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?