Smells

Do certain smells bring back memories for you? Take you back to a much simpler time?  Or cause you to miss someone even more than you were already missing them?

Last night I was making spaghetti for supper.  I make the meat sauce just like momma made it.
Brown your hamburger meat (drain if needed), add Worcestershire, then chili powder and then sprinkle in flour before adding tomato sauce and water.  Let that simmer for a bit and you're done.  Sometimes I add in a little bit of jar spaghetti sauce but last night I did not.  The smell of the Worcestershire alone took me back to momma cooking supper in the kitchen growing up.  I smiled, and then I smiled again when I took a small spoon to taste the sauce.  It was very close to momma's.  Success.

When I make homemade donuts, I have the same reaction except this smell takes me back to Grandma Berger's house when we were little.  I should tell you now that the homemade donuts are not some fancy made from scratch family recipe.  They are canned biscuits, but they are fried up with tons of love and that's what makes them special and better than any bought donut anywhere.  Every single time I make these, a wave of memories come flooding back as soon as that first donut hits the oil.  I love memories like that.

When I close my eyes, I can still smell Jace.  Today it makes me smile.  Some days, the tears just fall from my eyes without warning.  Same when I can smell momma.  Both scents I love to get a whiff of every now and then.

A funny scent memory is not one I remember but one that I've heard my brother Tony describe. When they were little, apparently they went to Grandma & Grandpa's house quite a bit for supper or maybe lunch.  I may have gone too but I don't really have memories of doing that specifically.  Maybe we did and I just automatically associate those visits with the holidays.  Who knows.  Anyway, pulling into Grandma's, there is a long drive up to the house.  Not really that long but its a skip. ha!  You have to understand, going to Grandma's was awesome.  I always loved going, always. So imagine the excitement of going to Grandma's, pulling up and jumping out of the car to go greet them only to met by a wave of the most awful smell coming from the house and realizing you're not getting chicken noodle soup for supper but sausage and sauerkraut!!  "Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!" Tony tells it so much better and still to this day hates sauerkraut, Bryan as well.  Cindy and I hate it just as much.  Ugh....nasty stuff.  And Daddy always loves to tell us when he's had some really good sauerkraut because he knows of our disdain for the stuff.  I just don't think I will every acquire a taste for it. No thank you.

Of course there are other smells that I just love that don't really bring back memories but make me smile.  Fresh cut grass, babies after a bath, caking baking in the oven, BBQ, coffee, a good-smelling rose, good-smelling cologne on a handsome guy, rain and a rainstorm coming.  I could keep going but those are a few smells that pull a grin out of me every time.

What are your favorite smells?

Friday Faves

Yes y'all we made it to the weekend!!  Woo Hoo!!  Its been another crazy work week for me so I'm just as excited about it being Friday as I was last week.  2-day weekend but I will take it!

Wanted to show you the necklace my babies picked out for me for Christmas. 

Its the shorter one with my name on it.  Isn't it a cutie?  I love, love, love it.  

 

 Another look.  I think I have worn it every day since its arrival.  Its a Stella & Dot piece.  I love that its shorter so I can pair it with a longer necklace.  Cool huh.  I thought so.  Wink, wink. 

And then another with my chevron necklace, blardigan and Ugg boots.  I've very comfy today while I work.  

So yesterday I had my follow-up at the dermatologist for the spot they removed back in October.  All looks good so I don't have to go back until this October for my ANNUAL check-up.  That had to be one of the quickest appointments ever.  I was in and out in less than ten minutes.  My kind of appointment!  

Since I was done early and only a skip away from a Williams-Sonoma store, I popped in there to peruse their goodies and look for a heart-shaped pancake mold.  When I made pancakes on Bella's birthday she asked for a heart-shaped pancake so I tried to make one.  It wasn't the prettiest but she loved it.  I remembered seeing pancake molds for other things so I thought I might get lucky since Valentine's Day is around the corner.  I got lucky and found this set...  

