Happy Birthday My Sweet Emily

My first grandchild, my precious princess, you are growing in leaps and bounds, you are eleven!!! Wow!!! I can remember your birth as if it were just yesterday. Your birth was the first time I had seen a new life come into this world. I had slept through surgery during the birth of your Mom and Aunt Jami.
 





When the doctor handed you to me, I felt so much joy and amazement.








You have grown into a lovely young lady who is so smart, and pretty. You make me happy and proud! I love you dearly!

Happy Birthday Jamiann

Your birth was such a blessing to my life. You have brought more joy into my life than any one person deserves, especially me. I know I have made many mistakes over the years, but I hope you know that you were never one of them.

I am so proud of the woman that you have become. You make decisions wisely, and you certainly haven't learned that from me. You, Mike, Abigayle, Jacob, and Maggie are so much fun to be around. Why not, as a child you put on all of those shows making Grammy, our relatives, and friends laugh, with your characters like the bag lady, and the Jewish American Princess. You drove us crazy with your Manilow Madness, but that obsession brought us many lovely friends, and memorable moments.

You have such a keen sense of humor, and continue to make others smile, and laugh out loud!

Happy Birthday Honey, I love you, Mom

Easter 1960s Style

Dearest Grandchildren,
"In your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it..." my Mom sang this song to us every Easter when we were little children. Every Easter Mom dressed us from head to toe with patent leather shoes and purses, white gloves and an Easter bonnet too.

Mom went all out even though she was on a limited budget. We even had brand new dress coats to wear to church on Easter Sunday. When she took us shopping for our outfits for Easter 1963 we came home with a few extra special surprises.

One surprise was for Irene and I and they were the latest craze...sponge coats. Well, that is what we called them. They were made of foam that was covered with fabric. Irene and I had identical sponge coats, except for the color. My coat was pastel blue, and Irene's coat was navy.

Our bonnets were usually white and had a brim adorned with a white or pastel satin ribbon, and paper or silk flowers. I can remember thinking that I looked so sophisticated with a hat and gloves, however I didn't keep them on for long. The hats usually had an elastic strap that cut into my chubby little chin, so I took it off as soon as the opportunity came. Once inside the Sunday school classroom the hat came off and the gloves went into the purse.

Our mother saw to it that each one of us had everything new for Easter, underwear, socks, hat, gloves, shoes, and dress. Sometimes, they may have been hand me downs, if they were in good shape. Even if it was a hand me down...it looked new. My Nannie Wahlers who was my Dad's Mom was an excellent seamstress, she would sew pretty dresses for us for Easter too. I can remember a dress that she sewed for me that had a bouquet of paper flowers with lace under them attached at the waist on the left side, and I just loved that dress.

