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Blueberry Pretzel Dessert

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Hopefully many of you have found LeAnn Morgan and her great videos. They have been such a highlight during these past 4 months. She is such a gifted comedian and safe for the whole family to listen to. In several of her videos she has shared several jello salads that sound so “yummy” (as per LeAnn. The other day she mentioned that she had used a can of the Oregon blueberries which are packed in light syrup, which she added to Cool Whip and I think crushed pineapple. Well, I ran to the store and found this can of blueberries, buy by the time I got home, I started to think about the Strawberry Pretzel salad (aka best dessert on the planet). So when I walked in the kitchen to put away the items I had just bought, I already had it in my mind to make the strawberry pretzel salad, substituting the blueberries for the topping. So this is what I did. I made the base just like you make for the strawberry salad, but then for the topping I did the following:

In a medium saucepan, pour the contents of the Oregon blueberries. Add 1 tables of butter, bring to a boil. While waiting for the blueberries and juice to boil, mix 2 full teas of cornstarch with 1/4 cup of water. Stir until mixed. Then add the cornstarch mixture to the boiling blueberries. Remove from heat and stir until thickened. Cool for about an hour, or until thoroughly cooled to room temperature. Spoon over the cream cheese/Cool Whip/powdered sugar layer. Cover and keep in refrigerator
**if you don’t already have the strawberry pretzel salad recipe here it is:

Chicken · Daily Thoughts · Soups · Uncategorized

Italian Chicken Vegetable Soup

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Isn’t it so much fun to create something that turns out really good from just things you already have in your house? This soup turned out to be a winner. I had half of a chicken breast left over and decided to try something different.

This made 4 bowls of soup.

1/2 large chicken breasts, cut into very small pieces
2 slices of bacon,cut into tiny pieces
Fry the chicken pieces with the bacon pieces (sprinkle garlic powder (about 1/2 teas) and oregano (about 1/4 teas) over the chicken as it cooks) in a small skillet until chicken is browned and almost done and bacon is crisp. Set aside.
In the crockpot, add the following:
1/2 chopped onion
2 stalks celery, chopped in small pieces (I like to use the inside of the celery stalk which has the leafy pieces as they add so much flavor)
2 carrots, sliced
1 ear of fresh corn, sliced off the cob
2 cups chopped fresh spinach
2 small russet potatoes, cut into small cubes
1 zucchini or mexican squash (I had mexican squash so I used that. Also, I cut out the very inside of the squash, as I like the outer portion with the skin as it doesn’t get squishy like the meat of the squash does when cooked for long periods of time)
1 (14.5 oz) can of diced tomatoes with oregano and garlic (if you can’t find this, buy either just plain diced tomatoes or italian flavored diced tomatoes)
1 can of chicken broth
1 can of water
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 envelope of McCormick Italian Spaghetti seasoning packet
If this is not enough liquid to cover the ingredients, add either another can of chicken broth or water until all ingredients are covered and there is plenty of juice

Add all ingredients to crockpot and then pour the meat mixture over the top. Stir and set temperature to low and about 6 hours, Check the veggies after about 4 hours and if still need to cook, I changed the setting to high for the last couple of hours. The soup was delicious. Served it with grilled french bread made with butter and garlic.

Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Covid 19 Virus Picnics

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Yes, it has been awhile since I have posted to the blog. And you would think that this is when I had so much time to blog, plus all the cooking I have done these past 3 months of being quarantined. But I did use this time to work on the new book which I hope will be out in the Fall. It will be full of dessert recipes and stories from ladies who have gone through some difficult journey’s in their lives.

