Category: Daily Thoughts

Daily Thoughts

Shopping With Frosty

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It’s here, that time of year when Randy and I change our names to Frosty and Noel. We change our phone voice mails to “hi you have reached Frosty (or Noel, depending on whose phone they call). It makes our kids call us so they can let their friends listen to how weird their parents are. But at this time in life, we are just glad thy call, for whatever reason. It just takes some ingenuity!

A few days ago, I told Frosty that we had to get the house decorated for Christmas since we would be gone for most of November and I wanted to be able to walk In the house after we returned the end of November and have everything done So off we go to get new lights for the trees and end up buying a few groceries while we were in Wall Mart. Now, I’m not saying that I could do any better than our little check out lady who could not have been a day under 80 but I just had to share this story.

We walk up to check out and there is a beautiful young mom almost finishing checking out in front of us. She has a few items left on the conveyer belt so I put the bar between her items and mine and begin to unload our basket. Frosty is so proud of himself for remembering to bring our reusable bags that he pushes me out of the way so he could be sure Granny Checkout would see that we have our own bags. I told him he was not as concerned about the bags as he was about getting to stand beside Ms Young Tennis Player with short tennis skirt on. Ms Tennis Player pays for her groceries and notices that Granny had put Frosty’s bologna on her bill and has placed it in her bag. So she backs up and shows Granny Checker that she needs to take the bologna off her ticket and put it on ours. After 5 minutes, we have this cleared up and Granny looks in Tennis player’s basket and ask “did I charge you for that water?” Tennis Player responds with, “well I have no idea if you did or not, so after looking at her receipt, she finds out that she had not paid for the water, so back she comes so Granny can scan the case of water. Granny proceeds to put “our” bologna in a bag and tries to hand her our bologna AGAIN! TP tells her, “that is not my bologna and I don’t want to pay for it.” I told her that with her figure, she would wear it much better than we would, but she just glared at me and said a few lovely Southern Belle words as she turns and struts out. All this time Frosty has been placing our reusable bags up over where the plastic bags hang and we tell Granny that we want our groceries in our bags. So what does she  do but begin to put our groceries in the Wall Mart plastic bags and then put those inside our bags. We had to tell that that is not how it works. So I began to bag our groceries in our bags which totally confused her.

We finally paid for our lights and bologna only to get home to hear that the WHO just declared meats like bologna as dangerous as cigarettes. After all we had gone through getting our bologna today, we weren’t about to take it back. We will just take our chances with our HMO meat and hopefully by the time we have to go back to Wall Mart, Granny Checker will have retired herself. At least Frosty feels really good about his possibilities of being hired should we just replace our bologna with cigarettes and need extra money to pay for them.

Daily Thoughts

Whistle While You Work

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This is probably one of the saddest days of my life. After going to the Texas State Fair yesterday, which happened to be “Seniors Get in Free Day”, it just went downhill from there. As we walked in the gates of the Fair, some young whipper snapper handed both Randy and I a “get in free” ticket, without even asking if we were seniors! How dare he! How does he know that maybe I just wasn’t able to get in all my beauty rest, which would account for the bags under my eyes? Maybe, just maybe, I am prematurely gray and maybe, I might still be carrying some of the baby fat that accumulated while pregnant. Just because we walked in with a camera around our necks, wearing our matching Hawaiian shirts, does not mean that we should automatically be considered “seniors”. I could just not leave this alone. After walking around for 3 hours at the fair in 96 degree weather, both of us were totally worn out. But if we left now, our kids and friends would all think, “poor things, they are getting old, they just couldn’t hack the heat and all the walking, so they didn’t even stay long enough to justify the $15 parking” So I made Randy find us a seat in a shady area and told him that we were going to sit there for a couple of hours and not give our kids the satisfaction that they were right when they all told us that we needed to wait for it to cool down and then possibly think about renting one of those little scooters. They would never know that we sat the entire last 2 hours we were there. Besides, we hadn’t had a chance to people watch lately, and my, what our eyes beheld. More body piercings, tattoos and fat ladies wearing patterned leggings that one should have to see in a 5 hour period. But we did acknowledge on the way home that maybe, we have finally grown up a little and find other things a little more fun now, rather than walking around the State Fair, eating food that raises our cholesterol count to a number that is higher than our bank account savings; things like sitting in an air conditioned movie theatre eating popcorn. Or maybe sitting in our lazy boy recliners watching Blacklist. After all, our feet don’t hurt at all after those activities.

