Hush Puppies

As I mentioned, our fish fry was a success. I have had a couple of folks ask for the recipe I used for the hush puppies. I actually used parts of 3 different recipes and I think they turned out great. Everyone else said they liked them as well. Here's the recipe.



Hush puppies Serves 20




2 cups self rising corn meal mix – yellow or white
2 cups self rising flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
2 Tbsp sugar

Mix all the dry ingredients together.

1 large onion chopped finely
1 or 2 jalepeno peppers center and seeds removed, chopped finely(optional)

Add onion to dry mixture.
2 eggs
1 cup milk
¾ cup buttermilk, more if necessary to moisten mixture completely.

Stir until all combined. Drop into hot grease.(about 350 to 375 degrees)
May be cut in half for smaller batch.

After making ½ of the recipe, add the jalepeno’s and fry up the rest.
I used only one jalepeno, and you could see they were there, but you couldn't really taste them, so next time, I'm using two.

I hope everyone is having a great Tuesday. Pray for those affected by the oil spill. Love one another.

Lightening Could Strike Twice!

I know you are wondering why you are seeing this big scratch looking thing on this hand. This is my son 'The Contractor'. This is where he was struck by lightening on Thursday. He was putting away the water hose when he heard a clap of thunder off in the distance, but didn't think much of it until he got struck. This place is more like a gouge than a scratch, and the skin on it is gone. He also has a big red place on the inside of his hand below his thumb.
It scared the bejesus out of him, and frightened his 7 year old son 'Superhero' shown here. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt. And we have teased him unmercifully about it.
Friday night when the cloud came up and it began to thunder, he gathered all the kids inside. His new motto is 'If you can hear it thunder, it's time to take cover.'
If only it had trimmed that thing on his chin.
I spoke with him today, and he said his hand was a little sore and looked like it was trying to get infected. It's in such a hard place to keep covered since he works out in the heat all day and gets sweaty and dirty. I'm just so thankful that he wasn't hurt any worse than he was, and hope there's no residual damage anywhere in his body.

Our birthday supper for my sister-in-law was a great success, even if she did make her own cake/cakes. She made a chocolate and pineapple cake. We had more fish than we could possibly eat. My hushpuppies turned out very well if I do say so myself, my nephew made slaw that was wonderful, and we had pickles, onions, tarter sauce, green tomato pickles. It was all so very good. I think everyone had a good time. We had 20 in attendance. The contractor did the cooking, and we did the eating. He also catches the fish we eat. He and his friend have nets in the river.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and are happy to be back to doing what you do on Mondays. Pray for rain. We need it badly. Love one another.

Friday Thoughts And The Quilts!

I've been on my soap box this morning. What else is new about that, right?

There are some things that just 'bug' me. The obits in the local paper seem to hit a nerve often. In the last few years, the paper has begun charging for anything over a certain number of words, thus allowing family members to write the obit for their recently deceased loved one. Today a 95 year old lady is in the column. There are quite a number of nice things said, but the phrase that got me is, and I quote, 'She was admired for her spunk, her fire for life and her ABILITY TO ACCESSORIZE'. Accessorize????? Something tells me that just isn't right. I've ranted about the obituary process here before, but when is someone going to help people write these things.

I guess if you allow someone to list all their honors and medals for bravery(which I don't have a problem with), then they have to allow folks to list that their brother had a love of flower arranging and that great Aunt Mabel took a plane ride to Heaven, or that cousin Sam is playing drums in that great band in the sky. If you knew these people, you already knew all these wacky details, if not, then ignorance is bliss. I personally don't care that the 95 year old lady could accessorize. I found it nice that she was a member of a church and that she had taught school and Sunday school, but I just don't care if her jewelry matches her clothes, handbag and shoes.

I've decided that it is important that I write my own obituary. Here is what it should say. Memaw Bakes died (insert date). She has 3 children(insert names here) and 6 grandchildren(insert names here). There will be no visitation, no service. There will be a yard sale at her home(insert address here) next week. She hopes to be missed.

Today is my sister-in-law's birthday. We are having a fish fry in her honor tonight, even though she made her own birthday cake. My son is frying up some catfish, and there'll be about 20 of us in attendance. I'm hoping this will be a great birthday for her since it's her first in Arkansas in a while. Her youngest son and his girlfriend has come home to help her celebrate. Then tomorrow, her sister and her parents will be at her house. Happy Birthday, sister-in-law
I'm getting close on the bedding for the girls.
The quilts are finished, but as I told you yesterday, I'm not happy with the pillow shams. I've attached a couple of pictures so you can see what is finished. I think you will agree the shams need a little something to make them stand out just a bit.

