Sunday, April 26, 2020
After I posted my Blog last Sunday, I received these picture from Aubrey. They are of her little boy, our great grandson, Nelson. He was learning to ride his bike and they were teaching him to fish. Love these pictures of Papa's namesake.
Time for a mini-road trip. I contacted Andie and asked if we could bring them lunch. It would give us a bit of time away from home. Andie said that would be great. I spent the morning putting hems in the two panels of new curtains for the Marx home. Then we drove to LaGrange and purchased individual chicken meals for each of the six of us. Hayden went out to their patio and set up seating for the four of them on one side of their patio and seating for two of us on the other side of the patio. Bailey baked a mayonnaise cake as cupcakes for dessert. Claude took a loaf of zucchini bread he made. We had a lovely visit and enjoyed being outside while appropriately social distancing. This is so good to be with family. Again, I missed the rib cracking hugs from Hayden. We took my ukulele over and the book of instructions to learn how to play it to Bailey. She wanted to try to learn that while she is in quarantine.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
On my 'to do' list was sending recipes to the City of Sadieville. They were gathering recipes to make a recipe book. We created a recipe book when I was Chair of the Friends of Sadieville. I went to look at that book and see which recipes I submitted. Since I have all of my recipes in my laptop, I thought it would be quick to just copy and paste the ones I chose for the Friends of Sadieville recipe book into eMails. That sounds simple enough. I put my laptop on the breakfast room table. Then I opened the cabinet in my kitchen where I had two rows of recipe books and, wonder of wonders, I didn't find the Friends of Sadieville recipe book. I pulled all my recipe books out and stacked them on the island in the kitchen. No Friends of Sadieville recipe book in all of them. Ugh...
Well, I looked at those recipe books and determined it was time to clear out and pare down the number of books on that shelf. Claude and I have tried to empty out pieces of our home and this seemed the best time to take care of these two shelves. Claude has been wanting to have a separate place to store potatoes from where he stores onions. For all 15 years of living in this house, we have had one drawer for both these items. Then Claude learned from Alton Brown's cooking show that they should be stored separately as the moisture in the onions causes the potatoes to go bad more quickly...or somethings close to that. Through the winter the potatoes were relegated to workbench in the garage where it was always cool enough for them. Summer's in coming and that will not be the case. So, if I could clear out shelf space where we could but a bin or tub to store one of those items, that would be a good thing.
My quick effort turned into an all day effort. Claude and I went through the books. I posted some to give away and people took those. Some I had just a recipe or two that I really liked. We typed those up to be saved with our other recipes. Then I had this stack of recipe books that were made by areas where our family has lived and they had submitted recipes they loved to those books. I went through all of those books and took any recipe with a family members name on them and typed those recipes into a Word document. Each was labeled with the name of the family member that contributed that recipe. I then eMailed that Word document to each of our family members for them to have in their recipe books.
One of the treasures I found was a recipe book from the Box Elder County Fair. This is the story of 'Crumb Pie' and its recipe.
THE RECIPE…
When I (Sandi Christensen) was a child there was a lady
in the Shreveport Louisiana Ward (congregation) whose name was Gramma Keller.
She made a wonderful pie and shared the recipe with my Mother (Virginia
Lawrence) telling her it was a secret recipe and not to share the recipe…
Years later when I was married I wanted to make that pie.
My Mother shared the recipe with me telling me it was a secret and not to
share. When my husband’s parents, Evan and Bonnie Christensen, came to visit, I
made this pie for dessert one night. Bonnie loved it and I shared the recipe
with her telling her it was a secret recipe and not to share.
Fair and Rodeo is a HUGE deal in Box Elder County. Bonnie
decided to enter this pie in the fair. Lo and Behold, she won a blue ribbon for
this pie. A picture of her pie and the recipe showed up in the local newspaper (Tremonton
Leader) with the understanding it was a secret recipe.
‘The Pie’ is a Crumb Pie. You simply save your bread
(like the ends of the loaf) and let them dry out. Then you make up crumb crust
out of the crumbs from the ground up dried bread. Half of that mixture goes in
your pie pan and is baked for a bit while you make a custard from scratch using
the egg yolks. The custard then goes into the baked pie shell. The egg whites
are beaten until stiff and put on top of the custard being sure not to touch
the edges of the bread crumb crust. Then the remainder of the crumb crust in
put on top of the egg whites. This is simply a delicious pie recipe.
