Apple Pie

Apple Pie...I wish I could share this with all of you.  I baked a fresh apple pie last Saturday, to serve friends coming for dinner.    I had it covered with a towel as we ate our meal, then after I cleared the dinner plates,  I brought it forth and placed it in the middle of the table....I told them we had to set there and contemplate it's worthiness while waited on the coffee to finish.

I love anticipation....... especially of home baked goodies.   I, being the cook, never knows how a particular dish will turn out as food has a way of having it's own mind.  All apples are different, some more tart, some juicier, some tough, and some tender.......did I add enough sweetening and spices?   Did the apples get done?   Is the crust flaky enough?   

As the first piece was sliced and lifted on to the plate, warmed in the microwave and topped with ice cream and set before my guests, I held my breath as each took a taste.......

Watching the expression on their faces, told me this one was a success.    (I have had my failures) but they did not discourage me, I have always kept trying in life to reach perfection.   I've never completely enveloped it, but this came close.  

 Is there really so much more to life than apple pie?   I might have to argue that point..... In my mind, nothing gives my inner soul as much satisfaction as completing a home made meal. Putting simple items together....flour and shortening, rolling it out smooth, peeling fruit, adding sugar and spice and combining it all together, and ending up with dish full of pride.   If you've never baked an apple pie, or made a batch of cinnamon rolls, or a loaf of bread, or baked a cake from scratch.......I urge you to try.   It is the end to all means........

I send you a piece of my pie and my love, I can't think of a better way to express it.

The Hiker

He pitched his tent high in the mountains
With plans to follow the stream come morning
Drifting off to sleep neath clear, starlit skies
Feeling comfort and faith in nature soaring

Waking to sounds of ice falling 
Dawn of light showing layers of snow
The trail down and his path were covered
No guidance with what lay below

Nothing to guide him, but faith
To stay would mean certain death
Relying on his his own instincts
Fear sucked away his breath

A solid path covered in white
He knew not water from ground
Holes and dangers were hidden
Only trust as he was homeward bound.


I knew this hiker, he is my son and he indeed survived……The journey on foot that day was precarious at best. He was dressed only in light clothes wearing lightweight shoes. The storm had moved in quickly without warning, out of the seasonal norm, and left him vulnerable.  He was unprepared for the challenges he met that day. He did find his way down the mountain but with each step he took, he didn’t know if it would hold his weight, or take him over a cliff or into the icy hidden waters, as everything was level and white…… He hiked out on his own faith.

I think about his story a lot as we go thru life…… Sometimes we have no choice but to trust ourselves. We have very little to hold on to and very little to guide us. We can watch for the hidden dangers, and pray that God will see us thru but we have no obvious support. There is so much more to this story, but it’s message is to go forward no matter the dangers, no matter the measure of faith, no matter the outcome. Just keep going and hold tightly to your chances.

The Back appointment

ok, I am home from the dr. I sure like him....I call him dr. B. Anyway, he had a copy of the cat scan that dr. cute had taken in May.....I don't know how he to knew to ask for that, but anyway. he had it, and he looked at it and he showed it to me. The back is still a mess and he understands why it hurts. What he wants to do is have me get another shot first.  (an epidural),  the first one I had two years ago didn't help, and he wants to make sure this one don't help either. (but who knows, maybe it will this time),   then when that's worn off he want's to do another MRI and then probably surgery. He showed us this new little gadget they have now, it's like a little "spacer". They make a tiny slit in the back and stick in this "spacer" made out of stainless steel & titanium in between the disc or somewhere, so the nerve can breathe again, and everybody in there is happy. He said they would put me to sleep, then do it and I'd have to stay overnight, but then they'd send me home the next day and it would help me walk again. It would hold my spine in a position flexed forward, where it was comfortable. ....... I'm pretty sure the reason he wants me to have the shot again is because the insurance would require it.     If he said lets do surgery tomorrow, the ins. company would say "well have you tried the shots"? SO - all of this is just routine. I think the MRI will show them better what the deal is when they actually take the pictures. He said the cat scans are great, but they don't show the 3D on the bone like the MRI's do. SO - the plan is the shot first and hope it works....If it does, for how long, and if it don't, then surgery. We'll take it a step at a time. If you don't understand any of this, don't worry, there is so much more to it, and I guess I'll just trust dr. B because I don't understand it either.

Out There

Out There

I went out there again
I seen, I played, I tasted
I touched the world and joined in
I did not let a moment be wasted
I laughed with you.

You welcomed me again
You offered your time
You showed me, you taught me
You gave me your prime
You laughed with me.

The comfort is now with me again
The world is quiet and content
The security I yearned for is mine
The satisfaction was lent,
The open door awaited me, and I am home.

Oh boy, there really is “no place like home”. We’ve had such a great time but it’s so nice to be back here in our own little world.