After returning home, I remembered that I had a doctor appointment this morning and it was in a building that is located right behind our house. This morning I told Randy that I will see if my feet still work after yesterdays excursion and will walk to the Doctor’s office. After he picked himself off the floor, he handed me the insurance cards and said, “go for it”. I did. Feeling pretty spiffy and good about myself walking instead of driving, I looked over to the building being constructed that I would have to walk by and thought to myself, “oh this is good, I know what happens when ladies walk by construction workers, and this will be so good for my ego.” So I put a spring in my step and get my cell phone out to help me look cool and start walking past when it happened.

Nothing! Not one whistle. So thinking that maybe they were just busy, I slowed down just to be sure they saw me, but nothing. Not one whistle. As I walk through the door of the dermatologist, I think  to myself that he will have a positive word telling me that my skin looks pretty good for 65, causing my head to swell, just a bit. But the only thing the little 15 year old Dr said, was, “you know at your age, you really should be checked every year”

I hand the kindergartner receptionist  my Medicare Care and walk out. OK, I bet the construction workers have had their coffee break by now and are really awake, so I walk by expecting some whistles. All I can say is they are the most dedicated brick layers I have ever seen. Not one head turned, I thought surely allowing my music on my cell phone would draw a little attention, but I guess guys aren’t into Barry Manilow. I would have settled for one of them whistling a song,

Note to self, stay away from State Fairs, Dermatologist and construction sites, they are not good for my self-confidence!

Think I will confine my activities to dark movie theatres, where it’s too dark to see the wrinkles and bags under the eyes and funerals, where if you are alive, you are looking good!

So

Daily Thoughts

Decorating With Shams

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Attended a ladies luncheon today which was just like being in a tea room! The hosts’ home was decorated to the hilt with candles which she had painted in Mod Podge and then rolled in cinnamon or ground coffee beans. She had found quilted pillow shams which she used as table runners. When the ladies were going around admiring all the Fall décor, we began to ask her about the table runners which held such beautiful Fall decorations. Her response was such a great idea to keep in mind. When she goes to Home Goods, Dillards or other stores which carry linens, she goes to the clearance aisle. When they have shams which don’t have a pair, they are always marked down really low and she buys them to use as table decorations. What a great idea. Below are pictures of how she used them and what a awesome way to display seasonal decorations.

The food was amazing and the sweet time of fellowship with the 9 ladies gave us all a wonderful memory to take with us before a most busy time of year begins. Thank you Ms Perfect Host and thanks for so many great decorating ideas!2015-10-13 12.58.182015-10-13 12.59.36

Daily Thoughts

A Southern Sunday Afternoon in Wylie, TX

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This morning after church we decided to go on an adventure. A friend of ours has just bought a house in Wylie and had told us that we needed to go explore the historic downtown area and eat at one of their restaurants. So that is exactly what we did. We came home, changed clothes, put on flip flops and headed to Wylie, Texas. What a charming little town it is. We decided to stop in at the Ballard Street Café. Oh my goodness, what a place.  I have to tell you that, the chicken fried gravy with mashed potatoes, green beans, vegetable beef soup was well, hum…how do I say this, “it put Babe’s Restaurant to shame.” Seriously, it was just awesome. Their biscuits are Angel biscuits, made with yeast and as light as a biscuit could be. They even had peach jam and sweet tea to die for.

