bountifulplate

My father-in-law was such a sweet and gentle soul.  I never called him by his name, Larry, I always called him, "Pop-Pop."  It 's been seven years this month that he passed away.  He was in World War II where he played the saxophone and was a cook.  My father-in-law made the best pork chops and turkey stuffing I have ever eaten in my life.  When my in-laws would visit us from Cleveland, I would treat "Pop-Pop" like a king.  I would always make him french toast and we would linger so long over breakfast that it would almost be time for lunch by the time we were done talking.  To this day, whenever I eat french toast I think of him!!  The picture below was when Lauren was a baby and we were celebrating one of his birthdays.  The whole time I knew him he always looked the same, he never aged! Wish I could say the same for myself!  Check out my HUGE glasses :) He spent the last three months of his life in the hospital with heart problem...

We recently had my stepson  fly in to town to visit.  He is an adult and on his own, but we always welcome him  back into the "fold"  when he comes.  We would love to see him more, but he is so busy with his job that we're happy for whatever time we have him.  We were lucky this time to be able to have him with us for four days.  We never know from visit to visit when we'll see him again, so we always try to make his visits a good time.  I have known him since he was 6.  He will be 28 in January!  As the saying goes,  time really does fly by.  He wasn't in our house five minutes before I was asking him if he would like something to eat!  I had a sandwich on the kitchen table for him within 15 minutes.  I love cooking and baking for him (I always have).  He appreciates it so much and always gives me  the best compliments!  How could I not want to feed him??   We made him an early Thanksgiving d...

One of my first thoughts when I woke up this morning was that it  is exactly two months until Christmas and about a month until Thanksgiving.   It seems that the holiday season keeps getting earlier and earlier each year.  I understand that stores make a lot of their profit during that particular time of the year, but seeing a fully lit Christmas tree in one of the stores that I frequent  in the middle of September seemed a bit much.  I couldn't believe  the store had several aisles of Christmas merchandise, trees, lights and other items already out.  Back to school shopping had barely finished!!   A few years ago I remember I went to a store looking for a few items to help supplement my daughter's Halloween costume.  I was in the store on Halloween (surprisingly those aisles of the store were almost empty).  The employees were actually taking apart the displays! I felt like saying, "excuse me, but could you wait until at least the next ...

I think sometimes people need to have what I like to call a "filter."  You know those people I'm talking about, they pretty much say what they're thinking without thinking about how their words come out.   Words can be used to tell someone how great you look or they can be used to criticize how you look.  My aunt (who I absolutely 200% adore, admire and love with all of my heart) lost one of her adult children in March of this year.  It wasn't that long ago that my aunt lost her husband (my uncle) and her mother-in-law (my grandmother).  I can't even wrap my mind around what that must be like.  My aunt is one of the strongest women I know and I get a lot of my strength from her.  She told me something the other day that just about broke my heart.  My cousin (her daughter) is one of a twin.  I grew up with my twin cousins along with their younger brother.  Neither of my dad's siblings had children, so I only  have those first cousins...