It was fun to see our old friends again at the reunion, and the new outfit was perfect…..The balloon festival was wonderful and awesome, our hosts were gracious and loving.

Returning home brought unloading the car, unpacking, chores to catch up on, and, an opportunity for rest. I’m sure it won’t be long and we’re be ready to get “out there” again……There is always "so much more" out there, and, here........ah, home.

The Country Doctor

We had one doctor in town, his name was “Doc. Wallace”. I remember him being old but I have no idea what his age would have been when I was a kid. Regardless he was either really old, or he had some kind of palsy, because his hands shook.

Doc Wallace had a little office on main street, it was nothing fancy, there was a waiting room but I don’t remember there being any kind of a receptionist. He hung a sign on the outside door if he was out, and if he was in, he hung a sign that said “busy” on his treatment room door. Most items he needed for treatment was on shelves in that room, but if he had to order a drug he called our local drugstore which was across the street.

I only remember using him twice. Once was when I came down with the mumps. I woke up with a fever and before long the side of my face was quite swollen. I was kept in bed and he was called at which time he offered to come out to the house because he needed to come that direction to see another patient anyway. He examined me, declared it as mumps and I don’t remember him giving me anything to take but told Mom I should put an ice pack on it, stay in bed and to keep me quiet until the swelling ws gone. I laid in bed for what seemed like a year, but it was probably not over two days. As soon as I decided the swelling had gone down, I was up and at 'em again. Getting yelled at of course by Mom not to overdo.

Not long after that, I felt feverish again and the other side swelled up! Mom didn’t call the doctor this time, but it was back to bed for me. Another year passed……..well, 2 or 3 more days passed and I was up and outside again. I, and my folks thought all was well, I had lived thru the mumps.

A few days later, here they came again, only this time I remember being really sick. Both sides of my neck and on down into my chest was swollen, I hurt badly. Back to bed with another ice pack and Doc Wallace was called again. This time he declared they had gone down on me, and I was to stay in bed and not move for a week, no matter how well I thought I felt!  He told me if I didn’t do what he said I would die. Since I felt like I was going to anyway, I didn’t argue with him.

Another year passed……….and finally, I was allowed up and out.

The only other time I remember seeing Doc Wallace was in his office in town. I had a spot on my upper forehead next to my hair line that kept itching, and then it moved downward towards my eyebrow. Mom figured it was ringworm and we tried “over the counter salves”. They didn’t work, and neither did the home remedies we tried. Then we went to town to have Doc. Wallace look at it. He set me down on a chair in his treatment room and turned around and took a bottle off his shelf. Then he set down right next me and stuck a cotton swab in the bottle. I remember the medicine was deep purple. He said to me, “now you must sit very still, because if get any of this in your eye you will be blinded” He told me not to move, not to even blink. I was scared by then, so I did what I was told.

There he came at me with his shaky hands telling me to sit still! I only remember thinking that you get any of that in my eye, it’s going to be your fault if I go blind, not mine! He smeared some of the medicine on it, then gave it another swab in about 15 minutes and I was sent home. Within a week the spot on my forehead was gone.

There was so much more to all the things old Doc Wallace did for our little community, I remember riding with Mom and Dad several different times when we would need to haul one of the oil field workers who had been injured into town to get them patched up. Eventually he closed his office, and our town never had another doctor. He was a wonderful person and missed by many.

Tears in the Red Dirt

Stay with me while I set the “premise” for this story. My granddad and his brother, each married ladies of another family who were sisters! That made all of my Mother’s cousin’s “Double Cousins”.

A couple of her uncles were involved in the Cherokee Strip Run. They did not make the actual run, but rather they were close to the finish line when it was over and they actually traded a shot gun for their first piece of “red dirt”, Oklahoma property!

Oklahoma was a rough, very poor place in those days…..land filled with sage brush, black jack trees, rocks and very little to work with, where they literally scratched out a living. After years of hard, back breaking work, They were both very successful ranchers, as their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren are today.

We visited my Mother’s cousin George and his wife Georgia, as often as possible and I always loved going because it was such a beautiful and wild place. If you’ve never been to Oklahoma, the dirt there is red, different and more special than any other place in the world . Getting dirty in Oklahoma is something that every kid should get to experience! Also, each time I went, I came home with a new “rose rock”. There is a lot to tell about my “rocks”, but I’ll save that for another time.

The 2nd cousins closest to my age were boys and it was such a treat for me to go and learn from them. They also had miles and miles of open land to rome, but they had horses to do it on! In my eyes that made them the luckiest people on earth.

When my Mother & Dad were married in 1935, they went on a honeymoon to Colorado and camped out in a tent. It was during that trip when they met “Henry”. As the story was told me, Henry was an old mountain man, a hermit who lived by himself in a old rickty cabin, deep in the great Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Henry only had one arm but he hunted and fished as well as any pro and never allowed his disability to hamper his expertise.

