Sunday, January 25, 2015

Hi y’all!

So much news to report this week I hardly know where to begin.

Yes I do. Let’s start with desktop pictures for this week.

Mike’s cat Macchiato is a very handsome guy and very photogenic too. He is my current desktop photo.

Ginger, my best girl, is sitting patiently, waiting for me to interview a couple of working men for my newly launched FaceBook page, HIM. Humans I Meet. (I sent you a link to it.) Ginger graced my desktop for a while too.

I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a web page so you wouldn’t have to go onto the FaceBook website, but they only give you three or four pages free, then you have to pay for it. I don’t think it would take me long to fill a page. Of course, now that I think about it, I don’t know what constitutes a page either.

As it is, you can view my FaceBook page without logging in or creating an account. I just don’t know if they allow you to post comments from there or not. Maybe someone will let me know.

I also have been toying with the idea of changing the name.

“Why’s that Peg?” you ask.

Well, there can only be one HONY (Humans Of New York), which is an awesome site, but I don’t feel good about riding on his coattails. In fact it isn’t even where I want go, it’s just a starting point. Ultimately what I want to do is short human interest stories, not the little snippets like I’m doing on my page. But I felt like I had to start someplace and I had to have a name. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say, but after a week of posting on my Humans I Meet website I have realized that I don’t want to be an imitation of HONY. I want to be my own thing.

Anyway.

Let me throw a couple of ideas out and maybe you can help me come up with something clever and appropriate.

On The Streets. Around Town. Wit N Wisdom. Frick N Frack. This N That. Fun N Folly. Out And About.

“Have you thought about including animal stories on your page?” Rita, my Indiana gal asked me. I hadn’t. And with the word ‘Humans’ in the title it sort of precludes animals. So there would be another reason to change the name.

Speaking of clever…

I asked Mike if he would rather be wise or clever.

“Wise,” he answered without any hesitation at all. “I’m already clever.”

I had to laugh. It’s true, you know. He is. He’s always coming up with ingenious and inventive ways to accomplish the tasks and chores we need to get done.

Me? I think I’d rather be wise. Sometimes my clever ideas backfire on me.
Case in point.

Sometimes I dry my can opener in my oven. I just hate when there is crap all over the cutting edge of a can opener, I think it’s disgusting. But if you wash it and it doesn’t get dry, it rusts, and that’s disgusting too. So I’ll warm my oven and set the can opener inside. That’s the easiest way to dry all the nooks and crannies that a towel can’t reach.

This past week I made tuna salad for lunch. I washed the tuna water from my can opener and turned the toaster oven on to dry it. I set the timer for a few minutes and walked away. I got busy with housework and next thing I know I smell plastic getting hot. I’m such an idiot sometimes, I’m telling ya! I never gave the drying can opener a thought. But then again, I never planned on watching it either. I planned on the oven warming, shutting off and the opener staying in the warm oven until it was dry. So when I started smelling plastic, it never dawned on me that my can opener was melting. But that is exactly what happened. It melted. I poked a button wrong or knocked the dial and at the pizza cooking temp of 425, my opener never stood a chance.

When I opened the oven door, smoke rolled out. Yeah. That’s how long it took me to figure out why I was smelling plastic burning. I shut the door quick-like. It would never do to set the smoke alarms off. They are hard wired throughout the whole building. If they go off in one place, they go off all over. I could just see them evacuating the busy Thai restaurant downstairs as I swallow my embarrassment and explain why I was cooking my can opener.

Open windows. Open oven door and let a little more smoke out. Turn on fans. Let a little more smoke out. It’s got to come out sooner or later, doesn’t it? I grabbed a damp towel and waved it around. Can you see me doing that? What a site I must have been.

When the immediate danger of setting off the alarms had passed, I inspected what was left of my can opener. I could see myself smearing plastic all over the place if I tried to clean it up hot or worse yet, burning myself, so I determined I wasn’t going to do anything until it cooled. In the meantime I was just very thankful I hadn’t set the smoke alarms off.

It really didn’t take it too long to cool and when I tried to pick it up, I realized the can opener had molded itself around the rack. No amount of prying by these old woman hands could free it. I’ll have to throw it all away, I thought and put it in the cupboard with the trash can.