The minute we walked in the door, everyone began to stare at us, as we were about the only ones in there that didn’t know everyone, but the waitress called us honey and we immediately felt at home. She brought us sweet tea and checked on us as if we had been at a 5 star restaurant. Peter Pumpkin ordered eggs, gravy and chicken fried steak with biscuits. He was in heaven. We have found out place. As we sat outside on the bench waiting to hear our name called to be seated, the wind was gently blowing and the shade made us feel that we were in Mayberry! There are two other restaurants there that we are now excited about going back and trying, an Italian one and one with a huge porch with a swing to wait until you can get a table. That one is called, A Taste of Home! What a great little community. It was so great to see people sitting around tables, just coming in from church. We could tell, because they had their ironed blue jeans and fancy boots on. No one was texting or on their phones. Since I wanted to fit in, I only pulled my phone out once to check us in on Facebook! Didn’t have the nerve to take a picture of my chicken fried steak, would have made me look like an outsider. So we decided to just take the memory with us and plan on our next visit out when we won’t eat so much that we can’t order a piece of their homemade (made fresh daily) pies! Was a lovely afternoon and have a great new place to take friends or family coming in for a Texas visit. We have both decided that when we go back, we will go in boots, not flip flops, allowing us to look a little more like “town folk”!

A great little Sunday afternoon adventure!

Daily Thoughts

Redwoods & Community

Chocolate Castles5 Comments

October 1st…such a glorious morning. What a perfect day to go out and walk, with the temperature at 65, there was truly no reason that I should not be out walking and enjoying this beautiful Fall morning. The tennis shoes were laced and the earphones were plugged in and out I went.  Having downloaded some sermons, I began to listen to Rick Warren. He was talking about how our life can be more meaningful if we live with a sense of serving where God has placed us. He told about the giant redwood trees in Northern California. They are truly a sight to behold, as they stretch into the heavens, sometimes 400 to 500 feet tall.  He explained that they have hardly any root system and to survive they are always grown in clusters, so their roots intertwine, thus giving each support from the others. They could never survive alone, because of their root system, but together, they grow strong and can stand the storms and wind that would otherwise break them.

Just like in our lives, we are not meant to live alone or feel that we don’t need anyone. We are made to be a part of others,  to look out for each other, “thinking as other’s more important than ourselves.”

He explained that his church had just finished 40 days of challenge of reaching out and serving the community. It convicted my heart that just because we have more time on our hands than ever before, we didn’t just need to be living for ourselves. Our kids are grown, I’m retired and we have no excuse for not seeking out ways to share the gifts and abilities that God has blessed us. So I feel convicted to challenge myself for the next 40 days to truly ask the Lord each morning, “please put someone in my path today that needs either a meal, a phone call, maybe a handwritten note, a visit to a sick friend.”

October 1st…such a glorious morning. A day to begin to reach out to others!

P.S. Before I finished this posting, my phone beeped with a text from a friend who is needing meals brought to their home, due to an accident. Day 1 Challenge…taking a meal!

Anyone care to accept this 40 day challenge to see how the Lord might be wanting to use you?

Daily Thoughts

Chocolate Castles on Home Screen

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On Sunday I realized that some friends of mine didn’t know that they could add ChocolateCastles to their home screens. That way, all you have to do is click on the Icon and the blog appears. So for those of us who are Golden Girls, who aren’t real computer savy, it is very easy. This works on Iphones. (it works on Androids also, but to tell you the truth, I don’t remember how the cute little high school  looking girl at AT&T did it)

There are only 2 steps to having it on your home screen.

  1. Type in Chocolate Castles in your search bar. When you have choices of Chocolate Castles to choose from, open the one which shows it is a blog. The Headline will say, “ChocolateCastles/Recipes, Life & Laughs & Hospitality Hints chocolatecastles.com…..click on that.
  2. Once you have opened it, look at the bottom of your phone and you should see a box with an arrow pointing up. Click on that and it gives you several choices, one of those being “add to home screen”. Click on that and it will download to your home screen.
  3. Any time you need to go to the blog, just touch the Chocolate castles icon and it will take you then directly to Chocolate Castles. Also there is a search bar on the right side of the blog page where you can type in the name of a recipe to find it in the blog, no matter when it was posted.