Here is the recipe. Remember…it is a secret!
CRUMB PIE Gramma Keller’s Secret Recipe
Pie Crust: 1½
cups toasted bread crumbs ½
cup butter
½
cup sugar 2
teaspoons cinnamon
Put ½ of this mixture into a pie pan and
press. Bake 10 minutes.
Custard: 3
egg yolks 2
tablespoons flour
2/3
cup sugar 1
tablespoon lemon extract
2
cups milk
Cook till thick Put in pie shell.
Topping: Beat 3 egg whites till
stiff. Put over custard but not crust
smoothly. Put crumbs on top. Bake at 325° for 25 minutes.
I took time to find a picture of our Mini's and send them a thank you note for the things they did to make our Monday a good day. These pictures where taken four years ago. We went to Buckner Elementary to watch Hayden's last PAC (Performing Arts Club) performance of his elementary school days. We went early enough to have lunch with each of the Mini's in their lunchroom and got these selfies with each of them. We love our Mini's.
The most important thing that happened this day was a conference call with Signature Health Care about Papa. It was to be at 2pm. Claude drove me in with a bag of treats for Papa. I take him some kind of treat twice each week. So we dropped that off at the nursing home. Then we drove to Burger King to get lunch. The nursing home called early and we were in the drive-thru at Burger King. A little distracting to try and place an order while I try to answer a phone. We worked it out and pulled into a place to eat and I held my talk with them. Basically, Papa is doing well. He forgets he can't go out of his room and to wear his mask but is now submitting patiently to that when reminded. He is using his readers I got him with a magnifying glass to be able to read. That helps him pass some of the time. We are grateful he is doing well and, knock on wood, at this point there are no corona virus cases in this nursing home. These medical staff are to be honored for their loving care of all these people. Think of it. In a normal week there were be several worship services, daily activities in the dining room in the morning and afternoon, a hair dresser to take care of their hair needs, the library would come in, I would be there every day for several hours to entertain Papa or take him out for a ride, the Senior Center bus would be taking residents to doctor's appointments outside of the facility, and the list goes on. None of that can happen now. So they are in their rooms and the nursing staff has to care for and communicate with all of them more that ever. So I am grateful they are taking care of Papa and he is okay.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
This day was all about Emelia's first birthday. The plan before Covid-19 was that we would be in Michigan the weekend before to celebrate this big event. Now, because of being quarantined in Michigan and Kentucky, we would join a Facebook live event to watch her eat her birthday cake.
I started the day with a Facebook post about Emelia's birthday. I used these pictures with a comment that she has progressed to walking and has three teeth.
In the evening we connected with the Ropers to watch Emelia. Here are a few pictures of her enjoying her cake. This is a right of passage for a one year old and always cute. The first picture Katelyn or Drew took. The second picture is me taking a picture of the video as we watched it on my Kindle. She has on her birthday crown.
Friday, May 1, 2020
This was the first day in weeks that Claude and I went our separate ways for a large portion of the day. I have only driven my car one time in all these weeks. If either of us has to go into town for anything, they other one tags along. We time it to get lunch or dinner at a drive-thru and walk the path we like. This day, Claude had an errand he was bent to trying to accomplish. I had a task I needed to complete at home. So Claude drove into Georgetown to try again to get ribs while I stayed home to scan and save things on my lap top. I was taking our scrapbook for a 2009 cruise to the Western Caribbean and making a PowerPoint out of it. Then the scrapbook would be one of Papa's 92nd birthday presents. He loves reading these scrapbooks.
I stopped working on my project at noon to watch the two hour special BYU Women's Conference. This is usually a several days event for which you much register and then stay at BYU to enjoy. Due to the virus, this can't happen this year. So they did a two hour session with two talks and a face-to-face event. It was really nice to listen to. During the second hour the weather wrecked havoc with reception on the laptop. But it would eventually catch up where the feed left off so I don't think I missed much of the discussion. A few thoughts that spoke to me were:
- Blessings have come (during this pandemic) to prepare us for a more consecrated effort.
