommy headed toward Santa she broke down in tears. Daddy managed to get a few pictures and Granddaddy managed to get some, but Santa's helpers were not getting any this time. So Mommy and Daddy decided they needed to give her a few minutes to control her little emotions before moving on to more attempts. She walked around the mall area nearby for a little while, then Mommy wanted her to come stand with her. That didn't suit the Little Princess at all. She pretty much had her mommy figured out. They thought if she watched the other kids go up and not cry, she would be able to handle it better, but that didn't work at all.

She cried, she protested, she made it clear she didn't want to be around Santa today. Mommy even sat on the bench with Santa, a few pictures of the screaming little girl and then Daddy joined them. It was still a no-go for her, even though they all three had their pictures made with Santa.

Mommy and Daddy bought the DVD with all rights to have anything printed. I think it cost around $25. I guess Santa's people figured they wouldn't lose much because who would want to have copies made of a screaming baby. They just didn't know us very well because we went straight to Costco to have more pictures made. Who wouldn't love seeing a wonderful moment unfold before your very eyes,when a poor little girl visited Santa for the first time, even with tear-filled eyes.

I figure she can use those pictures 27 years from now along with the picture of her mommy screaming her eyeballs out. History will probably repeat itself all over again for the third time. And she can dream the same type dreams her mommy dreamed today, of seeing her sweet baby looking up lovingly into Santa's face as she gently strokes Santa's beautiful white beard and instantly bonds. Yeah, right.

Bubble Cake, Fried Corn, Salmon and No City Bacon

I was sitting here reading on the internet,recipes that people were planning to use for their Christmas morning menu, and noticed several people had mentioned they always made Bubble Bread,otherwise known as Monkey Bread. It’s a cinnamon-type recipe made with the bread, usually biscuit dough as I recall, pinched off into balls and stacked into a Bundt-type pan and sprinkled generously or maybe rolled generously in cinnamon sugar and margarine/butter and stacked around the Bundt pan. I’ve made it a few times just as a snack and not particularly at Christmas.

Anyway, the mention of Bubble Bread brought to mind a childhood treat we enjoyed very rarely, but occasionally. It was something my mother always called Bubble Cake. To those who don’t remember or know what Bubble Cake was/is…it was what is commonly known as Rice Krispy Treats. It was made with Rice Krispy Cereal, butter,and Marshmallows. Just a gussied up name my Mama chose for it.

It has always tasted and sounded better called “Bubble Cake”. And maybe it tasted so good because we rarely had it.

We also very rarely ever had city-type bacon. Ours was always the streak-o-lean type hog meat that was cut mostly in large chunks and used to season our fresh boiled vegetables, or if sliced in thinner slices, but not as thin as that good old hickory smoked city bacon, it was used mostly when Mama fried it down to use in our fried corn. It always had a hard rind to it after she fried it. That was my favorite part of the country streak-o-lean or fatback if it was mostly fat. Really, I guess she used the fat back for the boiled vegetables and the streak-o-lean for frying.

And remembering that fried corn she used to make…she would make corn fritters and fry them for us for our meals, mostly on Sundays and especially when the preacher came, I guess. I never learned to perfect her corn fritters. That,and Mama’s fried salmon patties. Nobody could make a better dish of either than she could. She would use what she called then, a box of salmon, which was the large, tall can, add homemade biscuit crumbled up, salt, pepper, I’m not sure she used egg, like I do, and that box of salmon would feed a big, hungry family. She could stretch that out into so many patties, and they were delicious every time. She would get her grease, lard of course, just hot enough and fry those things until they were a pretty brown on both sides, and that was some good eating. I seldom am able to get more than ten patties out of a can. She had a knack for expanding that food, I guess.

Hmm, maybe she stretched hers further because she didn't pick through the salmon and remove all that ugly black stuff and all those bones. We ate it all. Those bones were good for our little bones. Good calcium.

Those salmon patties were another thing we had very seldom. For some reason I want to say they cost about ten cents a can at that time. Daddy was working in a grocery store and would pick up some occasionally.

I remember specifically one time when we went to visit some of my Mother’s out of town relatives and we skipped church that Sunday. We never did that, so this was something I really remembered. Mama had made a pan of hot biscuits before we left home and had packed those salmon patties in for a picnic somewhere along the way. I don’t remember that much about anything else that day except standing outside the car and eating those biscuits and salmon for lunch. Yummmmy.

Pass the Pumpkin Pie, please...