Hope this helps.  Thanks to all of you who are following the blog. It is such an encouragement to continue writing and posting!

Daily Thoughts

A New Thought

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“Give me a new idea, I said,

While thinking on a sleepless bed;

A new idea that’ll bring to earth

A balm for souls of priceless worth;

That will give men thoughts of things above,

And teach them how to serve and love.

That will banish every selfish thought,

And rid men of the sins they’ve fought.

I saw Him in the morning light,

He made the day shine clear and bright;

I saw Him in the noontide hour

And gained from him refreshing showers.

At evening when worn and sad,

He gave me help, and made me glad.

At midnight, when on tossing bed

My weary soul to sleep He led.

Twas new to me, yet old to some,

This thought that to me has become.

A revelation of the way

We all should live throughout the day;

For as each day unfolds it’s light,

We will walk by faith and not by sight.

Life will, indeed, a blessing bring,

If we see God In Everything.’

*Taken from a poem from A.E. Finn from Streams in the Desert

Daily Thoughts

Silver Sneakers & Seniors

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For the past few months, I have begun to feel guilty that some extra pounds have found their way onto my person. (love that term, makes it sound not so personal, like it is happening to someone else)

Some of our kids are real exercise junkies and are always making fun of me for keeping almost as much butter, cream cheese and whipping cream in stock as Costco. As I tried to zip up my blue jeans a few days ago, I decided that maybe I should check into an exercise class that would help me get some of the new ounces that had landed on my rear. As I researched my possibilities, some friends back in California told me that I should check into this Silver Sneakers class that is available in most gyms, and it is “FREE”. Well, hot dog, my kind of exercise. It is suppose to be low impact and if it’s free, I will be able to use my money on rewarding myself for going to exercise with a Baskin-Robbins chocolate shake. So I talked Randy into going with me to Kohls to buy a cute little exercise outfit. It is my theory that if I can’t do something well, if I look cute, maybe people won’t notice that I don’t have dance talent nor am I able to keep up with instructors that lead the class in fancy footwork. That is one reason I don’t go to gyms in the first place, well, that and I don’t like to sweat. So we find the perfect outfit in pink and black and it covers my behind. Perfect. Yesterday, I am so nervous that I feel like I’m goin on a first date. I have visions of walking into a room with 30 men and women all lined up, staring at the new person (me) walking in and making me get on the front row as punishment for being the new kid on the block. I even go on FB the night before, asking fiends about what I should do: do I wear makeup and if so, how much? Do I leave my earrings on? Do I forget the eyeliner that I never leave the house without? Do I carry a water bottle so I look like I’m at least trying to be healthy? Even though I cannot remember the year that I last had a glass of water. Oh, yes, I do remember, it was in 2006 when we went to Greece and they didn’t have Dr Pepper. Anyway, I arrive 15 minutes early. I walk into the room where SS is suppose to meet and the teacher is there. So far so good. I ask her if this is a large class and she tells me that sometimes there are 3 or 4, depending on who is in the hospital or not, or has dr appointments scheduled or sometimes just OOT. I quickly realize that “ok, I’m really shouldn’t be here just to socialize.  I might be the only one here and maybe baking cookies for my new friends that I was excited to meet in class wasn’t such a great idea. But that just leaves  more cookies to snack on when I sit at home after class as I talk about all the details of why I’m sore from all the new moves that I learned. So back to the class. The teacher and I begin by placing a chair on a mat so it doesn’t slip. I keep turning around to see if someone else might show up. After 15 min, another lady shows up and waddles over to the mat and chair that the teacher has placed out for her. So now there are two.

We continue sitting in the chair doing some stretching using some 1 lb weights and some straps which have handles on them. The hour passes pretty quickly and I leave, strutting out to my car, proudly calling Randy telling him that I was the best in the class, on my first day. I just didn’t tell him that there were 2 of us and that the other lady had just had 2 hip replacements and just that morning had fallen on her kitchen floor. None of the exercise required us to leave the chair. Why I can do this at home watching Dr Phil. e On the way home, i began to think about my morning and have come to a few conclusions regarding being healthy and the importance of exercise. I get more exercise going back and forth to the fridge than I did in class. The heavy 5 lb sacks of flour and sugar that I lift and empty in my canisters are more of a workout than I got with the 1 lb weights we used.