But, as we have lived through this pandemic of this most awful virus, I can now look back and see some things I have learned. Both Randy and I are pretty positive people. We just seem (me even a little more than him, so sometimes I have to remind him to not get negative. Actually I did have to do that quite a bit these last 3 months when he was forced to work form home and had to be around me 24/7, but I won’t go there right now). But when this all started and we were being told to stay home and restaurants began to close, except for curbside pick-up, we choose to look at it through rose colored glasses (and a mask, of course). I remember the first time in March when we decided it was safe to go pick up Chick Fila. So we hopped in the car, being sure we had our masks in the car and headed out to Chick Fila out in Plano. Because there were several more thousand that had the virus in Dallas County, we decided to only frequent businesses out of Dallas County for a while. So on our way out to Plano to pick up lunch, we had a great little conversation which went something like this,
“well, this could be fun. Remember when we first married and I would come to your office and pick you up and I would have a picnic all packed with sandwiches, chips, homemade cookies or brownies and ice tea and we would go sit outside in Thanksgiving Square and just dream about our lives together? Well, let’s do that again, only with Chick Fila, because I’m so very tired of cooking.” So we get to Chick Fila and order. Now because of Randy’s Parkinson’s, his speech is a little hard to understand sometimes, especially when trying to order over the speakers at drive thru’s. So after the 3rd attempt to give our order to the sweet young lady, Randy just looks at me and says, “will you tell her what we want?” So after I try to yell our order from the passenger side of the car and she still can’t hear me, I end up climbing over the console, trying to fit between the steering wheel and Randy’s stomach with my head hanging out the window, yelling our order. It is times like these that I am so grateful that AFV are not anywhere around, because I know we would win the money for the most hilarious video, but would never be able to show our faces in public again.
We get our order, pull over in the parking lot and begin our picnic. As we dine and talk, we begin to think of different places we would like to go to for our Virus Picnics. Since one of our son’s got food poisoning after eating at Sonic, we have decided not to get food there anymore, so that is not an option anymore. Costco wasn’t open for hot dogs, so we figured out quickly that our main picnic joints would be Wing Stop, Chick Fila, Caines Chicken, In & Out and of course, my favorite, Whataburger. So with stars in our eyes, we began to plan having one of our picnics once a week until the pandemic passes and we are once again allowed to eat inside restaurants.

Well, lets fast forward a few weeks of these precious planned picnics. They aren’t so fun anymore. We did finally learn to let me drive when we would be ordering via the loud speaker. Didn’t take us more than 3 times of me leaning over him to learn that one. But we did learn that the fish and chips places just didn’t work for us for picnics. I had dropped a piece of fish between the seats and forgot about it by the time we drove home. So after a couple of days sitting with windows rolled up, well, you can imagine the cats that were circling our car. Mustard is a hard condiment to get out of car carpet. Catchup packets fall easily between the seats and are very hard to find. French fries dry and get pretty hard so they are easy to vacuum out.
Pizza made a pretty good picnic. We just placed the cardboard box on the dashboard, and the sun kept it pretty warm for us and we were able to get our shirts to the dry cleaners quickly so they got the pizza sauce out very well.

So, lessons learned during this pandemic is this:
Should the need arise again for us to not be able to to into restaurants, learn which ones have the best foods to eat in the car.
Have dry cleaners as one of your fav GPS locations
Vacuum your car out every few days to pick up the pieces of fish, french fries, small bits of hamburgers which fell from your mouth as you were trying to talk on the phone as you ate. We did learn after one attempt at having Rosa’s Mexican food for a picnic that it works better to pick it up and bring home, because tacos are not the easiest thing to eat in a car. Shredded Lettuce is not your friend in a car, nor is salsa. But a positive is that we have so many broken chips on the floor of our car that we just go and sit in the car barefoot. They make great exfoliates.

#Haveabutterfulday

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The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

Chocolate Castles2 Comments

Today our grandson, Sevy came over to help me do a video of making chocolate cookies and putting the video on my YouTube Channel, Sassy Southern. We have tried through many years, different recipes and keep coming back to this one. I have changed a couple of things in this recipe that is on the back package of the Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chips. And what better snack sitting watching a movie and a glass of milk or tea, than a soft and yummy chocolate cookie.
Be sure to check out video on Sassy Southern Trudy K Cox

1 stick (8 tables)
unsalted butter, room temperature (be sure it is not too soft, as it will affect the texture of the cookie
1/2 cup shortening (Crisco)
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 teas vanilla
2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 teas baking sode
1/2 teas salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Cream butter with shortening. Add both sugars and vanilla to the creamed mixture and beat well. Add eggs and mix in until well combined.

Stir the baking soda and alt into the flour. Pour flour mixture into the creamed mixture.
When this is well mixed add 2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips. If desired, stir in 1 cup finely chopped pecans.