He and my parents became close friends, and they returned to visit him many times. He presented them with a hand tanned mountain lion pelt which is still in our family.

I remember the night the phone ring and we received word that George had gotten his arm tangled up in a piece of farm machinery and they had to amputate it. It was like the world stopped. This would have been in the mid to late 40’s I believe.

Sometime later after George was released from the hospital and returned home, we went to visit him. I only remember walking thru the house, which was very quiet and solemn, (unlike the other times we had went to visit). We were led to the “back porch” where they had set up a bed for George. I remember my Mom went over and hugged him, and he cried, and said “I don’t know what I’m going to do”. I stood there in the doorway and looked at this man who had always been so strong and active and vibrant, and I think that’s the first time I knew what it was to be sad for someone else. George’s stump was heavily bandaged and he was very weak. I remember I cried too. One look told me he was a broken man.

What I believe was months later, I heard my Mother tell my Dad that she had called and talked to Georgia that day. She told Mom George was healing good, but very depressed and they didn’t know how to get him back to work and involved in things around the ranch again, or what he might be able to do. At that time, my Dad suggested that they put him in touch with Henry. I don’t know how the arrangements were made, but I know Dad was involved in getting George to Henry’s cabin. George spent many weeks with Henry, learning how to use tools, fish and hunt, and work, and live life with one arm. There is so much more to George and Georgia’s life and their family and how it has intertwined with mine through the years, and does to this day. There have been many other tears fall in the red dirt through the years, but the love of God and His strength and the ties we have with each other have always rose to the top. Now another one of my 2nd cousins, George’s daughter is fighting her own battle and I have no doubt that strength has surfaced once again. I am still amazed at how one life in this world, many miles from someone else’s, can eventually touch another’s. How the folks we meet in our lives will at some point make an impression in the lives of someone else we know. Angels appear in the strangest places in the strangest of ways, and the red dirt will always be there but it’s traces are left around the world.

"Cool"

I received an email from my 20 year old granddaughter today who is away at college as a Sophmore, and I’d like to share (in part) some of what she said. I say “in part”, because after all,, there has to be SOME secrets between girls!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Granny! I have been pretty busy lately it feels like I never get a break… and if I do I fill it with more busy things. Right now I have an hour break between classes and I’m just killing time in the library. I’m starting to finish the campus requirements and move on to more major specific classes. This semester I have Macroeconomics, Business Law, Statistics (which I hate the most), Accounting, and a Race and Ethnic studies class. Plus I have the class I had to apply to get into called presidents leadership program.

Weekends I have been going to the football games and just trying to relax a little and get caught up for the week. I signed up to be on a co-ed intramural flag football team. Games are on Wednesday nights and so far it has been a lot of fun. Most of the people on my team are from my floor last year so it’s nice to hang out with them all again. So far we are 1-1 so we’re not doing too badly.

I’m trying to get used to this whole grocery shopping thing and trying to cook for myself. It’s hard to cook a half way healthy meal for yourself every night, let alone finding the time to. I have eaten a lot of pasta lately it seems like just because it is so easy.

So I looked at your blog and it is awesome! I was surprised at how much you already have on there. How long have you been doing this for? I’m impressed! I love the colors and the pictures you have on there. I read almost all of it and I have checked back a couple of times to see if there was anything new put on. I really enjoy reading it. We are living in the online age so I think it’s really cool you’re doing this. I will keep checking in to see what new things you add.
Well I’m off to accounting!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok, so here we have two people communicating with 45 years between them. Talk about “cool’!!!    I also have a grandson away at college, and he also emailed the other day – His consisted of two sentences telling me how much he hates the “formal fallacies” he is studying in his English class, and he can’t wait to get a job. Ha! Ah, the difference between the males and females of the world….

My granddaughter is enjoying almost every moment of her college experience and I so envy her. I never went to college and 45 years later I do feel like I missed out on an introduction to life. Instead, I went from parents to husband, and then a child less than a year later, and two more two years later. My education has been “life” and it’s a much harder way to learn.

Macroeconomics? I don’t even know what that is, but I wonder if it has anything to do with feeding a family of five on less money than she spends for a football ticket! Learning about money consisted of making sure you make the house payment first, then if there is anything left over you get to decide what to feed 3 little kids for supper. I’m sure they will teach her about “saving”, and probably something about investing.

Given the status of today’s stock market and financial crisis in America in 2008, I would advise her to find a good fruit jar and use it……. Honest advice to her and the rest of the grandkids, there is so much more than what they teach you in college….. Soak up as much as you can and get that degree, but remember to be practical, believe in yourself first, and trust your instincts… If your professor’s knew “everything” they would all be billionaires living the easy life instead of teaching you in turn for a measly salary.

There will be more on here about my grandkids and things I want to share with them. But for now, I need to send her some recipes…… ☺