Stirring my fudge for 15 minutes on the stove uses more arm muscles that I used yesterday. My legs get more use and stretching when I am trying to get the huge canister of chocolate chips off the top shelf in the pantry.

I don’t get sweaty since I have a fan blowing directly on me when I’m using my mixer and I can wear my earrings makeup, eye liner and jewelry, while baking.

So I ask myself, why do I need Silver Sneakers when I have a kitchen that is loaded with exercise equipment that is there any time of the day that I care to use it. I have my phone right there beside me to FaceTime any fiend I might want to talk to without hearing all about hip replacements or rearranging dr’s appointments so they could come to class.

I did however decide to wear my new exercise outfit, while baking. Because it is so tight, it makes m feel like after going to one class, I am almost back at my goal weight. So there you have it. My exercise experience and why baking is the way to go.

PS……So glad I didn’t go buy silver sneakers thinking that that was part of the acceptable outfit. But will be sure to get a silver wig if I ever go back, just to fit in!

Daily Thoughts

Bringing Respect to America

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Just finished watching Donald Trump answer questions from reporters on TV. As I sat here listening, so many thoughts came over me. Hearing him talk of how American can be great again, brings hope to me. But it cannot happen overnight or without change in each and every home.  I have never really been very politically involved, which as a Christian, I should be ashamed. We sit here complaining about how American has become a country without God in our values, schools and communities. This summer I heard our daughter say, “oh, we don’t pay attention to much to who is even running, because it just doesn’t effect us”. I said the same thing for years, as our kids were growing up and feeling that it just didn’t matter too much who was leading our country. It makes me sad that I didn’t teach our children that voting was a privilege and honor. We drove by our church school this morning after the service. As I looked at it, it came to my mind that I had never heard about any church school which had had a shooting incident. Why is that? Do our leaders think about the fact that yes, churches are not perfect, nor or their schools. But as parents, shouldn’t we realize that the Godly values that are taught in Biblical based schools teach not only respect for others, but for the student themselves. Maybe the faith based schools have more accountability, more discipline and require more from the students? That everyone must answer for their decisions?

Can we not see the results of a society which has taken God out of everything?

Why is it that our National leaders have not figured out that as they have tried to make America a country of “a country which has given us so many freedoms and rights” we have actually built a country which has taught a whole generation that there are no consequences for bad decisions. That as they have ‘lead a nation to accept all religions” we have neglected the religion which this country was founded, which taught that we were to respect God and try to live according to His laws? That hard work to better yourself was a blessing, not a curse. That Godly principles gave people a sense of purpose and security of knowing that we were under God’s authority. We didn’t have the chaos or a whole generation which is looking for an “easy life”. Life had meaning…because it looked to God for values and morals. America has lost the respect of the world, is it any wonder? Families have been torn apart by divorce. Children run our homes, not the parents, as we want to be their “friends”. Children have no boundaries and we wonder why they grow up to be adults which feel entitlement.

We have allowed all these “freedom’s”, which have taken our God given rights to pursue Him. It’s sad  that I didn’t speak out and work for what my heart truly believed. That our Nation can be great again. But it will only come, when we, as a nation, get on our knees, acknowledging that we need God. We need Him not only in our everyday lives, but in our schools and in our homes.  Then, and only then will we bring back respect within our Nation and from other countries that use to look at us and know that we were truly “one nation under God”!

On this Labor Day 2020, may we do our part to put God back into our Nation…one family at a time!