I hope you've had a wonderful week. Pray for more rain(this worked yesterday). Love one another.

I Updated My Photo!

I have a friend who is having a birthday Friday. She along with the rest of the girls are going to the lake to celebrate. I have other plans for the weekend, so I'm not going along.

I did get a gift to send and decided that it needed something special, something personal, something she will treasure for many years to come----probably not!

When you get to be our ages, it's difficult to come up with anything cute and cheap. These are the main two criteria for any gift I give, well, the cheap part anyway. I got her a Tervis tumbler, and a notepad--no connection between the two--the tumbler holds a lot of liquid, doesn't leave any rings and doesn't sweat. The note pad is small and cute, about the size of a cell phone(I went to the middle and up at the top of one of the pages, left a note). But the part of the gift on which I absolutely outdid myself is the framed picture of ME. The gift is in a cute little bag, with lots of tissue paper. The frame is neatly wrapped in some of the same paper, and hopefully she will open it last.

My intent is that if I can't be there in person to look at, they can have my picture. I told one of the other girls to be sure and keep it sitting in a place of honor while they are there. If I can't be there to keep them laughing, then they will just have to laugh when they look at my goofy picture. And by the way, the picture I have added to my profile here is that picture.

I thought everyone could get a kick out of it.

I've been sewing every night this week, and am just about finished with the granddaughter's bedding. I'm not happy with the pillow shams. They are just too plain. I'd show them here and let all of you(being my best friends) help me decide what to do with them, but alas, the pictures are on my camera at HOME. I think I'm going to take some of the left over turquoise/teal fabric, make some bias tape with it, and stitch it around where the holding seam is on them now. They just need a splash of color to make them stand out. The binding on the quilts looks pretty good for an amateur. Their mother just needs to decide what color to paint their rooms and get that done. I have a couple of throw pillows that I'm going to put their initials on and applique some flip flops onto a segment that is the backing fabric so they will show up. If you want to see the quilts prior to being quilted, you can go here. I should have everything finished by the weekend and will definitely have some new pictures. What do you think about painting the bedroom a pretty white?

I hope you are staying cool. It's thundering outside here. Pray for much needed rain. Love one another.

The End of Another Week!!

Another week has now come to an end. It's been hotter than the hubs around here this week and we see no end in sight. Every day, we have small dots of afternoon showers, but for some reason, it doesn't seem to rain where I am. We are watering the garden every couple of days, and have picked some green beans.

They are really good too. I picked them the first time and shared them with my brother who has done all the work on the garden(wasn't that nice of me). He picked them yesterday and shared them with me. I broke mine last night and am giving them to my daughters. I'm hoping we have enough to can a few jars just to be able to say we've canned them.

My brother has decided that the squash and cucumbers have mixed. Not that hasn't hurt the squash except they aren't bearing like I think they should, but the straight dark skinned cucumbers are coming off long crooked and very pale in color. They taste fine, they just aren't what he thought he planted. I'm going to look for a kosher dill recipe and see if we can make some chunk pickles out of them. Should be interesting.

Princess #2 is spending the night tonight. Her older sister is playing in a ball tournament tomorrow and her mother didn't think she'd make it all day in the hot sun with nothing to do, so she's going to come help me sew. She likes to sit on a stool beside my sewing maching and hand me pins. I hope to get their quilts finished and their pillow shams done. The quilts need to be finished around the edges, so that shouldn't take too long. And we'll see how long it takes to make two shams. With her help, it may take a while.

We are having a fish fry next weekend for my sister-in-law's birthday, and I have volunteered to make the hush puppies(the ones my son makes are absolutely inedible) and I have a couple of new recipes. I'm going to try one out tomorrow just to see if they turn out ok. There may be about 20 of us, so I'll need quite a few. One of the recipes serves 20, or I may have to just double one of the others.

Otherwise, I'm just planning to stay in where it's cool. I hope the princess brings some good movies, since I'm sure we'll be watching them most of the day tomorrow.

I hope you have had a good week. Pray for those in distress. Love one another.

Banty Hen is 3!!!