“Where’s the rack?” I heard Mike say in my head. Although he seldom uses the toaster oven and may never miss it, it is much more likely the he will ask questions when I say I need a new can opener. Deception is exhausting and I am not good at it. Oh, Lord. I’m going to have to tell him what I did.

I had no sooner gotten the air cleared and the evidence put away when Mike came in. Michael, bless his heart, never batted an eye as I explained what happened. “Where’s it at now?” he asked.

I opened the cupboard door, reached in and pulled it out. “I don’t think it’ll come off,” I said resigned to throwing it away.

Without another word Mike took the whole mess to the garage and when he came back half an hour later, he presented me with a perfectly clean oven rack. The rackectomy was a complete success and I was delighted.

“How did you do it?” I asked.

“I can’t tell ya,” he said letting the rest of the line hang.

Me? I was just happy he saved the rack and I can get a new can opener.

Now, speaking of odors, what do you all do when you get a UFO? Unidentified Fridge Odor, that is.

I know that my hard boiled eggs are odiferous and I can usually identify that smell, but recently I noticed a UFO building. I don’t have a lot of things in my fridge, but one thing I did have was four three-week old apples in the crisper drawer. I checked them and they were still firm. I’d better get them eaten, I thought to myself. Well, they weren’t the best texture, but they were eatable-edible and I ate two of them. The other two…I couldn’t face eating them but they weren’t bad so I didn’t want to throw them out either.

Slowly, through the week, the fridge emptied but the smell was still there. Could the apples be the cause of my UFO? I wondered.

I didn’t want to eat the apples-and yes Momma, I hear you! “Peggy! Make them into applesauce!”-and I didn’t want to throw them out either. If there were only some other way. Then inspiration struck. I took the peels from an orange and a cinnamon stick and put them in a pot of water. Then I chunked the apple in it and let the whole thing simmer for a few hours. My house was filled with the wonderful aromas of my homemade potpourri.

Now that the apples are gone, I know that they were indeed the culprit and now for the real reason I’m telling you this story.

How do you keep your butter from picking up UFO’s?

　
　

Mr. Z and his little dog Georgie have left us. They moved to Amarillo, Texas so Mr. Z could be closer to his son. Mr. Z will get to meet grandchildren and great-grandchildren that he has never met before. He’ll get to attend sporting events and family functions that otherwise would have been impossible for him to go to.

Annie, Mr. Z’s sister-in-law, her granddaughter Fogerty

and son Darrin, threw Mr. Z a going-away party.

I’ll tell you what!

Darren makes a really good pulled pork. “If you ever need anyone for a party,” Mr. Z proudly exclaims, “he’s your man. You should see his fancy smokers. He’s got the setup now, and he pulls the whole thing around behind his truck.”

“Is he trying to start his own business?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but he’s done some jobs around town. Call him, he can tell you better than I can.”

You may see Miss Helen in the middle of this picture. Do you know why? If you said because she lives there, then you would be wrong.

I was invited to the party and Miss Helen agreed to be my date!

Someone else who has gone from my life is my beautiful cousin Jessica, and this time I mean gone in a more somber sense of the word.

At 35, Jessica now rests in the arms of our Lord. She died in an automobile accident last Sunday. She leaves behind her twin sons Jonathan and Jordan, a daughter, Sydney, and all of us.

A cousin to both Jessica and me is Stacey and Stacey has written a very loving and moving tribute to Jessica. If you would like to read it, I’ll be happy to forward you a copy.

There is a passage in the Bible that comes to my mind. One I recently heard. Job 14:5 says; Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.

It means that God knows how many days we are to be on this earth and we cannot exceed that number. Small comfort, or maybe no comfort as we grieve for Jessica. But to quote a wise and beautiful lady, “Trust God.”

More stories waiting to be written, but no more room. We shall call this one done.

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Hi everyone,

We had some warmer weather here and I actually hooked up Itsy and Ginger and went on a walk.

This is one of the first things I saw.

“What is it?” you ask.

This is the fruit of a passion flower. Passion flowers grow on vines and this vine wound himself up a sumac tree. As the vine died and the fruit dried, this one draped himself over a branch. Critters, especially deer love passion fruit so I seldom find any ripe ones let alone one that has reached this stage. It was just too high for the critters to get to. So there it hangs.

