Thank You, Helen

"The best and most beautiful things in the world can not be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart." - Helen Keller

This is the most intuitive few words I have ever read in a quote.  What wisdom little Helen Keller had, the beauty she felt with her heart has taught us all so much.  I am in awe of such insight!!

Be sweet!!!   I can't see you all out there , but I feel in my heart you will!             Later, Friends.

Some Really Good Information Here!!!

This is soooo right!!
Now everyone remember to always, always tell the truth and above all, be sweet!

Bloggers Make the Best Buddies

Loree, of Stories and Scribbles, has given me an award!!   I am so happy to accept and post to my little ole' bloggie!!  It lifts us up when we are the recipient of an award, just adds a little more zing to the day to know someone thinks we are special enough to deserve an award.  Loree is such a little sweetie and I would encourage every one of you to visit her blog if you haven't done so before.  You will be pleasantly surprised.  It is so colorful, with the header full of beautiful flowers that I wish were in my front yard!!

The rules of the award are as follows:

1. say thank you and give a link to the presenter

2.share 10 honest things about yourself

3.Present the award to 7 other blogs

4.tell them of the award and the rules

Okay, now here are the 7 blogs to pass this award to, although it is hard to just give it to 7 when you would rather give it to 70, but rules are rules!!

1. My Creations and  More

2.The Breathing Post

3.The Rainbow Bank

4.Marie's Cozy Corner

5.New Scribbles From Glynis Smy

6.RandomWAHMThoughts

7.Momma Young @ Home

Now comes the easy part, ten honest things about me, which definitely will not include my shoe size 'cause there is no way I'm gonna' be honest about that!!!

1. I love having my first cup of coffee at dawn on my deck, watching the squirrels gather acorns, preparing for winter, watching the sun rise is awesome and I am thankful then for my sight!!

2. I become very attached to people very easily.

3. I just love giving something I have made to someone.  It makes my insides glow.  I can't see them glow, I just know they do.

4. I don't like to complain.  I sometimes do, but that doesn't have to make me like it!!  I have nothing actually to complain about.  

5. When I think of my grand children and the 4 little great grandchildren, I am filled with something totally beyond description, I feel as if I will just burst with the fullness of whatever it is ...  with love, happiness, pride ... there are no words known to man to describe what I feel, so the best I can do is just say I love them so!  They are my angels, they are my heart. Their lives all came down from mine and I look at them in disbelief ....  they are my treasure!!!!

6. Since my SCA I sometimes wake up in the morning and can't remember what I'm supposed to do.  (that was a hard one ... I really needed to share that but it is so much like complaining)

7. I love kettle corn and make it almost every night. 

8. I am already thinking of goodies to make for Christmas, both edible and crafty, baskets, gifts in a jar, that sort of thing.  I adore the decorated gifts in a jar and have many to share with you.

9.  I still believed when I was in the 7th grade that the doctor brought one of my brothers in an apple box and the other in a suitcase.  When I raised my hand to share this bit of info with my classmates, they all started laughing!  I just laughed too.  I don't remember when I finally figured out they were laughing because I was so dumb!!!  I can't even remember when or how I learned that's not how my brothers got here!

10. I wish I could learn to design scrapbook sets.

There, you have it!!   I was  completely honest about the way I thought my brothers came into the world.  Guess you can tell I led a very sheltered life!  I was a senior in high school at age 16 and lived in the country my entire life.  My mom's relatives were from the mountains of Northwest Arkansas and dad's hailed from the hills of Kentucky ... need I say more?  I used to break ice in a "washpan" to heat on the old wood stove to get ready for school, but, let me tell you, those were the days!!!!  How grateful I am to have had them.

Homemade Happiness 2

It's getting closer every day to the biggie - to Christmas!!! I know it is not quite October, but good grief, now that I have retired and have all this time on my hands I just don't see any sense of driving myself any crazier by waiting till the last minute, to say nothing of all the cashiers and employees in and near every store close to the mall!!

If they have been there a few years, they know me by name and I can hear them sometimes (though they think just because I am old I can't hear good and usually speak to me in unusually loud voices). They will warn newer employees when they see me. I understand clearly every word that is said. "Oh, my God!! There she is again, the one I told you about. I had hoped she would not make it through another Christmas, but she is one tough old bird and it is beginning to look like she will be here long after I'm gone. Don't let her get you so rattled you just throw up your hands and walk out the door. I promise, they are not all like this one! Fact of the matter, I don't believe there are any like this one. Get through this without going to jail and you have it made! If you make her happy, you can do whatever it takes to survive in this business and you will have a great career, possibly in management."

