I am back!

I cannot believe the months that have passed since I even visited this blog. We have been busy with moving William and his wife into a new home and I have been helping with the decorating. I also spent time at a show at the arboretum here in Dallas. I know I was not born here, but this has been home since I was six years old. I cannot even imagine leaving Dallas to live somewhere else. All the kids live here and all of David's family is close by.

We still live in the Lakewood area and the trees are so full and green with all the rain. The picture is off my baskets outside my kitchen. Enjoy the color. It will probably find it's way into a painting.

Lauren

Birthday Celebrations

These pictures took me way back to the celebration of birthdays of the boys and their love of hero worship. Batman, Spiderman, you name it, they thought is was all thrilling.




Do you have any memories of childhood birthday parties? My earliest memory is of my 3rd birthday party. I wore a soft yellow sweater that had tiny rose buds in a row around my chest up near the neckline. I also remember having my cousins over and eating hotdogs and then throwing them all up. Today I know why they didn't stay in my stomach, but I don't think anyone knew back then. I have food allergies to Sodium Nitrate... top ingredient in those nasty things. I never gave them to my kids.

The kids always like wearing masks and taking on the personality of the mask. I think we all do that in our lives. We don't even need the masks....it is simply the front we put on with people. Then we carry through with acting like the person we are trying to be.

Make believe was something David and I were good at. He would sit with his notebook and write stories when we were young. I sat scrunched up tightly against him as he told me the tale he was inscribing on the paper before him. My pencil flew to sketch what he was describing. I have a whole trunk full of our stories and drawings. One day I will have to get them published.

Jillian has been over helping me label pictures this past weekend and these were some we came across. So many memories.

Lauren

Snowflakes Falling?

Well, we had a flash of snow last night. Even after all these years this is so strange to me, flashes of snow falling lightly from the sky. Before we moved to Dallas, (I was seven when we moved here.) I had lived in Egypt and Italy. Mom took me to ski when I was very young in the Swiss Alps. I knew real snow up until we moved to Texas. I think it is amusing the way the city comes to a crawl for snow, but then in the same sense the sheer delight and wonderment on the faces of the children who see it so rarely.

As I journal today I am remembering raking leaves my first fall living in Dallas. There are trees every where and in autumn the leaves are going to fall. We have "leaf fall" and not "snow fall." Our house was built back off the street and slightly elevated so there is a small hill from the yard down to the sidewalk. We had two huge trees out front and lots of leaves to clean up. I went with Dad to the Ace Hardware Store and he picked out two rakes. The rakes had colorful handles; I chose a blue one and Dad wanted the red one. I told him we needed one for mom, but he assured me she had enough to do inside the house and he and I would rake the leaves.

My dad had the ability to make any type of work fun, so I unsuspectingly looked forward to raking leaves. I proudly climbed out of the car dragging my rack with it's blue handle while watching the neighbors across the street already out raking, piling their leaves. We were going to do a compost area in the backyard, so Dad went to the garage to get his wheelbarrow. The morning flew by as I helped him rake the leaves and we piled them by loads in the wheelbarrow. He let me ride on the top of the leaves as he pushed it to the backyard to our compost area. Occasionally I didn't bail out fast enough and he "dumped" me with the leaves. My curly hair seemed to be a magnet for the leaves to tangle in. I know we worked a long time because we stopped, had lunch and went right back to work.

As we were finishing David and his brother Charlie arrived on their bikes at Nanie's house. They began raking her leaves in the front yard. Charlie was too small to push the wheelbarrow, but David pushed Granny's old wheelbarrow out of the garage. It had a flat tire. Dad let them use ours and he declared our job done for the day. Me, I decided to help the boys. By six that night I was so tired that when I sat at the dinner table I fell asleep while I was eating.

Every year I anticipate the turning of leaves in our Lakewood neighborhood. There are so many different types of trees that the colors vary from the deep reds,through all the oranges, yellows and browns. Leaves falling in Dallas are almost as exciting as snow falling somewhere else.

Only a few more day left before Winter arrives.

Lauren
10 December 2008

Nanie's Deviled Eggs, the heart of Lakewood Picnics

THE BEST TIMES

Holiday gatherings of family always bring back memories of the good foods we shared. The first time I ate Nanie's deviled eggs was at a block party in September after we moved in to Lakewood that summer. They blocked off the streets; men brought cookers out to the streets and everyone brought out picnic tables and lawn chairs. It was one of the only times we were allowed to play in the streets.

We had three legged races (Do you know what those are?), waterballoon fights, horse shoes, and lots of jump roping and four square. I always brought out my colored chalks and drew ahead on the street colorful four squares. Usually we had three set ups. The girls liked to do cheerleading. I never was very good at it. I learned two cheers in my entire life time. But jump roping...I can still jump rope with the best of them!

The kids would play, the dad's would cook, the mom's set up the food tables and watched over the youngest children. When it was time to eat, we all held hands in this huge circle and one of the dad's blessed our food, our families and the nation. I looked up at the first gathering and peeked at the huge circle while we were praying. It was filled with all the different families tightly holding hands and praying together. It made me feel warm and good all the way through my body. I have known these families for over 50 years now. God is good! AND so are Nanie's Deviled Eggs.


The highlight of every holiday or Lakewood summer street parties were Nanie's Deviled Eggs. The recipe seems so simple, but nothing was better than her deviled eggs. When we were kids we tried to sneak up on the food tables to snag one before the lines opened up to fill your plates with food.

My girls grew up with Nanie in her kitchen preparing these eggs from when they were big enough to spoon the stuffings into the eggs. Only when they were helping there was never enough filling and always left over white egg boats. I have a feeling that licked the spoon between every egg fill. Nanie would then use the left over whites and dice them up for her green pea salad. Oh my, and that is a favorite of our menfolk! Nanie's pea Salad.

Here I am supposed to be recording memories of my life for the grandchildren, but it seems a lot of the family gatherings involved the sharing of food and family. Nanie's love lives on through those memories and the dishes we still make to serve the next generations.

Nanie's Deviled Eggs

Ingredients

• 1 dozen eggs
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard or New York Hot Honey Mustard
  
• 1/3 cup real mayonnaise
• 1 Tbsp minced onion
  
• Salt and pepper
• Paprika

Method

First hard boil the eggs. Fill up a large saucepan half-way with water and gently add the eggs. Cover the eggs with at least an inch of water. Always add a teaspoon of vinegar to the water (this will help contain egg whites from leaking out if any of the shells crack while cooking). Also add a pinch of salt to the water. When the water boils, cover the pot and remove it from the heat. Let sit covered for 12-15 minutes. Drain hot water from pan and run cold water over the eggs. (At this point if you crack the egg shells while the eggs are cooling, it will make it easier to peel the shells.) Let sit in the cool water a few minutes, changing the water if necessary to keep it cool.

Second, peel the eggs. Using a sharp knife, slice each egg in half, lengthwise. Gently remove the yolk halves and place in a small mixing bowl. Arrange the egg white halves on a serving platter. (Nanie had five different deviled egg platters!)

Then, using a fork, mash up the yolks and add the hot mustard, real mayonnaise, onion, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Spoon egg yolk mixture into the egg white halves. Sprinkle the top of each egg lightly with paprika.

This makes two dozen deviled eggs.

I am off for the day to grocery shop. We are out of food after Thanksgiving!

Lauren
6 December 208