Do you think, if I could get this, that I could plant my own passion flowers?

I snapped photos of bittersweet…

…but the fruit is withering and the colors aren’t as vibrant.

A sycamore tree with it’s fruit hanging like ornaments on a Christmas tree caught my attention for a little while.

　
　

Dried pods…

Bubbles trapped in a thin skim of ice.

What is that? I wonder as my eye catches a flash of fluorescent green. I turn my camera to the spot and zoom in. Oh. With the water level being low, I see it is the nock of an arrow sticking up from the bottom of the pond. Did someone try to shoot a fish? A duck?

My rule is if it catches my attention, I photograph it.

Then I hear it.

I hear an airplane. He was flying lower than most of them do and he was making some beautiful contrails. The only way I could keep him in my auto focus was to keep the tree in the foreground.

 

All of these photos, with the exception of the arrow, graced my desktop this week with the airplane being the current one.

Our walk continued up the hill from the pond and as I emerged onto the lower portion of the Strip I knew immediately that I had picked the wrong time of day to be walking on the side of the road that didn’t have a sidewalk!

“Holy talk-about-traffic, Batman!” to paraphrase Robin.

So there I am, in my jacket, Itsy tucked inside, camera around my neck, doggie-poopy bag slung on my shoulder when car after car goes zooming past. I’m afraid for Ginger. She doesn’t like to be on a short leash but she sometimes darts into the road. I’d have to shorten it and try to get her to walk on the other side of me-the side away from traffic. I put the brakes on her retractable leash and she immediately tries to pull away. She knows how far away from me she has to be in order not to be stepped on. And I don’t blame her. But she almost ended up in front of a car. I pulled and got her on the other side of me and she was very obedient as she trotted along until I could get us into a parking lot and put more space between us and the traffic.

Talk about withering fruit! The Bradford pear trees that line the lower portion of the Strip still have fruit hanging on them. I’m not really into photographing withering fruit, but I was killing time until the traffic lightened up and I could cross to the sidewalk side of the street. So I thought I would snap a few photos.

Yeah. Dried up fruit. Not all that attractive, you know what I mean? Maybe the stems will look like a starburst, I think as I continue to shoot and the traffic continues to stream by. Then the school buses start zipping past and-doggone it!- they were going to ruin my shot. Oh, wait. Maybe I could have a yellow starburst if I time the shot just right.

All things being equal, my height, the height of the school bus verses distance and angle and my beautiful yellow starburst photo turned into a photo of dried fruit stems and bus window.

Across the road from me is the Trapp Building. I heard it has recently been sold and a normally quiet stretch of the Strip is a beehive of activity. There are worker trucks parked in the spaces in front of the building and workers are going in and out. I hated to cross there and get in their way.

I don’t know what made me decide to do that anyway, I wish I could say it was the Little Miss Attitude in me saying, “You have a right to use the sidewalk too.”

But I don’t know if that is what it was or not.

I wish I could say it was the Lois Lane in me saying, “I smell a story here, Clark.”

But I don’t know if that is what it was or not either.

The facts are, I crossed the road. I get to the other side and I see these guys working down on The Lake (Lake of the Ozarks). I stepped up to the rail and snapped a few photos as I tried to figure out what they were trying to do.

Ginger barks and strains at the leash and I turn to see three Carhartt clad workers coming down the sidewalk towards us. I think one of them is a woman.

“How ya’doin’?” the lead guy says.

“Great!” I exclaim and Ginger is barking the whole time. I spy, out the corner of my eye, words on the side of the truck he was headed for. Security. It looked very official. “This is my protection,” I said to him. “Ginger. Stop.” I said to her.

He laughed. “Yeah. I’m scared,” he said but he didn’t look all that scared. His hands were in his pockets, one came out-reaching for the handle of the truck door; door opening…

“Can I take your picture?” I blurted out, raising my camera. Is it wrong to snap pictures before they say I can or not?

He turned and smiled for me, “Sure.”

“What is it you do?” I asked.

“Well, usually the police call us in to secure a property after a fire or a burglary. What’s this for? The newspaper?”