Daily Thoughts

Drive Thru Memories

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Last Saturday night, our 11 year old grandson, Sevy came over while his parents went out to eat. Because Peter and Penelope had been digging out Fall decorations all day and I had been climbing up and down the ladder decorating the fall trees that inspire me to bake (like I really need the trees to get me in the mood to bake) anything thing that has apple, pumpkin or cinnamon in it. So as soon as Sevy walks in the door, he wants to know what there is to eat. It is 7:00 p.m. and I had just finished cleaning up the kitchen and was all prepared to go sit down for a long winter’s nap (oh wait, that is not suppose to happen until December). My feel were aching and swollen from all the ladder climbing and going barefoot all day, so when Sevy told me he was hungry, I felt that the best thing to do was just ask him if we could just drive to get something instead of me standing and cooking something for him. He agreed and said that he would love to go to Chick Fila. I grabbed the keys and heard Peter in the background yelling, “since you are going to Chick Fila, would you bring me one of those lemonade cream shakes?” Of course we would be glad to. So out the door Sevy and I go. Just getting to sit down in the car was such a relief. As we were headed to get chicken nuggets, Sevy says, “you know Nana, I forgot I had Chick Fila for lunch, maybe a Whataburger sounds good.” Of course, anything for our little angel. So off we go to Whataburger. For those of you who are not familiar with Whataburger, the drive thru lines around dinner or lunch time tend to be 15 minutes or longer. But it is always worth it. We get up to the order box and Sevy tells them that he wants a double meat whataburger, plain and dry with no bun….the lady at the other end doesn’t understand ordering a Whataburger without a bun, so I just tell her to put it on a bun and we will throw it away. This avoided another 5 minute conversation with the young lady who just couldn’t grasp ordering no bun. So we get Sevy’s order and he munchies down as I drive. Because I felt badly that Randy (Peter) had worked so hard all day undoing Fall boxes in the hot garage and bringing them in for me, I didn’t want to go home without his Lemonade Cream shake. So I told Sevy that we would just drive the couple of miles to Chick Fila for Pops shake. We drive up in the parking lot and the line is about 15 cars long, but I thought, “sevy is happily eatting and drinking his chocolate shake and my feet are throbbing so I’m just going to wait it out in the drive thru line. We inch along and 20 minutes later we are up next to order when I look up at the order board and see all the different kinds of donuts that are available. I said, “Sevy, I didn’t know Chick Fila started selling donuts.” He said, “Nana, they don’t we are in the Krispy Kreme drive thru”

What??? How did I do that? So as soon as the car in front of us pulled up enough for us to get out of line, we haul next door to the Chick Fila drive thru. Again another 15 minute wait, but anything for my little Pumpkin back home who was expecting a cold creamy Lemonade shake.

It was then that memories of taking Sevy’s dad and Jamin and Jodi came rushing back. Times after ball practice when I would go to 3 different drive thrus because they all wanted something different and it was easier to do that than to try to get them to decide on the same thing. DO NOT JUDGE ME, none of them are in jail, they all have jobs and and they all call on Mothers Day!

We get Pops drink and pull out of the parking lot. Sevy sees the Dunkin Donut store and says, “you know what sounds so good right now are the little jelly munchkins” Well, what are grandmothers for except to spend ALL NIGHT SATURDAY NIGHT AT 4 DRIVE THRU’S?  So off we go to Dunkin Donuts to get a bag of Munchkins for the lad. Luckily we were the only car in the drive thru. After all, who buys donuts at 8 pm on Saturday night? I guess we do.

We walk in the door a little over an hour later and hand over the Lemonade Cream Shake. When I ask if Peter was the least bit worried that we had been gone so long, he just looked at me and said, “oh I have learned you! I knew that the chances of you leaving here and going to just one place was pretty slim”. I’m so thankful I came home, goodness knows that if ever I stay gone all night, he will just think I found a 24 hour drive thru that I just couldn’t refuse!

I wonder if there is a Gunniness Record for how many drive thrus one could go through in one night? I know I just broke my record of 3. Thank you Sevy for helping me reach a new goal. I can already see it

Grandmother Reaches for the Stars….Four Drive Thrus in Just One Hour! Way to go Granny!!!!