Just Desserts

1. Linking up with Joyce over at From This Side of the Pond for HodgePodge Wednesday. Let's start things off right...Wednesday is National Dessert Day. What are we having? How often do you  make/serve dessert? Store bought or from scratch?

I don’t think I realized that there is a National Day for just about everything! If I ate desserts, I would want my mother-in-law’s German Chocolate Cake. It is like NO OTHER German Chocolate Cake. It even deserves capital letters! There are 3 layers with the wonderful coconut custard filling between the layers and then the whole cake is iced with a homemade fudgey type icing. I have made it before and it takes several hours to make because of all the different steps. I rarely make dessert for just the two of us. Rarely as in almost never. I do love to bake and take to others and it would be scratch all the way. Funny story – the first year that my husband and I were dating (1982?) and his birthday rolled around (just fyi – we had only been dating a couple of months). I ordered a special cake from the bakery and had a fisherman put on top and thought it was so special. I kid you not . . .he looked at me and said, “I don’t eat cakes from a store.” That is totally the way I remember it. It does seem like he ate a piece to be nice but didn’t take the leftovers!! AND I STILL MARRIED HIM 😊 (pictured below - German Chocolate cake on the left, pound cake with white icing in the center, caramel cake on the right) The one dessert that I like from a store is Key Lime Pie from Costco - they make a great Key Lime Pie!

2. Slow as molasses, icing on the cake, that's the way the cookie crumbles, have your cake and eat it too, half-baked idea, that takes the cake...which phrase might be applied to something in your life in recent days? Explain. 

The passing of covid is as slow as molasses. I wish it would go away but I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon.

3. Something that's 'easy as pie' for you to do?

This is totally random but I’m great at searching for things on the internet! Hubby was gifted two beers from a neighbor. Mark loves this new beer. He drove down to Hop City and the guy said he had never heard of the beer and it was not sold in Alabama. He called Beer Hog and they said the same thing. We texted the neighbor and asked where the beer was purchased. It was a gift! I sat down at the computer on Friday night and typed a few words into the search engine and within minutes, I said, “We can buy the beer at Trader Joe’s!” Now this is the funny part . . . Mark is a beer connoisseur and usually will only drink craft beers made in the south. The new beer is $4.99 for a six pack at Trader Joe’s. Just in case you are interested, it is Boatswain HLV ale. 

4. Are you someone who likes to 'sugarcoat' news you think might not be well received, or are you more of a tell it like it is and let the chips fall where they may? Do you like to receive your news the same way you give it? 

This is a really hard question. It is evidently not as “easy as pie” for me!! I think I like to sugarcoat news but maybe I just blurt it out. I am southern to the core, so I do try to soften things somewhat. I think I prefer to receive it “like it is.”

5. Something you did recently that made you feel like a 'smart cookie'? 

I can’t think of a thing! I did have to learn a few new skills when I was working from home so I watched youtube videos! I learned how to dump an excel spreadsheet into labels! Last weekend, I took my sewing machine apart and fixed it. I must admit that the sewing machine repair did involve a finger gash, blood, a not-so-nice word, a bandaid and a feeling of stupidity in the middle. But I did it!

6. Insert your own random thought here. I'm going to share two random thoughts. I wrote this down last week when we were studying the book of Ruth (in the Old Testament) with the young professionals. Two people facing a common dilemma make different choices - no one should judge which is right and which is wrong because we might never know all the circumstances. We were talking about Ruth and Orpah when Naomi told them to go back to their own people. Orpah obeyed Naomi and went home. Ruth chose to stay by Naomi's side (whither thou goest). Looking in with a judgemental attitude might lead us to believe that Orpah made the wrong choice. But we can't judge because we don't know all of the facts. I think there are a lot of situations in life like this. Someone makes a decision that we don't necessarily agree with and we immediately think, "well, they made the wrong choice." Not necessarily. So take a moment and stop and take a deep breath and try not to judge others.

On a lighter note, I walk around 5:30 a.m. The sky has been spectacular. This morning, the moon and one of the planets were both visible right above the sunrise. My cell phone takes great pictures but not in the dark. Can you see the light at the horizon? The light ALWAYS wins. His mercies are new every morning and I am so glad!