My recent attempts to get a column with the local paper flashed before my minds eye. I laughed. “Yeah. I wish! That’s my dream job.”

“Why don’t you do it then?” he asked me.

“I tried, but my stories are too ‘cutesy and fun’ for the local paper.”

“I guarantee you that there is a paper somewhere that will publish you.”

My mother has told me the very same thing. In fact, she went so far as to send me the address of her local newspaper. The truth is, my stories are too cutesy and fun for a serious news newspaper, but I have flirted with the idea of submitting something to Reader’s Digest and I told him so.

“You should do it,” he said pointing at me. You know what I mean? Not all getting-up-in-your-face-and-shaking-your-finger kind of thing your mother used to do. More like I’m there for you man! Supportive, I got your back, kind of gesture and nod that conveys confidence.

It’s funny how whole conversations are like pictures in my head. I pulled out the picture of Momma asking, “Do you read the Reader’s Digest?”

No, but I’d love to have them pay me for my stories.

More contemporary and something that I do read is every single post posted on FaceBook by a page called HONY. That’s an acronym for Humans Of New York. Truly inspiring photos and quotes of people that a guy named Brandon meets in New York City.

“Have you ever seen HONY?” I asked.

“Yeah…”

“That’s what I want to do, only bigger. Humans Of Lake Ozark.”

“With the diversity of the people who come to the Strip, you would think the newspaper would want a column like that.”

This guy totally gets me. “I know! Right!” I exclaim and walk away.

Only, What’s the use? I ask myself. No one who doesn’t know me, wants to read my jibber-jabber. Heck, even half the people who do know me don’t want to read it!

“How can you say that, Peg?” you wonder. I know many of you read everything I write (and my mother tops that list) but none of you-no, not one of you, have asked about the two stories I wrote and never posted, let alone other stories that were in the works and henceforth canceled.

If you don’t care, who will?

Then without me wanting it…

Without my help at all…

In fact even with me trying to do everything I can to avoid it, a story finds me.

“Just do it!”

 

 

Maybe I should, I think as I’m walking away. You didn’t get his name or a picture of his truck or anything! And I kick myself. I’m such a slow thinker! Doggone it! Was it too late?

I turned and looked.

They were leaving. They’re probably going the other way. I dared not hope. But providence gave me a second chance! They were coming up the Strip towards me…traffic had lightened up…I’d risk it! I stuck my arm out and pointed at them. A window was rolled down and the truck slowed. I barely glanced at the two passengers as I focused on the driver. “HEY!! What’s your name?” I yelled as I took a couple of steps toward them.

Cars were starting to come up behind him.

“JIM!” he calls.

I start to back up towards the sidewalk and I hear him yell, “Let me give you one of my cards…” I see him cocking his hip to get his wallet out of his back pants pocket. There were two cars stopped behind them…now three! I ran up to the window and took the card that had been handed across to me.

Another car stopped.

I head back to the sidewalk and he yells something as the motor revs and the truck pulls away. I only caught a word or two. Just enough to give me the impression that he wants to see what I write or maybe what I write about him.

I think about this as I go up the street. I wasn’t going to write about him. He’d have a long wait.

A woman coming towards me.

“How much weight have you lost?” I ask.

“Seventeen pounds,” she says.

“Can I take your picture?” I asked and raised my camera. I got this picture of this beautiful woman with a beautiful smile on a beautiful face on a beautiful day and it would be a shame not to share it with you.

That seals the deal. I may be feeling defeated but regardless, I feel the need to do this. But what will I call my page?

Humans of Lake Ozark? HOLO for short. No, I know! How about POLO! People Of Lake Ozark! But what if I’m not at Lake Ozark? HIM flashes through my mind. Humans I Meet? And screw Lake Ozark?

What do you think?

More stories, no more room.

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Hello, hello, hello!

My current desktop photo is a little sparrow, sitting on a vine, looking over his shoulder at me.

 

<<<<<<>>>>>>

 

Mike has our new exercise room done, and if you know Mike then you will be as proud of him as I am.

“Why’s that?” you ask.

Because I didn’t have to hardly do anything! Gary helped with the carpentry work, I did some gophering, but other than that, Mike did the rest.