Drop by cookie scoop onto parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for about 9-10 minutes. Remove from sheet onto paper towels which you have laid out on counter. Allow to cool and keep in covered cookie jar or place in plastic bags and place in freezer to keep until needed.

Breads · Breakfast · Cakes · Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Blueberry Streusel Skillet Breakfast Cake

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My sister-in-law sent this to me yesterday after texting me and telling me that she had made it and it was simply wonderful. She says the streusel just makes it and the flavor is just so good. She even liked it better than one of the lemon pound cakes we make often. So here it is. Hope you enjoy it as much as she did. Will be making as soon as I get to the store for more butter. I went through about 5 lbs of it this week.

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9″ cast iron skillet with cooking spray.

In a small bowl, whisk 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar, 1/4 cup flour and a pinch of kosher salt. Add 3 tables melted unsalted butter and stir until crumbly with some large pieces still intact.

In another medium bowl, whisk 2 cups all purpose flour, 1 1/2 teas baking powder and 1 teas salt. In a large bowl (yes, I know, the dishwasher will be full after making this, but she tells me it is worth all the dirty bowls.), beat 1/2 cup (8 tables) unsalted butter, which should be at room temperature for 1 min or until smooth. Add 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar; beat 2 minutes or until fluffy. Stop to scrape sides down on bowl and beat in 2 large eggs. (remember eggs should always be at room temp to get the full volume they need to be), 1 large egg yolk and 1 tablespoon vanilla. In 2 additions, beat in 1/2 cup whole milk or buttermilk and flour mixture, alternating between each. Gently fold in 2 tables lemon zest, 1 tables lemon juice and 2 1/2 cups fresh blueberries (or frozen, tossed with 2 tables flour). Scrape mixture into prepared skillet. Sprinkle top with the brown sugar mixture.
Bake about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and top is light golden brown.
Transfer the skillet to a wire rack; cool for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl (yes another bowl), combine 1 cup powdered sugar with 2 tables lemon juice; stir until smooth. Drizzle over cake. Serve warm or at room temperature.

(Janece did not use the lemon or the glaze. She said the streusel topping was all the cake needed. And with the tables of vanilla, she omitted the lemon zest and juice.)

Chocolate · Daily Thoughts · Desserts · Uncategorized

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffle Bars

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One of the things I have missed most about curbside grocery pick up is just the great time of strolling the baking aisle and seeing any new products on the shelf. Monday when I braved the “social distancing while wearing a mask” time of going inside the store, I had a ball. When I saw this box, I knew it was mine.

Oh the things I can now make, even though I can’t fit into any of the clothes I have now, the recipes just came flooding in. German Chocolate Fudge pie, Chocolate Almond Ice Box pie. Peanut butter pie with chocolate crust. And the beat (list) goes on. When I turned over the box to look at the recipes on the back, this recipe jumped out to me. So here it is folks. Be the first to share this with anyone who you like (or maybe those who you don’t like but am trying so hard to do so). This sounds like a treat that the whole family will enjoy. And to think, you saw it here first.

Crust:
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tables granulated sugar
2 cups Keebler Chocolate graham cracker crumbs
1 egg white

Filling:
2 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 teas milk or whipping cream

Topping:
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup whipping cream

1. Line an 8x8x2 inch baking pan with foil, allowing excess foil to hang over sides.
2. For crust, in medium bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup melted butter, 1/4 cup peanut butter and sugar. Stir in Keebler Chocolate Graham Cracker Crumbs and egg white. Firmly press onto bottom of prepared pan. Bake in preheated 375 oven for 10-13 minutes or until dry. Cool Completely.
3. For filling, in a large mixing bowl, combine the powdered sugar, 2/3 cup peanut butter and 1/2 cup softened butter. Beat on medium to high speed of electric mixer until fluffy. Beat in milk, 1 teas at a time, until light and fluffy. Spoon in dollops over crust. Evenly spread over crust.
4. For topping, in small microwave safe bowl, combine chocolate chips and cream. Microwave uncovered for 30 to 60 seconds, or until smooth. Stirring thoroughly every 20 seconds. Let stand for 10 minutes after stirring to be sure all chips are melted and mixture is smooth.
5. Spread over filling and the cover and place in fridge at least 1 hour or until firm. Use foil ends to remove from pan. Cut into squares and keep covered in the refrigerator.

