Grandkids are such fun

I recently spent some time in Oklahoma visiting my grand children. Their mom Jessica and sister Sabrina wanted to hitch a ride with her dad and sisters to visit some new nieces and a nephew who had recently been born out of state. I was only too happy to help out!

What made the trip even more special is that their home is in the town we lived in when their daddy was a little boy. It was kind of surreal driving around and seeing some of the same places that I had taken my own children to: McDonalds, story time at the local library and my favorite ...the Tulsa zoo! We had such a good time and I can't wait to go back.

Fall Adventures

Today has been a busy day. It must be the crisp Fall weather that finally arrived that put me in the mood to do some much needed house cleaning. I'm sure my husband was less than thrilled with all of the early morning racket since he works out of our home. It wasn't long before I noticed that he had closed the door to his office. Oh well, he'll be happy later when he sees our squeaky clean bathrooms, and dust free wooden floors and furniture!

When I finished vacuuming the window blinds in our bedroom (the last job on my list) I decided to spend the afternoon making caramel apples. Not just any caramel apples mind you, but my extra special, extremely yummy caramel apples! Crunchy granny smith apples dunked in creamy caramel, dipped in milk chocolate, and finally rolled in chopped almonds and macadamia nuts. I even took pictures of the process so you will be able to see just how extraordinary they really are.

What do you think? Come on over and have a bite!

What to write, what to write?

In answer to a query posted by a sweet friend on my last blog, the working title for my NaNoWriMo challenge is: "The Things My Mother Told Me".

All the years I spent growing up in my parents home and through the many years since, I've always known that my mother was a story teller. She often recalled to us her memories of growing up in the post-depression era of the 1930's. Many times she would repeat her tales of the wild and crazy antics of her youth, but with each telling there would be a new little nugget of wisdom or a gem that she had previously left out. Some might call this embellishing. I prefer to think of it as hind sight or a sudden clarity of memory.

When she got started some family members would roll their eyes and say, "Here we go again!" Then would carefully slip off into another room hoping she wouldn't notice they had deserted her yet again. But not me. I loved hearing her stories and the enthusiasm that would light up her eyes as she told them yet again. I think it drove my family crazy when I would stop by for a visit and ask her to, "Tell me about the time .... or what was it like when ..." "Really Kathy, don't get her started!"

I asked my sister once while my mom was struggling through her last months in her heroic battle with cancer, "What will we do? We haven't recorded her stories and they'll be lost forever when she's gone!' Her Seemingly callused reply was, " Don't worry, I've heard them a million times. I'll never be able to get them out of my head!"

The last time I visited my mom before her battle came to its sad conclusion and she was so exhausted she could barely hold up her head let alone stand; the minute I asked her about the old days her eyes lit up, the disease and exhaustion fell away and she talked animatedly late into the night sharing her stories with a captivated audience of one, one last time.

Another year the same old challenge

For those of you who haven't heard about NaNoWriMo it stands for: National Novel Writing Month. It takes place every year in November. This year they are celebrating an anniversary of sorts ..."10 years of literary abandon". People across the nation (world?) take the opportunity to write a novel about anything and everything using only 30 days to accomplish this worthy goal. When complete the word count must be at least 50,000 so I suppose that makes it more of a novella than a novel. But let's not mince words here. The important point I'm trying to make is I am officially declaring (for the 4th year in a row mind you) that I am throwing my hat into the writers ring and plan to participate this year, darn it! That's not an easy thing to do considering I don't even own any hats. Well except for that pink University of Utah visor thing that my niece gave me to help celebrate my 50th birthday. Now if I follow the same course I set in previous years where I promise myself I would do this then failed miserably to follow through, well ...then I'll just have to come back and delete this post!