I am going to leave my extra cat litter and my recycle tubs stay in a corner, which doesn’t look all that attractive, but I don’t care. I care more about recycling than I care how my extra room looks. If I had a better place to put it, trust me, it would be there already.

 

<<<<<<>>>>>>

 

We had a new baby born into the family last week. This beautiful babe is Aiden Robert Mancha and he came into the world on January 6^th.

And before anyone gets their panties in a bunch over my use of the word family, let me explain something to you, and I’m going to take the long way around.

I’ll talk to anybody.

A long time ago, I was going out of a store and a family was coming in. I said something to the little girl and used the words, “your father”.

“He’s not my father! He’s my stepfather!” she corrected me. I could tell she was angry.

“You are so lucky to have a stepfather,” I gushed enthusiastically and she looked surprised. “Do you know why?” I asked as I put my hands on my knees and came eye level with her. She shook her head and I continued. “Because some people only have one father to love them and take care of them and you have two! Do you know what else?” I asked in a conspiring voice. She shook her head. “Now you have another grandmother to give you presents!” Well! That was the magic word and I could tell she was thinking about that as she walked away.

Personally, I don’t think you can have too many people in this world who care about you. Think about it like this. A grandmother is still a mother, right? So why then can’t a stepchild be just a child? You have another chance, no matter the label, to have one more person in this world love and care about you. Who doesn’t want that?

Aiden’s great-grandmother is married to my cute little red haired brother Richard. So even though there is no shared blood between me and this babe, we are still family.

<<<<<<>>>>>>

 

It has been awhile since I’ve talked about that little Star of My Show. Yes, Andrew.

“What’s up with that?” you ask.

By the time I got to page six last week I decided my letter was long enough. I would save New Year’s Day for next time.

So, here it is.

New Year’s Day the kids joined us for lunch at the Golden Corral, a buffet style all-you-can-eat restaurant.

In this photo Andrew is checking out what his mom brought back to the table.

You may notice that Andrew is transferring his fork from his left to his right hand. I don’t think he’s made up his mind yet if he’s going to be a lefty or a righty as he uses both hands.

The kids have their challenges with Andrew, that’s for sure. He is-as my father used to say-an easy keeper. That means you don’t have to feed a cow a lot of hay but they give you a lot of milk.

Andrew doesn’t eat very much and he is very stubborn about what he will eat. Even something like ice cream, which you would think all kids love!-Andrew only ate a couple of bites. But he is strong and he is healthy so we are not going to worry about it.

“We still want to…” Kevin started.

I don’t remember if he got distracted wiping Andrew’s face or if he just paused long enough for me to fill the gap with, “Me too! I have a Turtle Cake to make.”

“You knew what I was going to say,” he said and smiled.

I did know.

“How about Friday night?” Kevin asked.

“Great!”

So Friday night, Mike and I got to share another meal with Kevin, Kandyce, Andrew and Margaret. I told you back in December when I was talking about our dinner being postponed, how good the chicken casserole is that Kandyce makes. Along with that she made a green bean casserole and Cheddar Bay Biscuits (yummy!) a green salad, then cake and ice cream for dessert.

Afterward we settled at the table and played my new favorite game.

“Not dominos?” you ask.

No, not dominos. Although I still love dominos. This past summer, when Mike and I were at Our Mountain Home, our neighbors the Robinson’s introduced us to Skip-Bo. It’s a card game and even though I couldn’t remember how to play it, I remembered that we really enjoyed it. So early last week I picked up the game at Wal*Mart…

Oh! Those stinkers!

When I checked out they charged me a dollar more for the game then the shelf tag said it was. They gave me my dollar back, but you have to watch that kind of stuff.

Mid week I asked Mike to play Skip-Bo.

“No. I don’t want to play,” he said.

“Please-please-please! I want play it after dinner with the kids on Friday night and I have to learn how to play it.” It took a little begging but he finally relented and sat down and played with me. And you know what? It didn’t take us long to remember how to play it and we had a lot of fun.

The appointed day and the appointed hour rolled around and we went to dinner at Kevin and Kandyce’s house. No, wait. We went to dinner at Andrew’s house! Isn’t it funny how having kids changes things?

“I brought Skip-Bo to play after dinner,” I announced to no one in particular.