Chicken · Daily Thoughts · Meats · Uncategorized

Oldies, But Goodies

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And no, I’m not talking about Randy and I. I am talking about some of the old recipes that seem to be floating around on FB and on several web pages and blogs. In fact, this past Sunday, we were at our kids house in McKinney for dinner. They had told us that they were going to make us Fehttuchini Alfredo with Chicken. It was a recipe which they have made several times from Joanna Gaines new cookbook and it was really good. But in conversation with our sweet DIL, she and I were talking about some of the recipes which seem to be appearing that use good Ole Campbells Cream Soups. We began to talk about the chicken spaghetti recipe that I posted a couple of weeks ago and we agreed that some of the old tried and true recipes are still some of the best comfort foods. Today, I found myself wanting some spaghetti, (I think I must be half Italian and half Mexican because I think I could live on Mexican and Italian food, oh, but throw in a hamburger once a week, oh and chicken fried steak and, roast once in a while. Maybe I’m a mixture, kinda like a mutt, I guess. Anyway, back to the oldies and goodies. When you start to think about the “good old days” of pot lucks and church dinners and Sunday dinners at grandmas house, I bet your mind conjures up some of the foods like, lime jello salad, or the orange jello salad with mandarin oranges. Or maybe your mind goes to chicken and dumplings made with cream of chicken soup, or beef stroganoff and noodles, made with cream of mushroom. Or remember pot roast with a can of french onion soup and cream of mushroom? Of course, could we really have Christmas and Thanksgiving without the green bean casserole that uses Cream of Mushroom soup? And what about porcupine meatballs made in Campbells Tomato Soup. All this to say, that during this quarantine, when trying to order some of these soups, they have been hard to come by. Several weeks went by before I actually was able to acquire cream of celery and tomato soup. But now…..my pantry is stocked with every Campbells cream of EVERYTHING! So watch out family! Any recipe which you might receive these next couple of weeks will probably have one or more of the cream soups in them. To get things started, I thought I would post this recipe which uses a can of cream of mushroom soup. The filling is great used with crepes or poured over noodles or mashed potatoes.

1 pound of fresh mushrooms, cleaned
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup frozen chopped onions, or fresh onions, diced small
1 (10 3/4 oz) can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk or cream
2 cups chicken, cooked and diced
1 cup cooked frozen peas or green beans, drained
1/2 teas garlic powder or 1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teas each, seasoned salt and pepper

Sauce mushrooms and onions in butter until tender. Sprinkle seasoned salt, pepper and garlic into this mixture. Set aside.

Combine soup, sour cream, milk, chicken and peas or green beans into a crockpot which you have sprayed with Pam. Cook on low for 2 hours, stirring often. Combine the mushrooms and onions during the last hour of cooking. Stir well and use as filing on crepes, or pour over mashed potatoes or cooked noodles.

Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Heavy Hoarder

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My name is Trudy Cox and I’m a Hoarder! I never realized it until now, but the time has come to accept the fact. This week, as I looked back upon it, I realized that maybe I’m not one of those “pushy” people at the store throwing in 20 packages of toilet paper, but just a little more sophisticated one. Feeling that I was better than some of the folks out there that are on TV as the camera shows them loading enough TP to take care of the entire state of Iowa, into the back of their car, I opened my freezer door. Once I had picked up the 5 packages of frozen chicken, the 3 huge bags of frozen blueberries and 5 lbs of ground round off the floor when I opened the freezer door, it dawned on me that I truly was a hoarder. In the past few weeks, as news covered the closing of several meat plants and showed rotten tomatoes laying in the fields, it drove me to thinking, “oh no, that is this week, what will be disappearing next week from the stores?” So quietly hiding behind my cute little mask that a friend made for me, I was running the TP grabbers down in the aisle, on my way to the meat department. Luckily for me, there were several packages of pork roast left, plenty of hamburger meat (but didn’t want to take any changes they might be gone next week), so began throwing them in my basket. Oh, and before it is all gone, I should load up on bacon. Because, who can actually go through a pandemic without bacon? Heading over to the frozen food aisle, I remembered that stores everywhere were out of active yeast, so wouldn’t the frozen bread be next to disappear? So into my basket went Rhoads frozen rolls, Sister Schubert rolls and oh yes, there is the Rhoads frozen Cinnamon rolls I have been wanting to buy. So happy they had a couple of bags left. I grabbed those as well. Blueberries, we cannot, we CANNOT survive without frozen blueberries for our health shakes that start off most of our days before moving on to cookies and pies throughout the day. So in went two huge bags of frozen blueberries. But wait, chicken, the last grocery order I had picked up curbside was out of chicken. Oh please Lord, let there be packages of chicken left. Turning the cart around and waddling as fast as these two little cellulite legs would carry me, I pushed my way past the folks hoarding up all the dried pasta. Oh please, people, like there is going to be a shortage of pasta! Get out of my way, because chicken will be the next meat to disappear. Whew, getting there just in time to the chicken section, only to see 30 or more packages of chicken breasts and thighs, I didn’t want to take any changes of not being able to find any on my next store run, so throwing in several packages of chicken into the basket, I made my way up to checkout. Feeling pretty smug and proud of myself for being “smart” and buying necessary items, I proceeded to make conversation with the cashier, “can you believe some of these folks that think there is never going to be another roll of TP left in the world and think they have to hoard it everytime they see it? Oh, can you let me run back for something I forgot? I’ll be right back.” She frowned at me and told me to hurry up. I returned with an armful of canned goods and Jiffy Corn bread mix, because, well, you never know when we might not loose power, due to spring storms and at least we could open up a can of Bush’s baked beans and if we do indeed run out of bread, I can still make corn muffins, (when the power returns). So feeling so happy that I am returning home prepared for the next month, I drive home knowing Randy will be so proud of his industrious and smart wife.

As Randy comes to the car to help me carry in the necessary items to the house, he asks me where in the world are you going to keep all these frozen foods. As I lug up the stairs with sacks of frozen fruit, chicken, pork roasts, bacon, ground round, I assure him that I will just reorganize the freezer and it will fit perfectly.

It didn’t. Having to use much of the fresh veggies I had bought the previous week, I needed to make room for the new stash. This week, well, this week, I have made, a pork roast, spaghetti, vegetable lasagna, shredded chicken sandwiches, stuffed zucchini with beef and rice. A lemon pie, carrot cupcakes,ooey gooey butter cake, chocolate chip cookies, baked beans, potato salad (twice because the potato stash I had bought were getting a little soft), tacos, chicken spaghetti, King Ranch casserole, brownies and peanut butter cookies. And we ate out one night. Yes, we actually ate in a restaurant, which we learned is really hard to do with our masks on. Takes a little more time when you have to pull it up off your mouth with every bite, but we did it and the stuffed chile rellanos were wonderful.
As we near the end of this trying time and look back at what we have learned, and hopefully never have to do again are several things:
1. Never buy more than your fridge or freezer holds.
2. Walking back and forth to the kitchen does not burn enough calories to allow me to eat as many cookies as I bake and eat in a single day.
3. This one is very important, ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT when you take your computer into the bathroom when you are on ZOOM, people can hear and see you.
4. Thinking that because you have plenty of food to share with others, they are just going to throw it away, because they don’t trust that you used a bleach rag to wipe off the groceries you purchased before putting them away in your pantry or fridge.
5. Eventaully, one day, we will be able to get out again and get to wear something besides sweat pants. And stores have not been open to buy bigger sizes. SO…….order a pair of elastic waisted pants now, before someone hoards up the bigger sizes. Gotta close and shop on-line before the cute ones are all gone.

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Happy Cinco De Mayo

Chocolate Castles1 Comment

Here in Texas, there have always been so many Mexican restaurants celebrating this holiday. As I just looked at the title,I had never noticed the influence of Mayonnaise had on this great holiday. This week I saw this on FB and thought it was so cute, I wanted to post it for all to see.