Well, I do have to do my rushing around at the last minute, digging through stacks of stuff, opening boxes, laying dresses removed from hangers across a rack, that sort . It is so much easier and quicker and I am in such a hurry for I have waited till the last few days. It's so Christmasy (is that a word?).

I have been known to leave a perfectly neat store in shambles in way less than an hour!! It is the only way to look is all I can say. I do feel a bit guilty that store personnel must stay late after closing to have the business presentable for the next day's customers. Not too guilty though, 'cause it sure doesn't keep me from a good night's sleep after I have separated my purchases into piles to keep as presents and piles to return because it didn't seem somehow to be what I had wanted after all. Oh well, a trip back the next day will keep me young and give the employees job security.
This will be repeated till the last store closes on Christmas Eve and you would think they'd be glad to see me as I buy and return till the very last minute, begging them to stay open just a little longer while I try to decide on the necklace I tried on and cannot get unclasped now or the cute sweater I have hung somewhere and am unable to talk one , not even one of them to help me find it!! They will only unclasp the necklace, scoot me out the door, lock it quickly behind me, yelling Merry Christmas the whole time.

How in the heck can I have a merry Christmas now? I haven't even decided who to give what for I am not really completely sure what presents I have even bought!!!

Just now the last part of September and I have time to begin to think about and plan Christmas.

Everyone knows when you retire, you are broke, so I will get to give presents of the very best kind ... gifts from the heart, handmade and homemade with love in every speck! Not a cute sweater lost on some rack in a store or a necklace I have to practically strangle myself to remove, but a gift made with my own hands, mind and heart, a treasure for them to keep and that is the best kind of gift after all. 

Ain't retirement grand!!??!
Most importantly, never forget to be sweet and always be good!

Kind of, Sort of, Close Your Eyes And You Won't Know The Difference

Almost Payday

1/3 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup marshmallow creme

1/2 lb white chocolate coating, melted                                                  

Melted caramels, for dipping

Chopped peanuts

Mix together peanut butter, marshmallow creme and melted white chocolate coating.  

Roll into sort of log shapes or into balls, if it is easier.  Freeze.  It is absolutely necessary

to freeze these before dipping in the caramel, otherwise they will melt and mix with the

caramel.

Dip each frozen log or ball in melted caramel and roll into chopped peanuts.  

These truly are so easy to make and so tasty.  True, we have the sugar, but none of the other ingredients in a purchased candy bar, most of which I can't even pronounce, let alone describe!! Who in the heck wants to eat something we can't pronounce??!  

I hope you will give these a try and let me know how they turn out.  Wouldn't this be a nice kitchen gift, each piece wrapped separately, in delicate, pastel tissue paper, bagged in quart or gallon size bags and tied with a pretty ribbon  with a handmade tag attached?

 

Oh, gosh!  I'm getting nuts now and wanting to put this in a mixing bowl with measuring cup and a mixing spoon with a bow tied to the handle.  We are limited by only our imagination. Homemade is always better.        Be sweet and be good!!!  

  

 

Great Grandson, Christian James Wilcox (and walking on streets of gold)

Isn't he a little doll?  His big sister, Anna, at the ripe old age of 3 is just like a little mama hen with him!  He is just too sweet and look at those muscles!!  His name wasn't chosen right away, for the new parents could not come up with a name that was good enough for him!  Now, is that cute, or what!!  I think he always needs to know this.  He just has to grow up knowing he was so precious to his mommy and daddy that there didn't seem a name good enough for this little boy to called.  Finally, they did settle on Christian and that does seem to fit him perfectly.  Christian Wilcox ... see, it has quite a ring to it!!!  I don't see how it is possible to have so much love in your heart for someone so little and tiny.  I love him soooooo much!!!

I have to tell you this about Anna.  First off, you never know what will come out of that little mouth when she opens it.  She is so funny.  The funniest thing is, she doesn't even try to be funny.   She is serious as she can be, turning her little head to one side, with both hands on her hips, she can keep you laughing all day long.  The other day Kristi asked her to please clean her room, to which she replied, "Mommy, my room is already clean."  Mom suggested she take a look at it, so off she went to give her room an "Anna inspection".  She stood in the middle of her room, put both hands on those little hips, turned that head to one side and said, "Sometimes I disgust myself!".  