- Revelation is more like a treasure map.
- The perfect is the enemy of the good. ~~ Voltaire.
- When we are tired remember our consecration and what we are becoming and look for the hand of the Lord in our lives (remembering).
This day our grandson Hayden was allowed to create a space for himself of Facebook. Happy that Andie and Michael have been good at slowly letting the kids get on these types of things.
The nice thing this day was the National Guard in Kentucky doing a fly over Georgetown and other cities in the Commonwealth as a show of support for the first responders. There are many kindnesses done during this time that need to be remembered when it is over and that have shown the goodness in humanity.
My sweet friend Laura suggested I go out and look straight up at the moon. I did. I always heed her suggestion in regards to checking out the moon. This time I happened to be out when a jet was flying through the air and near the moon. The white dot on the left is the moon. Cool.
Today would have been Derby Day. This is a big, big deal in Kentucky. There is a month long celebration leading up to it. Almost the entire state pauses to watch this race. This year no events leading up to it and the Derby itself is postponed until September. So it was missed.
Andie notified me of a KenTurtle Derby being held in St. Louis. I followed this on Facebook because, well, I love turtles. I cast my vote for Tilly. I chose her because it is the name of my first grade teacher. She won the on-line vote before the actual race. She did not win the race. It was fun. They even held a turtle race in Kentucky. Instead of Run for the Roses you have Run for the Romaine!
I spent my morning finishing up my scrapbook project and wrapping the scrapbook to give to Papa for his birthday. While I did this, Claude made his pilgrimage to Georgetown. This time he was first in line and actually purchased two racks for ribs and a sandwich for each of us of smoked brisket. The brisket was good but I wasn't fond of their BBQ sauce. To me, this makes or breaks a recipe.
When Claude got home, we headed out to do yard work. While Claude cut the grass I pulled weeds. Two hours later we were spent and ready for front porch time with a cold soda.
After a shower I baked brownies for Papa for his birthday. I used a box mix and added an extra egg and baked them in a smaller pan. My hubby is not a fan of brownies. So I don't make them often. These turned out like a chocolate cake. Claude was in love with them. So I now can make them anytime I want. Yeah!!
Sunday, May 3, 2020
Today is Papa's 92nd birthday. I arose early to create my Facebook post for his birthday.
"In 1928 Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, the first television station (W3XK) in the United States started broadcasting, the first sliced bread was sold, Alexander Fleming discovered penicillan, and Mickey Mouse was first seen in "Steamboat Willie".
"But the most important thing to me is that on May 3, 1928 my father, Vernon Nelson Lawrence, was born in Fabens, Texas. Here are some pictures taken through the decades of Papa. Happy 92nd Birthday, Papa!!"
We stopped at the Dollar Store so I could get a balloon for Papa. They had one with a butterfly on it. Since Mimi and Papa painted butterflies together, it seemed a butterfly balloon would be perfect. When I got to the counter, I asked one of the men if he could blow up a balloon. He said they were out of helium. Ugh!! I had a birthday card and a pair of reader glasses for Papa so I got in line to pay for them. When I got to my cashier, there was a person in the check-out line next to mine with two blown up balloons. I asked my cashier how she got them with them being out of helium. I explained my father turned 92 and I wanted to get a butterfly balloon for him. This melted her heart and she when back and found the right empty balloon and blew up a butterfly balloon for me. It seems they really had helium but, to cut down on the risk of spreading the virus, they were blowing up a variety the night before when they closed and then not blowing any up when people came in for them. The other lady had taken two of the pre-blown up balloons. I was very grateful to this cashier for helping me get this balloon for Papa. He loved getting a butterfly balloon.
We went to the nursing home and I gave my bag of birthday gifts, cake and a root beer with the butterfly balloon to the CNA who answered the door. Then I went around with Claude to Papa's window. The CNA opened his window about 2 inches so we could yell through it. Even with yelling Papa can't hear. But we sang happy birthday to him. The CNA gave him the bag of gifts. We tried to chat through the window and he ended by asking me to promise not to 'take nary a wooden nickle'. This is how we always ended my visits to him. He got a chuckle out of us saying that. It was a nice visit and I did manage to get this picture through the crack with the screen covering the window.
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