“Most people don’t know that back in 1912, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after it’s stop in NY. This would have been the largest single shipment of mayo ever delivered in Mexico.
But as you know, the great ship did not make it to NY. The ship hit an iceberg and sank. The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayo, and were eagerly awaiting it’s delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great that they declared a National Day of Mourning.
The Natl Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known of course as….Sinko De Mayo!”

Happy Taco Tuesday everyone! We actually ate out for the first time on Sunday night and went of course to a Mexican restaurant. We were craving stuffed chile rellanos and they were absolutely wonderful. There were only 3 couples in the restaurant so we had all the time to sit there and enjoy being out of the house. Because we wore our mask while walking in, we were seated and Randy ask our waiter what the trick was to eating wearing the mask. We found it to be a little trickier than we thought, eating while wearing it, but we managed to down an entire basket of chips and hot sauce. The mask was thrown in the wash as soon as we got home. It was only after we paid that the cashier told us that it was only the employees that had to wear the mask. We think that since we mastered that trick that it will now be our new diet plan. Eat while wearing our mask. I’ll let you know how it goes. Happy Sinko De Mayo!!!!!

Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Won’t You Be My Neighbor

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Here we are in week 7 of quarantine in 2020. So many of us are cooking and baking things we had never attempted before. But because we have time on our hands, we are trying new things.
Over the weekend, we were driving around looking at houses. We love to do. We have moved so many times due to work or just because packing and unpacking is a great way to burn calories, we have always just loved going to open houses and driving through different neighborhoods. Since the stores are not yet open, looking at houses, gets us out of this place and gets us out in the sunshine. As we drove through old neighborhoods where we use to live and some of where we might be interested when this lease is up, we noticed something spectacular.
In every neighborhood we drove, people were sitting out side in lawn chairs visiting with either family or neighbors. It was a sight to behold. It made me almost tear up. That was one thing I loved about living in CA. People sat out and talked to you as you would walk by. I have missed that so much. That is one thing that I hope doesn’t revert back to “normal”. It would be so great if we realize how much we have enjoyed meeting the neighbors and visiting with others on our streets. Even our kids yesterday when we drove to drop off cookies, admitted that they had enjoyed being outside more and had actually made friends with neighbors they had never met. That just thrills my soul. After all, how can we be a light to others when we don’t take the time to meet them? How can we show the Hope that is ours, when all we do is wave to people when we go to pick up our mail? Well, this post began as a post to give a recipe that is from my Italian neighbor back in the 70’s, but it has become a post of, like Gomer Pyle would say, “just flat neighborly” of ya!
I remember back in the 70’s, my next door friend, Dene and I would sit outside in chairs and our kids would go between her house and ours and run and play until we each had to go in to make dinner. In fact, because her husband owned a barbecue restaurant, she would sometimes call her hubby and tell him to bring enough barbecue for them and for us because we had stayed outside a little long to let the kids play and was too late to go make something for dinner. That was always a treat. The Italian neighbor lived on the other side of Dene and when she would come home from work, she would walk over, and visit with us. It was she (Cam) who taught me so much about cooking and to this day, any time I make spaghetti and meatballs or Chocolate Chip Pound cake, or Pecan Pie (her recipe called for a tablespoon of vinegar, which I had never seen in a pecan pie recipe before), I think of Cam and the friendship that lasted for so many years. It was such a blessing to grow up in a time when neighbors knew each other. Of course, there were always some “weird” or grouchy ones, but of course, that always gave us something to talk about. But our kids were so so blessed to have grown up playing ball in the front yard, and riding their hot wheels up and down the sidewalks. Knowing that when it was dark, or your mom yelled out the door, it was time to come home. They were great growing up years. This last 7 weeks, may we realize that maybe our kids and grandkids need those kinds of days. In fact, we, as adults, need these types of days. When we learn that “just call on me brother” to “lean on me, when you’re not strong, and I’ll help you carry on”. Oh may that not be forgotten in these days of learning just what we are made of and for.

It is my prayer that we don’t go back to the old “drive in your garage, close the door and go inside way of life” Let’s continue to “love thy neighbor as thyself” and care for each other. May we never forget after life gets busy,that this time has shown us just how lovely and loving our neighbors can be. We do need each other. We were not meant to live a life of solitude. Begin now to commit to staying connected to the people you have met during this time of difficulty.