I tell you, it is this sort of thing that keeps me going!!!  It makes not just my day, but my week, my month, even, I guess, my years.  About 8 years ago, the docs suspected I would not last much longer, maybe a couple of years at most.  I said, "Well, we'll just see about that!!"  I had recently become a great grandmother to Abigail, my very first great grandchild and I knew I had to stay to play dolls with her and have tea parties and love her.  I told them a couple of years later that I was going to be around to see her get  married.  They asked how hold she was and I said, "Two."  Well, the good doctor slapped me on the knee and said, "I'll give you this --- you are a trooper!!!"  I rarely speak of this and perhaps never will again but I had a sudden cardiac death on New Year's Day, 2008.   I was shocked back to life when I had no pulse, no heart beat and no blood pressure.  It happened twice.  Again, they gave my kids not much hope, but as usual, I have not aggravated them enough, so I am not ready to go just yet!!  I don't remember anything except one morning I was putting on my clothes and the next week I began to wake up in the Coronary Care Unit.  I didn't know it then, only that I was in the hospital for something and for the life of me didn't know why.  Well, anyway, now I had to have a pacemaker this time.  I had primacor treatments twice a week for half a day at a time for 3 years.  I have also been on oxygen since 2002.  I have numerous heart problems (it would be too simple to only have one), I have congestive heart failure, an enlarged heart and other stuff I can never remember or pronounce.  I also have COPD, degenerative disc disease and a host of other health conditions.  It is simpler never to discuss them, so now that I have, I won't again.  That is boring old stuff when we all know it is so much better to laugh and be happy.  Oh, I don't always make it, but I will always be caught trying.  I have lost my home, my savings, my car, everything I had due to the catastrophic illnesses.  My treatments alone were almost $70,000 a year, besides all the labs, doctors, hospitals and I won't even go there!!  The important thing is I don't even care, because I am rich with things money cannot buy and consider myself to be so very lucky.  I think we can choose how we feel inside.  I have riches that no amount of money can buy!!!  You can't put a price on the love of a child, you can't put a price on a gift made just for you by the loving hands of your very own daughter, you can't put a price on a hug from a grandson when he wakes up, saying, "Grandma gets the first hug."

Now, I sure got carried away for some reason, but you know ....    be sweet!!!   

A Great Kitchen Gift

This is a great gift from the heart from one who loves to cook! Any mom or grandma would be pleased as punch to receive a gift of this sort. It is one that you have spent time and thought on. There are also so many ways to vary a kitchen gift -- add a new mixing bowl, a pan for the cobbler, mixing spoons, cups , napkins, a few flowers, spice bottles, flavorings, the list is endless. You can print out this page or type up your own instructions and recipe on cardstock and cut the size of a recipe card, punch a hole in the card and tie to basket handle or whatever else you can come up with. I would love to hear some of your suggestions or pictures of what you have done. I will make a recipe card to download or a tag to personalize if you would like. Just let me know.



CRANBERRY PEACH COBBLER MIX IN A BASKET

Give this mix in a decorated basket along with canned pie filling, cranberry sauce and make a recipe card for the easy baking instructions.

1 pkg. yellow cake mix
1/2 cup butter
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)
2 cans peach pie filling
2 cans whole berry cranberry sauce

Place cake mix, butter, cinnamon and nutmeg in large mixing bowl and mix well, cutting in butter with fork or pastry blender. Stir in pecans if you like to include them.

Divide cobbler mix in half and place in 2 resealable plastic bags. Store in refrigerator till ready to assemble gift. This will make about 5 cups, (2 1/2 cups mix in each bags).

In each of 2 pretty or decorated baskets, place 1 bag cobbler mix, 1 can peach pie filling, 1 can cranberry sauce and the following instructions:

Cranberry Peach Cobbler:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine pie filling and cranberry sauce, and place into a lightly greased 9 x 13 inch baking dish.
Sprinkle cobbler mix over fruit mixture. Bake 45 minutes or until browned.

Serve warm with ice cream.


Now be a crafty cook and make up a gift in a basket for another crafty cook!! I promise you will love giving it and the recipient will love receiving it. It's a win-win gift. Makes us feel good to give something we've taken the time to put together for another and they feel special to be on the receiving end of such a thoughtful gift.

Be sweet and get those ideas in here so we can share with each other!! Later.

Pictures of The Heart

In nothing are we as rich as in our memories; they are pictures painted by our hearts, and nothing can erase them.
-- Flavia


Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right.
Henry Ford


Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly.
-- Mabel Newcombe


A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be a different place because I was important in the life of a child.


Love from a baby. It is not a slight thing when those so fresh from God love us. Dickens


Babies are always more trouble than you thought ... and more wonderful than you ever dreamed. Charles Osgood


If you want to be Rich,
Just count all the things
you have that money cannot buy.


A truly rich man is one whose children run
into his arms when his hands are empty.


"Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child." Ron Wild

"Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory." Betty Smith


The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground. " unknown


"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. "
Jack Kerouac



"Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow!" Norman Vincent Peale


"Inspiration does not come from the quote itself, but rather the person behind it." Russ Myers


"Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible. " Cadet Maxim


"Leap and the net will appear. " Zen saying


"A diamond is merely a lump of coal that did well under pressure." unknown


"Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. " Henry Van Dyke