We celebrated the Banty Hen's 3rd birthday Saturday. She thinks she is a princess, and she loves pink. So it only stands to reason that she had a pink princess cake. Opening presents was a chore since what she really wanted to do was play on the slip n slide her mother bought. All the kiddos enjoyed sliding and playing in the water.

I didn't get a picture of her in her new dress, since she was having none of trying anything on to show everyone. There just wasn't time. I have two more of these beauties to make. The ones I'm making for the older girls are also sundresses, but they also have a collar on them. Maybe before summer, I'll get a picture of all three in their colorful dresses.


Here are a couple of pictures of my lace cap hydrangeas. They have been loaded with blooms this year, but I have two bushes on either side that are trying to smother this one out. They are Burning Bushes, and are huge. I asked my son to either cut them back to the base, or pull them out. I'll probably go home one afternoon and they'll be gone. But whatever is easiest for him is what I perfer. He's busy, but manages to work things in for me.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I know I did. I also picked green beans out of our garden. I got almost 4 lbs, and after sharing part of them with my brother who has done all the work, I snapped, washed and cooked them almost done last night.

I'm getting ready for company from Tuesday night until Thursday morning, and am excited about seeing my friend.

Have a great day. Pray for the families who lost loved ones in the flood in Central Arkansas this past weekend. Love one another.

I Just Can't Seem to Make Myself Post!

I have been really bad about not posting lately(not that anyone has really noticed). Thing is that many of the blogs I normally read daily aren't posting much either.

It's not that I haven't had anything to post about lately, just don't seem to have the 'want to' to put things into print.

I've been pretty busy. I'm working on three sundresses for the granddaughters, I haven't finished the quilts for the girl's rooms yet(although they have been quilted), my Cardinals have lost the last three ballgames. I think they should come back home and stay away from the west coast.

The garden that my brother has been growing is beginning to have some veggies close to being ready. I did pick two squash the other night. They could have been a bit bigger, but I just couldn't stand it any longer, so I picked them. I slice them thinly, chopped up a shallot, and sauteed them in a little butter and olive oil. It only took a couple of minutes. I drained them on a paper towel, and they were delicious.

The grandchildren are now out of school. The girls are going to church day camp every day, and Superhero is helping his dad. By the way, if I haven't already told you, Superhero got the Math Award for his Kindergarden class. Princess #2 got a Respectful award in her Kindergarden class, and Princess #1 got the Math, Language, Spelling, Reading, and three other awards in her 1st grade class. About the only thing she didn't get was the perfect attendance award.

But best of all the Banty Hen hasn't been kicked out of her school. She will be three next week. She is a very smart little girl. She is also very head strong. I feel for the fellow who becomes her husband in about 20 years.

I hope that wherever you are, you are staying cool. Pray for our troops. Love one another.

School Reunion 2010!!!

We have a school reunion every 5 years on Memorial Day Weekend. This was the year. In 1985, our school consolidated with another and changed the name and the mascot. We were the Catfish, and the 2nd most unusual in the state. Most unusual went to the River Rats in the southern part of the state. Many classes got together on Friday night and visited amongst themselves so they could visit with others on Saturday.

We began gathering about 11:00a.m. on Saturday morning and visited until 3. Finger foods were furnished. Lots of pictures were taken, lots of hugs were exchanged, and everyone enjoyed the day.

At 5p.m. we moved over to the First Baptist Family Life Center where our meal was catered by Ron's Catfish. It was wonderful. They fed about 350, and it was amazing how fast people moved through the line. Fish, hush puppies, cole slaw, pickles, onions. It was great. Cake was served for desert, and it was alllllll gone.


I didn't take a single picture, so I stole/borrowed this one from one of the other people in my class. That's me in the solid rose colored top in case you don't recognize me from my profile picture.

The classes were recognized, former beauty queens, cheerleaders, conference champions and others were recognized. My brother, John sang several songs that covered the time from the 40's to the 80's.(The school graduated it first class in the 40's and the last in the 80's.) Former teachers and coaches were asked questions about their memories of the school and former students.

And a good time was had by all.

It will be 5 years before we have another. Some won't be around by then, so this will be the last time we will have seen them. There will be more of the later class groups that will begin to take part just as happened this time. And as always happens, things will continue to change, but one thing is certain, we will forever have our memories of the school and the good times we all shared together.