The 1960s was a decade of new ideas, fun ideas, and frivolous ideas...like the sponge coats. One of these ideas was to inject dye into little chicken peeps, making their feathers turn all kinds of pretty Easter colors. When you are a child, you don't worry about the health hazards inflicted on these peeps...just the cute little colored chicks that you would love to have running around your house. I can remember shopping at Woolworth's Department Store at the Hillcrest Mall in Phillipsburg, New Jersey with my Mom. Mom loved to buy her hyacinths there as they were less expensive than other stores. Woolworths would display their Easter flowers and colored peeps out front on the sidewalk. I would go to the little cages and talk to them and wish that I would get one for Easter. We had chicken coops when we lived on Williams Street, so the chicks had a place to go when they began to grow into adult chickens. But many of the children that received colored peeps for Easter had no place to keep them when they began to grow. Many of the chicks didn't get the right food and they would get sick and die.
The next step in preparing us for Easter was a trip to Harold's Shoe Store for the patent leather shoes. I had and extra wide foot...most likely because I hated to wear shoes in the summer and went without them most of the time. Everyone would be fitted for their favorite kind of shoe and there I was trying on every shoe Harold had in his store that was extra wide and hated them all. I would soon settle on a pair and that is what I did settle whether I really liked them or not. But, all the fuss was worth it when we found out that Harold was giving away colored peeps to each child who purchased new Easter shoes. So, we each took home a colored peep in our shoe box that had holes punched into the lid as so the violet, aqua, pink, green, or yellow peep could breath. Boy, was I thrilled, proudly carrying my very own colored peep out of that store and I didn't even care what my shoes looked like.
The weekend before Easter we would attend the neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt which was held in a nearby park. It was like a race to find the prize egg. I never did find a prize egg, but when your mommy was little she did and won a two wheeled bicycle with training wheels. But, every kid took home a hollow chocolate egg and that was fine with me.
On Easter morning we would awake to a beautiful basket which was decorated by our Mom with crepe paper(an art she learned from her Aunt Let), filled with; coconut creme, peanut butter, marshmallow, butter creme, and hawk (pastel hard coated marshmallow) eggs, yellow sugar coated marshmallow peeps, jelly beans, milk and white chocolate mini binks (miniature chocolate bunnies, lambs, and chicks), and one tall chocolate bunny.
We would get dressed for church. In Sunday School we would learn about the resurrection of Christ, reinforcing what our Mom had always told us. She told us about when Christ died on the cross on Good Friday for our sins. On Good Friday we were not allowed to watch TV, or listen to the radio and were told to remain quiet and pray from noon to three, which were the hours that Jesus suffered on the cross so we could have everlasting life. Mom always taught us to have a personal relationship with the Lord. We liked to go to Sunday School too, especially on Easter as our Sunday School class gave us a dark chocolate covered creme cross as an Easter gift.
We would visit our Great Aunt Ree and Uncle Bill for Easter Sunday dinner. They were our God parents and they were also like grand parents as they raised my Mom. Every year Aunt Ree painted hard boiled eggs with toothpicks using food coloring. She would make eggs that had a tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil on one side and a cross set in a tuft of grass on the other and she separated the two sides with a frilly design. The side with the flowers usually also had our name written on it too. She would then make an Easter gift for each of us using a one pound coconut cream egg which came in a card board box. When you opened the box, on each end of the egg was a little compartment where a divider was added to keep the egg still in the box. Aunt Ree used this divider to add a few jelly beans, the hard boiled egg, a sugar coated marshmallow peep, and chocolate mini binks to each side of the coconut cream egg.

I have carried bits of these traditions on to make Easter a little extra special for your Mommies...with one big exception "colored peeps" as they had been outlawed not long after we took our cute little peeps home that very special Easter.

With All My Love,

Grammy

In Memory Of My Mother

When I was a little girl I would cry myself to sleep whenever the thought of losing my mother would enter my mind while saying my prayers. I would have never thought that I could have gone on living one minute, one day without her there for me. It has now been 18 years since she passed on. She will always be right there for me, she is in my heart and in my soul. As a remarkable and loving mother she is ingrained in my whole being, and taught me to love unconditionally and to forgive without holding a grudge. She always lived by example. I try to live up to her teachings.












In Memory Of My Mother, Ruth Marie Dunwell On This Day March 30, 2010, The 18th Anniversary Of Her Passing.










This song in the background, There You'll Be reminds me of her. It is sung by Faith Hill,and written by Diane Warren. It was on the sound track for the movie Pearl Harbor.








There You'll Be

When I think back
On these times
And the dreams
We left behind
I’ll be glad 'cause
I was blessed to get
To have you in my life
When I look back
On these days
I’ll look and see your face
You were right there for me

In my dreams
I’ll always see your soar
Above the sky
In my heart
There always be a place
For you for all my life
I’ll keep a part
Of you with me
And everywhere I am
There you’ll be

Well you showed me
How it feels
To feel the sky
Within my reach
And I always
Will remember all
The strength you
Gave to me
Your love made me
Make it through
Oh, I owe so much to you
You were right there for me

