Celebrating with Annette from the Vandellas!



Larry       Me     Annette       Dan         Becca      Brant



Tonight we had dinner with Annette (from Martha and the Vandellas) and her husband Dan....

Annette and  Dan...(in red because of doing a Valentine's show) 

We were celebrating our son-in-law, Brant's new promotion with his boss, Dan, his wife Annette, and family.   We were excited to celebrate with them....but we also enjoyed hearing about "Nettie's" fascinating career!  There were many stories about starting to sing at age 14 in a U.S that was segregated and prejudiced.  Women's lib and Martin Luther King were just beginning to be known.  She is working on a book about it and they are traveling to England this summer to meet with an editor and friend working on the project.  It was incredibly surreal to be hearing about it all from a singer who I lipsinked to many times!!



Annette with Brant's father Bob


We managed to talk about Brant too,  and how much he enjoys his work.  Poor wife Chelsea was home with a bug being sick!

with Brant's mother, Becca

We took pics and while we were doing that, the table next to ours said they were fans too and could they please have theirs taken too!!! lol! 

Congrats Brant, good luck with the book Nettie (& Dan) and thank you for a wonderful evening!

Prayers for Baby Caden...

Me                 Linda    

Long time friend Linda who moved to Maine about a year ago, had grandbaby number two last night in North Carolina.  Daughter Laurie had baby Caden at 3 am and they are concerned about his health.  He has been flown to Duke University NICU.  Laurie followed by ambulance.  They will be doing many tests in the next few days.  Please pray for baby Caden, his family, his health and test results...thankyou!!

War Stories....

This afternoon Larry and I played Valentine fairies to the generation above us.  We went to see his parents, and two 90 year old friends of my mother.  One is a British lady who got to telling stories from World War II.  It was so much fun to listen to her! 
She told of rationing and how they were given two walnut sized pats of butter for the week...might have been month!  Her suitor, who was an American GI brought her mother 2 lb of butter to impress her.  He said he had been saving it in the closet.  When he left, the mother said, "I am going to throw this butter out!"  She asked why and mother said "because he had it in the closet around all those men!"  "Closet" in England meant "water closet"...meaning outhouse...ha! 
She went on to tell what the air raids were like and how people got used to them so sometimes did not hurry.  She had a girl friend who set her hair in 50 little rollers to curl her hair at night.  If a siren went off, she took all the rollers out, combed her hair and then left.  When she got home, she re-set her hair all over again.  One day she came into work very tired.  Co-workers asked why?  She said the sirens had gone off 5 times the night before and she had to re-do her hair each time!
Another story was how black-outs affected them.  They had to have blackout drapes and if any glimpse of light escaped at night, an officer came around and tapped on their door to tell them "lights out!"  There were of course no street lights on and head lights on cars had to have paperover them with only a small pin hole to see where they were going.  Same went for the rare flash lights.  Walks to and from places at night had to be done by "braille" of sorts.  One foot was on the curb and one in the street with the route memorized.  On a very dark night, she went out and unaware of a pole, ran into it leaving a goosebump on her head the next day.  They hated full moons because more could be seen of towns and the countryside.  Thus when air-raids happened toward the end of the war, large balloons were launched to cause confusion to enemy planes. 

There were many more stories and I found all fascinating.  What gems we have that we may never again when we listen to those older than us!!

E. Jean

My mother's birthday was last week and while I think of her everyday, I was especially remembering her on that day.  Valentine's Day is approaching and she will always be in my heart too. Sometimes when someone who is dear to you passes away, I think you tend to canonize them and that is absolutely so with me. Grandpa was Norwegian-second generation American from Norway and named Mom for an old girlfriend, Elinor.  Grandma refused to call her that name...lol (I've always wondered where she was when Mom was named???) so she was called Jean, her middle name her whole life. When she signed her name, she signed it E. Jean.  I sometimes wish we had named Chelsea, Elin after her (pronounced E-lin, with emphasis on the E) till the Tiger Woods scandal.
She was an only child and because of that loved being with people all the time. She was a talker but everyone loved her too....she never met a stranger, had a kind word for everyone and loved the Lord mightily.  She was a late bloomer...raised us 3 girls, then went back to school and worked at the same time teaching grade school.  She got her degree at age 50 and then her Masters at 55.  We had a huge hog roast party for her and party was her middle name! She was spunky always ready to try a new adventure.  I have pictures of her cross country skiing in her 60's and scuba diving then too! 
She was a strict mother yet we always knew that we were very loved.  She had jobs for all of us to do each day and on the weekend which involved "get your work done first and then we can have fun!"  Often we had something planned after.  There are so many special memories!  We each had one wonderful birthday party as a child. In days when parties are not like they are now and on a shoestring budget, mine was a treasure hunt in which there were clues and guests had to find the final gift...a treasure of candy and gum for each.  Then there was an obstacle course, over and under things at the end of which was a cherry tree  with 30 all day suckers tied on with colored ribbons!  My sister's BD was in October and on a perfect fall day there was a hayride and bon fire with s'mores.  Our third sister's was much like mine so you can see what imagination she had and what a great teacher she was!  She won top honors in Chicago for teacher of the year over 1,000 applicants. She even went on to author some teaching manuals and bulliten board books. 
Sitting here I think about retiring after a few years and realize she was still very vital at my age and I want to strive to do that too.  I am lucky to have such an amazing blueprint of how to live!  Thanks for that wonderful Valentine gift, Mom!

What's for dinner???

 When Larry comes home from work and into the house, the first thing he says is, "What's for dinner??"  Tonight was no exception but the answer was "50/50!" 
When I was small, I loved to watch my grandmother cook.  She was inventive and creative.  She had her share of the family "tried & true" recipes but she also had her share of what my mother called "50/50".  50/50 was a new recipe that she made up...my mother said that one half of the time it was delicious....but one half of the time it was ugg!

 Tonight was one of those nights that I had certain things in the refrig and decided to put them together... It started with cooking noodles in one pot and in another other sauteing  onion in olive oil,  adding garlic and  one sweet Italian sausage  (pre-cooked leftover) link and shrimp.  When they were cooked, 1/4 cup of white wine was added with 1/2 cup heavy cream and 1tsp flour to thicken with 1/2 cup parmesean cheese to cover.  It smelled great....and....
It was pronounced a 50 thumbs-up!!  Thank you judges!!



Side note...when our kids were teens, they sometimes rated my cooking on a scale from 1-10...that was fun! (not always) That's when I taught them to cook! And they all are pretty good cooks today.

Par-tay!!!!

We had a "minor" Super Bowl party tonight...a few hor d' oerves...a couple of friends and Bryden!!!  He is my speed for a game like this...or I should say, I am on his level...lol!  Being sports free mostly, I did know who played and that is a major accomplishment! I was even rooting for Green Bay because all of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc. etc. were/are from Wisconsin.

Bryden seemed to enjoy the game very much....

I pointed out the teams and he made a lot of noise, clapped and cheered just like the big boys!  They enjoyed him too...except for the first few minutes when he had the remote and turned the TV off 5 times in as many minutes! I think he's really going to be a fan....one day!!!

It's good to have a friend!

If I'm at this spot....my faithful friend is always right beneath me! :-)