So guess what we're making this weekend?!!?  Bella was so excited and actually, Christopher thought they were pretty neat too.  We'll see how great they are when I try them out.  Wish us luck. 

I hope y'all have a great weekend!!  Stay warm!!

Friday!!!

Happy Friday folks!!! Make it a good one!!!

 

 

Its A Southern Thing

 

I had to steal borrow this from Laura over at Cowboy Boots & Baby Booties.  She saw it the other day at Pretty Southern.  Us southern girls stick together :).  I think the last one is my absolute favorite.  Thanks ladies!

Down here, there is no Pepsi. Everything is Coke. Even Pepsi is called Coke. True Southerners don’t like going North because up there, if you ask for Coke, all y’all get is freaking Pepsi.

 

In Northern states, iced tea is served with a box of sugar packets because Yankees are too lazy to actually blend sugar into the hot liquid to make sweet tea. Damn Yankees.

 

Life below the Mason Dixon line is so sweet, just like our tea and Coca-Cola. Southern accents over time have developed their own vocabulary. These words tend to come out with even more zest if the Southerner has been drinking bourbon.

 

Here’s a sampling of words only Southerners say

Y’all: it’s never “you guys” but “y’all”. We’ll know you’re a Yankee, or that your parents were Yankees, if you say “you guys”.

 

Fixin’ to: used to let your compatriot know what’s up. As in “I’m fixin’ to make me a drink”

 

Lagniappe: a little bit of something extra (especially for those form N’Awlins and the Gulf area)

 

Pocketbook: girls from the deep South’s middle-o’-nowhere areas are known to call it this instead of a purse.

 

Mash: Southerners don’t push things, we mash ‘em.

 

Po’Boy: a long sandwich, usually served with fried oysters, shrimp or fish. But in NOLA, your po’boy could even have plain deli meat. Po’Boys are really defined by their good, long crusty bread.

 

Buggy: it’s not a shopping cart, but a buggy

 

Might Could: a polite way of presenting your options

 

Caddywompus a.k.a. caddywonked: a more fun way to say sideways

 

Access Road a.k.a. Main Road: screw the term “service road”. If the D.O.T. is working on the highway, there’s only one road to get back on your route again and it’s via an “access road” or “main road”. And by the way, if you live in the South, that construction is going to take five years just to pave two lanes. Especially if it’s I-75 in Georgia or Florida. Same thing for I-85 in the Carolinas. Because of this tragic lack of getting the roads fixed, Southerners do not call our interstates “freeways” but “highways”. There’s nothing free about our highways (see GA-400).

 

Sweeper: as in run the sweeper referring to the vacuum

 

Made: whether you’re referring to a test you aced, a photo you took, or a baby you birthed, “made” is the verb

Changer or Clicker: you want me to pass you what? A remote control? Honey, that thing is called the changer or the clicker. There’s no controlling the remote in a Southern house. That darn thing will cause World War III, ‘specially in SEC football season.

 

Yankee: anyone from the North. Even if you’re from Washington D.C., you’re a borderline Yankee. But stay here long enough, plant some roots, and you’ll grow up to become a Southerner.

 

“Bless Your Heart”: if you’ve heard this, especially from a Southern woman, she doesn’t mean it. It’s her nice way of telling you to put on your grown up pants and deal with it. As said by one of our New York friends “I could shout a parade of Yankee-style expletives in your face and it wouldn’t be nearly as bitchy as bless your heart.”
 

So God Made A Farmer...

Had to share my two favorite commercials during the Super Bowl...

So God Made a Farmer...
Forget that this commercial was for Chrysler's Ram pickups...I'm all about the American farmer.  Absolutely LOVED this commerical...you can watch it HERE.

Budweiser Clydesdales...
This was my most favorite, always a softy when it comes to these beauties...and this one had me in tears!  You can watch it HERE.




What was your favorite?