In my dreams
I’ll always see your soar
Above the sky
In my heart
There always be a place
For you for all my life
I’ll keep a part
Of you with me
And everywhere I am
There you’ll be

'Cause I always saw in you
My light, my strength
And I want to thank you
Now for all the ways
You were right there for me
You were right there for me
For always

In my dreams
I’ll always see your soar
Above the sky
In my heart
There always be a place
For you for all my life
I’ll keep a part
Of you with me
And everywhere I am
There you’ll be

Paper, Plastic, Paisley, and Disposable

The technologically-savvy 60’s turned us into a throwaway nation. We had disposable plastic plates, bottles, diapers, cutlery, curtains, and with the advent of the new paper dresses, even a wardrobe that could be chucked into the garbage after it was used.

One lovely late Spring day in 1968, Debbie Rose and I went shopping at the Woolworth Dept. Store in the Hillcrest Shopping Mall. We purchased the latest craze, a simple A-line/tent dress in a psychedelic paisley print, made out of a special, sturdy fiber paper for a measly $1.25 each. I didn't even realize at that time that these dresses were made by the Scott's toilet paper company, how funny is that????

We were so full of ourselves, and just couldn't wait to show them off at the newly renovated Hullabaloo Teen Night Club that was transformed from the then former Villa Roller Rink.

I learned about another new innovation that Saturday morning when Debbie set her long wavy hair in empty Campbell Soup cans, and sat under my portable hat box style hair dryer. She did this to help straighten her hair.

The outfit was made complete by our knee high patent leather go-go boots. We were trying to copy Goldie Hawn on the brand new TV show Rowan and Martin's Laugh In. Oh we were the cat's meow!!!!!

During the same time period my mother came home from shopping thrilled over her new inexpensive curtains, the latest rage, throw away drapes. They were made of two ply plastic, the under layer was white, the transparent outer layer was of a gray, pink, white lace paisley print. I always thought that they were hideous, and eventually convinced my mother to get rid of them.

Today we realize that all of those throw away goods were bad for our environment. We now know that we need to create items that are recyclable or reusable. The sixties were a fun and experimental time and I was so young, and so innocent.

I didn't have a worry in the world, and everything was brand new!

A Meal Fit For A Saint...

St.Patrick's Day Potato Candy

2 tablespoons mashed cooked potatoes 1 tablespoon butter 1 teaspoon milk 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar 1 cup peanut butter Mix together potatoes, butter or margarine, and milk. Add enough powdered sugar to make a stiff dough. Roll out on a flat surface sprinkled with powdered sugar. Spread on a layer of peanut butter and roll up. Chill and slice.


Oven Roasted Corn Beef and Cabbage

Prep 20 min
Cook 2 1/2 hours or until meat fork tender
Serves 6-8

Ingredients

1-corn beef brisket (3 lbs)
8 small potatoes; peeled (leave whole)
8 carrots; peeled (leave whole)
1 large head cabbage; remove outer leaves and cut into 4 wedges
1 tablespoon of crushed garlic, sprinkle with onion powder
Water enough to cover corn beef brisket in a deep pan

Directions

1. Preheat oven 325 degrees
2. Place corn beef into center of pan fat side up, next arrange potatoes, carrots, and cabbage around brisket.
3. Sprinkle spice packet, garlic, dry onion powder over contents in pan. Next, pour water into pan covering brisket.
4. Cover with aluminum foil tightly around edges, place in oven at 325 degrees and bake 2 1/2 hours or until fork tender, remove foil return to oven to slightly brown about 10 minutes.

Tranquil Tuesday "A Woman's Worth"

The sounds of a Summer's night




Proverbs 14:1
The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.


Proverbs 31:10-12 and 25-31
A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.

Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.

They may talk of a comet, or a burning mountain, or some such bagatelle; but to me a modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation. ~Oliver Goldsmith

There is in every true woman's heart, a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.

WASHINGTON IRVING, The Sketch Book