“I used to play Skip-Bo with my sister when we were young,” Kandyce said. “But I don’t remember how to play it.”

Once we sat down to play, Kandyce remembered with just a refresher on the rules. Kevin caught on quickly and Margaret, with the help of Kandyce, was even catching on by the end of our second game and we only played two.

Andrew played by himself for a while with minimal attention from us, but then he became bored and got up to the table on the bench beside his mother. We let Andrew play with the cards that had been removed from the game until we needed them again then he was very patient until another building pile had reached twelve and was removed from the game.

At one point Andrew did something to Kandyce’s arm. I don’t know if he wiped his nose on her arm or if it was a little bit of spit but Kandyce, who had been in the middle of a play, glanced down at her arm, said “Eww!”, discarded, set her remaining cards on the table and addressed Andrew.

“Did you wipe that on my arm?” she asked him.

He shook his head no.

“You’re in for it now mister,” she told him, then rubbed-

…love-

 

…all over-

 

…his face.

 

I laughed as I grabbed my camera and took these photos.

Looking at them now, I can’t help but wonder if this is a game they play often, and boy did I laugh when I saw this next photo on my computer. It was taken the very next second (just after the photo above) and look at the expression on Andrew’s face! He’s looking sideways at his mom.

<<<<<<>>>>>>

 

More news but no more room!

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Hi everyone,

Happy New Year!

Can you believe it? Can you believe it’s 2015. I remember once, when I was a little girl, some of my brothers and sisters and I were sitting around on the living room floor, looking at books or something, and we figured out how old we would be in the year 2000.

“How many years away is that?”

“Thirty years,” one of the older kids said.

“I’ll be forty!” That sounded ancient to a ten year old.

And now we are fifteen years beyond that!



Let’s start with Letter Facts.

This is the start of my eighteenth year writing to you. Last year I wrote 47 letters. I missed a week in February, a week in May, two weeks in June and a week in September. Besides my weekly letter I wrote eight extra stories, never posting two of them. Josh and Myra unlocked an interest in me that I didn’t even know I had.

Most of my letters were four pages long, but the six-pagers ran a close second! So, for one year, for just one of you, I printed 302 pages. I print nine copies every week and mail between five and nine copies depending on where we are located in this big ol’ beautiful country of the US of A. In those 302 pages were 406 photographs.

Besides the physical letters, I post to an internet web log called a blog and I send it by email to 45 people.

All of this for the love of friends and family.

My current desktop photo is winter flowers with hoar frost on them.

 

Monday, when I took the girls out first thing in the morning, I saw we had had a hoar frost. Hoar frost, by definition, is the white frost that forms on grass or leaves in the morning when the dew freezes. Also called white frost. I did not know that. I did not know that it was also called white frost.

I felt kind of bad that I hadn’t been out taking any photos for you so mid-morning I hooked up Itsy and Ginger and we went for a walk. Besides taking photos of the frost on plants and leaves, I saw cardinals…

 

…and a pretty junco posed in a ray of sunlight for me.

I even saw two turkey buzzards, sitting in a tree watching me.

So, hopefully my bird photos will make up for my lack of photos last time. I know some of you really look forward to seeing what I’ve photographed during the week.

Oh my goodness! I feel like I could do a whole ’nother letter based on goofs and extrapolations from my last couple of letters!

My biggest goof is one I deeply regret. When I told you of the new additions to our family I missed my niece Erin. She gave us this beautiful baby, Luke Matthew Dieter on December 22^nd.

 

And I knew better too, that’s the kicker!

I had a list, right here beside me and did I double check it? NO! But in case you are interested in excuses, I have one. By the time I got to that part of my letter I had been writing for hours. I was getting tired. That combined with the fact that I am being constantly interrupted by one thing or another makes me lose my train of thought.

Do you know when I realized I had forgotten Erin? After I had gone to bed. I forgot Erin. That thought woke me up from sleep. My heart sank and I felt so bad. I got up and fixed it in my blog, but I couldn’t do anything about all the emails I had sent.

Forgetting isn’t what I deeply regret. I do regret that, but what I deeply regret is the feelings I may have hurt. You are all so precious to me and I’d never knowingly do anything to hurt any of you.