Friday, November 23, 2007
The day after Thanksgiving Day. A few hours spent yesterday on Thanksgiving with The Little Princess, her Mommy, Daddy, my sister, her husband and my husband. It was a good day. A good meal, and fun fellowship. A time to watch The Little Princess try out new table food, such as cranberry sauce…umm didn’t like it too much. Must have been too tart for her little developing taste buds. She liked the turkey, but,that’s not really a new food for her. Grandmomma’s dressing wasn’t too tasty to her either. There was no special seasoning, so I can’t imagine what caused the dislike of my dressing. Oh well, maybe another year. She loved the sweet potato casserole; she’s accustomed to eating plain sweet potatoes, so that was no big surprise, either. Green bean casserole was accepted as just that…acceptable. Macaroni and cheese, nothing new to her either. Don’t know if she had a chance to eat any of the yummy Pineapple Casserole, but everybody else liked it. The bowl was almost clean when it was removed from the table. Mommy may have deemed that too sweet considering all we had. Well, the rest of us enjoyed all of the food from the looks of our plates. And we still had plenty to divide among us so that we all got at least another meal from it. Very good indeed.

We let the lunch settle a bit while Mommy and Daddy worked on packing their clothes for the trip to The Litte Princesses’ Great Granny’s house not far from an adjoining state. They were hoping to get on the road before The Little Princess had to take her afternoon nap because she had only slept 37 minutes to be exact in the morning. Mommy counts minutes, exactly, when it comes to naptime or lack thereof.

Then it was time for the Pumpkin Pie. A dessert that my kids wouldn’t have considering it Thanksgiving had we not had it each year. That and my homemade cornbread dressing. Sorry sweet Little Princess, you didn’t like my dressing. We’ll work on that.

As for the Pumpkin Pie, Granddaddy offered The Little Princess just a tiny smidgeon of his pie before he started eating his own. She wanted more…then more…then more… until Granddaddy had very little left on his plate. The Little Princess must have remembered the Pumpkin Patch we went to earlier. Now she knows how they good they taste.

How can you love spicy Pumpkin Pie and despise good ole cranberry sauce and that scrumptious cornbread dressing so much? I’m beginning to wonder who this child belongs to. Was she swapped at the hospital? I suppose half a battle won is better than a full loss, or maybe that’s a third of the battle won….Just keep passing that pumpkin pie!

Thanksgiving 2007

Today is Thanksgiving. Seems like time passes so fast lately. It was only yesterday we were celebrating Thanksgiving and now it’s here again.

I have so many things to be thankful for everyday, but since today was a day set aside for us to specifically stop to reflect on giving thanks, here are a few of mine. Certainly not covering everything, but just a few.

1. For my sweet hubby, who lets me think I’m getting my way most of the time. He’s the best husband one could hope for, and the best Daddy two kids could ever dream of having. He's always led by example in everything he's done. The kids learned many of their values by watching him go to work every day, faithfully providing for his family, and in his honesty and his caring for people. He’s been my support and teacher while I struggled to learn Photoshop Elements so I could make digital scrapbook pages remembering fun times with our four grandchildren. I’m always amazed at his ability to conquer the technical world. He can do anything he wants to do. Computers and technology were never a part of his livelihood; it was simply a hobby he taught himself years ago when the kids were little, and he’s continued throughout the years. Many times I would have thrown the computer out the window, but he’s always managed to fix my problems and get me back on track.

2. For my son who has also become the best Daddy to my three little grandsons. Even though his job has been taxing at times, he spends as much good quality time with his boys as possible. He’s a good husband, a good provider, and a good support system for my daughter-in-law and grandsons. He’s what the world needs more of…a good man to raise future good men. I'm convinced that is the reason God blessed him with three boys. He will do the best job any man can. I’m proud of him in everything he does.

3. For my daughter-in-law…She’s a loving mother to my grandsons. She keeps them in line in a firm, but caring way. Little boys need that. No, little boys have to have that. She and my son are both good moral compasses for their little ones. She’s been most supportive in my son’s transfer out of state to a more challenging job. Without her help and support, it would never have been possible. I give her lots of credit. She forfeited a lot so he could go forward with his dreams. She assumed a lot more responsibility for his goals to be accomplished. I’m glad you’re my daughter-in-law.

4. For my three precious grandsons. I miss them horribly, but life changes sometimes, and it was always my goal in life to see my children and grandchildren happy in marriage, life and career. About the move, the decision was not mine, nor should it have been. Their happiness is all that matters. I miss those sweet boys and all the funny things they said and did when we had time together. I’m thankful for at least those memories and look forward to many more in the future, even if they are so far away. I’m thankful also to see they have made the change with few complications. They’ve adjusted nicely to having their little worlds turned upside down, at least for the moment it happened. To The Analyzer, I'm thankful for your intelligence, your attention to the slightest detail, your common sense and your love for your brothers (most of the time); to Little Free Spirit, I'm thankful for your kind-hearted side, your love for your big brother and tolerance of your little brother, for your bright little sayings; and to Beautiful Blue Eyes, for your impish ways of teasing your big brothers, holding your own with them, your sweet spirit and just for being you and for being a member of our family of denim. I have so much to be thankful for.

5. For my daughter who is without a doubt one of the most patient mothers I know.I am amazed at how much patience and stamina she has with my granddaughter. I'm thankful for her love for her daughter. I’m thankful she’s able to stay home with The Little Princess, and that she and her husband recognized the importance of giving up monetary pleasures at least for the moment in return for the benefits Little Princess will receive. Also, because it gives her Daddy and me a chance to spend good quality fun time with both her and our granddaughter. Never question your choices or your abilities, my daughter. You deserve more credit than you give yourself.

6. For our son-in-law who has helped make it possible financially for our daughter to stay home with our granddaughter. For all his support of her efforts in raising The Little Princess. For being the wonderful husband he is to my daughter, and the caring Daddy he is to our granddaughter. For his gentle side that will teach our granddaughter how she should expect to be treated by men in her future. For his loving side which will teach her how to love. I can’t say for the discipline side because he will never be able to be the disciplinarian, no matter how much he thinks he will. He's already putty in her tiny little hands. She melts his heart right now, and it won’t change the older she gets. And, I’m glad you chose our daughter. You may just be a 'keeper'!

7. For The Little Princess. I’m thankful for being able to watch her as she grows and changes from one phase of her life to another. Seeing her as she becomes more and more of a challenge to her mommy in the little things. For wobbly little legs that get her into so much trouble. For sweet babbles from her precious mouth. For little displays of attitude she gives her Mom and Dad, just to show she's her own little being. For someday being my partner in crime as together we take on her mommy and teach her a few of life’s little lessons. For that beautiful, dimpled smile that is displayed on that sweet face most of the time. And for adding a bit of lace to my life already wonderfully blessed with beautiful, but tough denim.

8. For siblings and the chance to spend time remembering the old days, and what a pain in the neck they used to be. They’ve gotten a little better over the years!

9. For something we haven’t heard in a long time…the pounding of rain on the rooftop. Thank you Lord for a nice hard soaking rain.

10. For the chance to spend this Thanksgiving Day with at least a part of our family, though the other part remains out of state. They are remembered and loved. And we had loads of good times before they left.

11.These are just a few of my 'thankful fors' which of course, I didn’t include the food, and other things we take for granted. Too many other things, and I’m too long winded, so suffice it to say, I just did a few of the extra special ones off the top of my head.

Have a glorious and Happy Thanksgiving Day. I plan to. Playing with the Little Princess and maybe even finding time to visit a few minutes with her parents and my sister and brother-in-law for a few hours! And then maybe home again to do nothing more than enjoy the nice brisk, crisp fall day we've been waiting for so long.

Those were the days of honor and honesty…

Every Wednesday and every Saturday my Daddy would make his usual run into town to do what he called “peddling the milk and butter”. I don't know how many gallons of milk he took in to town each trip, but since we had quite a few cows and that meant excess milk, something had to be done with that milk. We had a refrigerator that stored as much as possible,considering we had a family of four children and our parents.

Daddy had his usual customers on his milk route, and I’m sure there were many more who would loved to have bought milk and butter from him had they had the opportunity. Very rarely did he sell what we called “sweet milk”. That’s what Northerners call “white milk”. Pretty much all his customer data base included buttermilk customers. The milk wasn’t pasteurized because it came straight from the farm and to make sure he didn’t sell something to someone and make them sick, he had very, very limited “sweet milk” customers. That was kept for family consumption.

Sometimes a few gallons of the milk would be stored in the spring down below the big house. That spring would keep the milk ice cold. I don’t remember a lot of that, just some, but I do remember the days of modern things happening at our house when Daddy bought his first Coca Cola machine to store that milk in. Eventually we had two of them.

How does one store milk in a Coca Cola machine, you ask? No, it wasn’t the kind where the little hole twirls around and dispenses your iced cold drink to you. This was a box made for Coca Cola before those fancy individual drink dispensers came along. It was a big rectangle-shaped box that held water. They were usually found in the little country stores.

You filled it half way with water, plugged it in, and eventually the water became ice cold and after a few hours of storing your gallons of milk in it, you would have the most delicious glass of buttermilk in the whole wide world. Add a chunk off a pone of cornbread, and you were doing some fine dining. Better than at the best restaurant in town.

There was no comparing sweet milk to that tart, ice-cold glass of buttermilk, with tiny chunks of real, homemade churned butter still floating in it.

In my opinion the only thing sweet milk was good for was making homemade ice cream. Well, maybe once the heavy cream was whipped it did taste pretty good. But my favorites were the pans of homemade chocolate and vanilla ice cream that awaited us when we arrived home from school.

Back to Daddy’s milk route…he loaded up the car with his gallons of milk and pounds of butter and headed for an all-day trip to town. Occasionally one of us kids would have the opportunity to spend the day with Daddy as he peddled his milk. I like to think of him as starting the modern version of "Take your kid to work Day", although that was everyday of our lives. They always carried us to work with them...straight to the fields.

On Daddy's 'milk days', Mama was left holding down the household chores and field work at home...unless Daddy took one with him. I always looked at these as Daddy’s days of vacation. Mama didn’t have any. The closest thing she could call a vacation was Sundays. That was't much of a vacation. Still the usual morning chores of milking, washing churns and jugs, churning, putting up the milk, cooking etc.,had to be done because cows and kids don’t take a day off. Mama just didn’t have to work in the fields because it was the Sabbath.

Daddy always kept a black book with lines drawn down the center, listing each of his customers, how many gallons of milk he had sold them, how many pounds of butter he had sold and whether or not he had been paid (always in cash, of course) or whether they still owed him ‘X’ number of dollars. Every gallon was accounted for. Every pound of butter was accounted for.

Daddy was an honest man. He was a man held accountable by himself, for himself and his family, for his income. There was a giant calendar Daddy kept hanging in their room. It was a giveaway calendar he had received at the end of the old year, advertising a local fertilizer store in town that he did his farm business with. Every Wednesday and every Saturday, without fail, Daddy would come home and record his sales for the day on that calendar.

Every year at tax time, he would pack up his calendar and whatever other receipts for income and expenses he had and take them into town to have his taxes figured by the local accountant.

Sometimes I wonder how it could have even been worth his time to keep track of those few gallons of milk he sold. That butter and milk my Mama had labored so hard over, put so many hours into, and he had sold for fifty cents a gallon. But it was their livelihood, money they had proudly made, paid their tithe from, and he was not above paying his share of taxes on it.

It was their contribution to society as meager as it was,helping the economy stay alive in the years I remember…the years during the late 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s. They were proud people, my Daddy and my Mama. They were the givers, the contributors, albeit in a small way. They were not takers. There were never free lunches at school for us kids because there was always at least a banana and loaf bread available for our school lunches. Taking welfare never entered their minds, though I’m sure they probably could have qualified. You never would have known it because they were too busy making a living and a life for their family.

They didn’t waste valuable time trying to figure out ways to beat the system. They added to the system. They were too busy raising their family. They didn’t have time for pity parties. They had created their children and they would make life happen for them as best they could. They would have been insulted had someone even suggested their children were suffering. Because they weren’t; they were taken care of by their parents. There was always food on our table and clothes on our backs…healthy food and clean clothes…

And as for “paying the IRS”, what did it really accomplish? It instilled a sense of pride in my parents.and it imprinted upon the minds of their little children, consciously or sub-consciously, “You pay your own way in life, you hold yourself accountable, and you are proud of your income, large or small, and it taught over-all honesty.

“Thank you Daddy and Mama for life’s little lessons, whether seen or unseen, appreciated or just taken for granted at the time. You made us who we are.

Put a little hand on Sweet Baby’s Head…

This was one of my Mother’s first and favorite things to teach each of her grandchildren when they were little tiny babies. Over and over she would tell them, “Put a little hand on Sweet Baby’s Head”, until at last they made the connection and put their tiny little hand on their own little head . It’s such a sweet gesture and will melt your heart to watch them.

This was a carry-over tradition for me with The Analyzer, Little Free Spirit and Beautiful Blue Eyes, so it was only natural The Little Princess should learn where Sweet Baby’s Head was.

It has been so much fun watching her over the past months as she’s learned to reach up and pat Sweet Baby’s head. There’s nothing any more fun than teaching a little one (as long as it’s your granddaughter or grandson or niece or nephew,) to put their little hand on their head, especially when it’s a little hand that has just been ground into squished up carrots, mushy green beans, sticky pears, or greasy birthday cake. Hmmm, unless it happens right after Baby has had a bath and is nice and clean from head to toe. Then, the look on mommy’s face is priceless!

Thank you Mama G, for teaching me this form of sweet revenge to use on my wonderful daughter, your granddaughter. It’s so precious and sweet, she won’t complain a bit about it. After all, Queen Mommy’s favorite Grandmother was responsible for starting the tradition, and she could never be mad at her.

I wonder if this tradition will be passed along to another generation by The Little Princess?

I sure hope so. I've been doing my best to carry on some sweet memories for future generations.