Choice Morsels

     “ This Christmas,” our Mother firmly and unexpectedly announced, “there will be NO chocolate.”       My sisters and I stared at her incredulously. What, no chocolate? It was inconceivable!       You see, every year, for as long as I could remember, there had been chocolate on Christmas. Not just a little chocolate, but an opulent extravaganza of chocolate that would've made even Willy Wonka blush. Empty decorative bowls would be laid out on Christmas Eve, enough to cover our 7 foot dining table, only to be “magically” filled by morning with Hershey’s Kisses, Hershey's Mini-bars, chocolate peanut clusters, chocolate turtles, chocolate cremes, M&M's of both types, chocolate stars, chocolate-covered cherries, Tootsie rolls and candy bars of every type. It was a veritable chocolate feast the Ghost of Christmas Present would surely admire.       However, this particular year, Mother had joined TOPS to lose weight and was on a healthy eating campaign not j

Yup, time for another tale prompted by Mama Kat. Today's prompt of choice is #5: "What is the one 'vice' you can't give up?"    Quite a number of years ago, in the mid 90's, we visited some friends, who were living in North Carolina at the time and what makes it memorable is the wife declaring that she, "had to give up eating chocolate because it had caffeine in it."  Apparently she was under doctor's orders not to have any sort of caffeine. Why, I don't know, but back then there was a general "caffeine scare" going on. Of course, a lot of scientific back-peddling has occurred since then, as it so often does, and science now declares coffee and chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, as having health benefits. Though those fancy coffee drinks full of sugar and all kinds of high-calorie stuff other then plain coffee are fattening rather then healthy.      I mention this, because if I'm going to call anything I unrepentan

Today I'm showing you how I recycle old greeting cards:  My friend, Megan, showers me with gorgeous, glittery "Papyrus" brand greeting cards. (Remember I love glitz!) They were just too nice to throw away. Plus I had this years and 2 previous years Christmas cards to sort through to decide what might be used for something else and what to throw away. Seems like we get an increasing number of photo cards and you know what? Those can't be recycled. Frankly, I rather have a regular card-stock card with a really nice picture and a photo inserted, mostly because I like re-using cards.       This time, however, it was a pile of birthday, anniversary and just all occasion cards I wanted to recycle. The project required a box of card stock with envelopes from JoAnn's Fabrics. (In the stamping section.) I got a box of mixed bright colors and it required a couple glue sticks. I prefer rubber cement, but glue sticks is what I had on hand. And a pair of paper scissors. 

     The Mama Kat's Writing Prompt of choice this week is #5: Share a story about a sibling .      My growing up years were full of magic and adventure. I remember so much laughter and romping  through sun-dappled woods down to the gurgling creek flowing through the valley below our house, the dog running ahead of us, her tail like a flag in the breeze. My two younger sisters and I could skip agiley over the rocks we placed in the stream for crossing, like little mountain goats, our feet never touching water. There was always adventure to had, flowers to be found, creepy-crawlies to be discovered and I remember our Barbie and Ken dolls enjoyed many a luxurious, stone-lined spa in that stream.       However, the particular sibling story I want to tell happened not by the steam, but near the house out in my Mother's garden. Now we're talking a huge garden, two of them, in fact, arranged one above the other in steppe fashion with a long strawberry bed running between. It

     What most people think of when you say, "hail."      "Umm, we're gonna tell."      I stared with appall at my fellow 4th grade classmates, who were standing around me by the 12 foot floor-to-ceiling window just as a hail storm began peppering cars below us with ice pellets. I had only just made a simple weather observation.        "Look, hail," I'd said.      " That's a cuss word," I was promptly informed.      "We're gonna tell," someone else promised.       I puffed up defensively. The idea of being "told on" for saying something entirely correct intimidated me, but I would not go down without a fight. "No, it's not ," I insisted, then pointed out the window. "That's what you call rain when it turns into ice balls--HAIL."      My classmates eyes bugged and hands flew over mouths. “Umm, we're gonna tell. You're using a bad word,” a chorus of them i

     That title is a poignant line from a song by Janis Ian called "At Seventeen" which was a top-40 hit in 1975 when I a senior in high school. It played on the radio constantly and always made me cry because I felt it described my high school life perfectly .      I say this because Mama Kat's Writing Prompt for this week, which is "What Were You Like In High School?"  and the lyrics of this song used to resonate strongly with how I felt about my teenage life.  The parts I related most to are highlighted below: "I learned the truth at seventeen That love was meant for beauty queens And high school girls with clear skinned smiles Who married young and then retired The valentines I never knew The Friday night charades of youth Were spent on one more beautiful At seventeen I learned the truth... And those of us with ravaged faces Lacking in the social graces... ... to those of us who knew the pain Of valentines that never cam