I also found out that I will not be the only young great-grandparent in our family. My cute little red haired brother Richard and his wife Cindy will also become great-grandparents this year.

When Richard called me we also talked about the family tree. He would like to bring it up to date but he needs help. Richard needs names as well as birth, marriage and death dates. That includes middle and maiden names. If you need an email address or snail-mail address for Rick, let me know. Or call Momma. She’ll give it to you too.

When I was talking about making an ABC Book out of vinyl for Andrew, I was remembering something that my cute little red haired sister had made for my kids when they were young. Diane made them a big fat cloth book that taught them how to button, zip, tie and I forget what else. It was a fun book and one that the kids played with a lot!

 

Another cute little red head in my family is my niece Bambi.

She recently shared with me her famous crab dip recipe-a big hit every place she takes it and a favorite of her brother Gatlin’s-and I made it for Christmas. Bambi didn’t know the amounts on some of the ingredients, it was a some-of-this-a-little-of-that kind of recipe. That scared me. I will normally make a recipe the first time according to the directions. After that all bets are off. I’ll adjust it to suit me.

I know! I thought. I’ll Google it! I found a recipe on the Old Bay website that was very similar to Bambi’s and it gave me an idea of what I was looking for. So I made it and it wasn’t bad. I thought it could have been a little moister and spicier but did I add more stuff…No! Don’t ask me why. It would have been easy enough to do at the time. Instead I covered it and put it in the fridge. Maybe the flavors need to marry, you know what I mean? That’s exactly what I thought when I made my now infamous horseradish sauce. The flavors needed to mix and mingle and become good friends in the fridge for a few hours. But did I think of that until ten minutes to serving time? NO! Doggone it! Why didn’t I make this yesterday! I thought when Mike hated it.

My story of confusing garlic and horseradish in my head tickled some of you and you laughed right out loud, you told me so.

What a compliment that is!

Momma laughed too, she told me so on the phone the night she read my story. “But what I don’t understand is why you didn’t know it was garlic and not horseradish,” she said.

I didn’t know the answer to that but with my need to fill the pause with sound, I came up with this. “I like garlic.” Yeah. Like that explains it, right? Sometimes my talker gets ahead of my thinker, or as my father used to say, “My alligator mouth overloaded my canary brain.”

“But they don’t taste anything alike!” Momma exclaimed.

But it did taste like I expected it to, except did it need another few drops of lemon? More salt? Pepper? Do you put pepper in horseradish sauce? I don’t know, but I did. I like pepper. Hence, the reason I asked Mike to taste it.

In retrospect, maybe my subconscious knew the whole time exactly what I had done.

What am I going to do with all this sauce? I wondered. I couldn’t have made just a little could I? No! I made a BIG bowl of it cause I knew we liked it and we had four pounds of prime rib to eat. I wasn’t going to have to mix up any more of it.

The advent of Mike hating it left me with an even bigger problem. Not that I have any problem eating sour cream and garlic on crackers--mm, mmm-but I didn’t need to eat it. Then I remembered that I had a bowl of crab dip in the fridge that Mike wouldn’t eat either, and it needed a little something-something…Do you see where this line of thinking led me? I mixed the garlic sauce into the crab dip, sprinkled cheese on top and toasted it. I liked it and Mike’s helper Gary helped me eat it.

Monday we diet.

Oh! I almost forgot! One more thing about Christmas 2014 and then maybe, hopefully, we can leave it there, in last year and move on.

I wanted to thank everyone who took the time and expense to send us a Christmas card. Especially my cousin Lorraine. After picking up the mail from the post office box, we always sit in the car and open it. I laughed as Lorraine’s Christmas wishes came tumbling out of the envelope to land in my lap like so much glitter. Oh, wait, maybe it was glitter.

 

I read and enjoyed each and every card then I took them home and hung them on my kitchen cupboards.

The piece I wrote and submitted to the newspaper was printed. I was disappointed when I didn’t get a by line and when I contacted the editor about it, I was told it was an oversight. Sorry.

 

“As the Strip develops, and you know of more progress like George's project, you might let me know so I can do a story,” the editor told me.

I don’t know what to make of that.

My staging area for my Cricut creations is full. Next week I’ll get some of these in the mail and that will give me room to keep on creating.

 

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike