Easter

 Here's wishing for each of you a very blessed Easter! 

Kitchen Antics

 In my last post I said that my son was coming up to help Shirley with her Easter Bake Sale. I think he's getting a good intro in the baking business. This Sale is by order only and is weeks in the preparation. Right now Shirley and her husband have been handling it with very little help. So, Michael to the rescue. 

I went up yesterday to just hang out while they decorated fudge cut into egg shapes.

There were 70 eggs to decorate and have individual names piped on each.

I just couldn't stand it one more minute and picked up the decorating bag filled with green icing and started adding leaves so the pansy could be added. 

It has been years since I even had an icing bag in my hand. But, it was me that taught Shirley how to decorate over 50 years ago. So, a little of that is still in my brain somewhere. This is her last Easter Sale so it was my last hurrah as well. 

I loved watching those two siblings cut up. They are just 14 months apart and have always been close. 

Those two kept me entertained. They make sure it's not all work and no play. 

Kids... what joy they are at any age!

Easter Bake Sale

 My son, Michael, drove up from Alabama for a visit. Well, actually, he came up to help his sister with her Easter Bake Sale. 

This is her last Easter Bake sale. After her Christmas Cookie sale she will be retiring after 40 years of having a bakery in her home. She's always done it by order only and it's kept her busy. For several years she baked and decorated wedding cakes and birthday cakes but the last few years she has specialized in her hand decorated sugar cookies. 

It all started when she was a newly-wed, taking inspiration from her aunt who did a holiday sale of hand-made crafts. This was her first neighborhood invitation: 

Now she is on Instagram and Facebook and sends out flyers announcing her holiday sales via email to her hundreds of customers from a 75 mile radius. 

Shirley, Michael and John busy at work.

Shirley with her chick cookies.

At Christmas it was hundreds of bags of cookies and dozens of gingerbread houses 

ready for her customers to pick up. 

Christopher and Brittany, Shirley's children, were a big part of the baking process for years. 

Forty years of baking...

Congratulations, Shirley, for a job well done.

Your customers are sure gonna miss you but your Mama will love having you around more! 

Refueling My Tank

 I used to stay busy from daylight til way past bedtime. There was always something I needed to do. 

And, I used to ask myself "When am I going to have time to sit in my rocking chair, twiddle my thumbs, nothing much to do?"

                             Honey, let me tell you. I think I have reached that point.

I don't mean that I don't have some things I have to tend to, you know, like fixing my food, doing my laundry, that sort of thing. Those things tire me out more than they used to.

I'm not complaining, mind you. In fact, I think that when I get weary I will just take a nap. When I wake up... then I can sit in my rocking chair.

5 lbs. of Onion and an Idea

 Ever since Covid started I have not been in a store. How, you ask? 

Well, to begin with my son-in-law bought my groceries and left them at the door. Then, I discovered Instacart and we have been big buddies ever since. Only recently have I gone grocery shopping and I still have Walmart, Belk etc. to go in. 

So, here's the deal. I ended up with 5 lbs. of onions the other day. I could say that it was the shoppers fault but to tell the truth, I couldn't figure out how much an onion weighed and to order it I had to tell them how many lbs. So, I just got a bag.

I eat a lot of onions. Nobody here but me to blow my stinky breath on. And, I love them. But, I was afraid some would spoil.

One of my favorite places to eat is a barbeque place and they serve a small cup of pickled onion with the plate of barbeque. I brought some leftover home with me one day, put it on a spam sandwich and it was soooo good. 

I looked up the recipe and ta da..... I have pickled onion in the fridge. You can freeze them, too, to use in cooking and I may try that next. How do you use up a lot of onion? Tell me your secret! 

And the Wolf Said "I'll Blow Your House Down."

 April 3, 1974

It was getting late in the day. We'd just finished our supper when we heard that the entire county where we lived was under a tornado warning. We'd been moved back to Alabama just 5 years but we knew what that warning was. Our part of the state is in tornado alley.

The weather was getting bad. And, for once we got a wee bit scared. Enough so that my husband, our 3 children, me and the guy next door all crawled under our house. The furnace was down there so we had some space, thank goodness. I was more scared of snakes than being blown away by a tornado, I think. It was not the perfect place to be.

We huddled together, listening to a small transistor radio. Our town, 7 miles away, had been destroyed. 

Okay, the storm has passed, I am out of this scary place. We all left our 'safe' place under the house.... all but the guy next door. I don't know when he finally crawled out and went home. He may be there yet. 😃

That will be one night I will never forget. Hurricane's scare me but not as much as tornados. Those things are more than wicked.