My Grandpa Was A Hunk Too!

January 29, 2012 / apronsandappetites.com / 8 Comments

Paw and Granny, Churnie, Harry, and Bub

This was probably taken around 1927. My dad is the first child in front of my hunky grandpa. Granny was a little cutie, too.

I didn’t think either one of them was much to look at when I was a tot going down to Paw and Granny’s for Christmas with the rest of the cousins. Granny was just the cook, and Paw was just a good-natured grandpa. But as I look at the pictures of their younger days, well, they were downright handsome folk.

Farmers and grocers and traders by heart; lovers of family and children and fun by soul; and entrepreneurs by mind. They come from the ancient Scottish Rutherford clan as well as the ancient Scott clan through Rhoda Scott, my granny.

Interesting.

Valentine’s Day Treats… Yummy

January 28, 2012 / apronsandappetites.com / 2 Comments

Pink Martinis and Pearls Cupcakes with Recipe

Click on the pictures of these delicious treats, and you will be taken to the blog for all the details!

These look soooo good, don’t they? Pink Martinis and Pearls offers a variety of recipes and great photos to give you step-by-step directions for her lovely sweet treats. This is one I’m planning on trying as soon as my kitchen is back to normal.

Ree Drummond's Baked Fudge

I love her blog, and she now has a cooking show on Food Network. Since I missed it, I took a few minutes to try to find some episodes on the Food Network web site. Good stuff there.

Enjoy your treats and be sure to visit these blogs for more good stuff!

My Dad and His Brothers, the Hunks

January 27, 2012 / apronsandappetites.com / 9 Comments

Granny Rhodie and boys

I always thought my dad was the most handsome man in the world. He had a gregarious personality and could talk to a light pole and charm it out of electricity. If he couldn’t do that, he would trade it for something in return for a generous amount.

His brothers were the same. There were four boys born to Virgil and Rhoda, handsome boys who knew how to make a buck, hard-working, personable. In the picture above are three of those boys: from the left is Harry, Larry, Granny, and my dad, Churnie. His name was actually Laverne but he couldn’t say that. He would say Lachurn, so that stuck, and he became Churnie forevermore.

The fourth brother, called Bub since he was second in line, my dad being first, the little bubby or little brother, moved off to Kentucky, but the others lived and died here in Southern Illinois where they were born, raised, married, and had businesses.

My dad owned and operated a small grocery store, one of those businesses people call a “Mom and Pop” store now. His parents, as can be seen in the above photo, also ran a grocery store. He should have gone to Hollywood. All of them.

Those boys were the heart throbs of Hardin County… plus several other counties would be my guess. And I can’t help but think they would have been in L.A. as well.

Move over, Duke.

She Looked Real…

January 26, 2012 / apronsandappetites.com / 2 Comments

During my years as an official court reporter, I have seen and heard a lot of oddities. One such oddity occurred as I was driving to Elizabethtown for work. It was many years ago, but I can still remember it as though it happened yesterday.

driving down the highway

It was a sunny, summer day, and I was, believe it or not, running a tad late for work, so there was no dilly-dallying around to get on down the road. Since I was totally focused on driving, it took me just a bit to realize the gal sitting in the car directly in front of me had not moved one inch.

When I finally started noticing my surroundings, what was going on in the car I had been following down Route 1, I began to notice that she was sitting up higher than the driver as though she were sitting on the console. She was practically in the driver’s lap, she was sitting so closely. And she was ramrod straight. WOW! What great posture that gal had.

This stiff-as-a-mannequin pose really caught my attention, and I began in earnest to see if she would at least move her head to look at the scenery. But, no. She didn’t even move with the pull of a curve.

Now, that’s odd. I had never seen anyone sit that stiff and straight on the console of a car in my life. She looked like a mannequin!

the mannequin girlfriend

But what in God’s green earth would somebody be doing with a mannequin sitting right beside them? Maybe she was dead! Oh, the thoughts that were swirling in my head!

I followed the driver and it all the way to the Karbers Ridge Road where the vehicle turned. It was all I could do to say heck with work and follow the car. Was the driver going to bury this thing sitting there? Was it truly a mannequin as it appeared to be, this ramrod stiff, never-moved-a-muscle, gal-looking thing?

I will never know. My sense of ~~get-to-work-or-get-fired~~ duty won out, and I kept going straight… with my neck craned backwards to see all I could see till they got out of sight.

Looking for Lovers

January 24, 2012 / apronsandappetites.com / Leave a comment

The symbol of love

Next month I want to write about great loves. I already have a few, but I would like one for every day. Would you like to share some pics and your story with me? Or do you have a couple who immediately comes to mind? I want all kinds of great love stories. Not just those that fit in the square box.

Send me an email at: aprons_appetites@yahoo.com.

My Panties are Ready for Jimmy Buffett

January 23, 2012 / apronsandappetites.com / 5 Comments

an older version

Several, several years ago my friend Terry and I went to a Jimmy Buffett concert. It was awesome!

I am and have been secretly in love with Jimmy Buffett as far back as I can remember. I love his smile, his twinkly eyes, his voice, his songs… (sigh). I want to meet him and kiss him just one time. Only a peck, of course, because he is now married and has been for quite awhile. I was heart-broken when he got married!

At the time of the particular concert with Terry (I’ve been to others) we came up with a plan. Instead of throwing some flimsy pair of sexy thong underwear up on stage, I would throw a big, nice pair of white, cotton Momma panties. You know, the kind that comes up past your waist and covers every smidgen of butt cheek. I would put my name, phone number, and address in the crotch.

young Jimmy

We would get seats that were right up front, and right at the most strategic time in his song, I would haul off and throw those babies up there at the stage. With any luck at all… they would hit him right in the schnoz! Or maybe up side the head. Oh, I envision all sorts of delightful landing places for my big Momma panties.

Those suckers would be hard to overlook. A person may have to even crawl their way out of them lest they suffocate! He would look at them and see my name boldly emblazoned in the crotch. An invite if I ever saw one!!!

They would look something like this, only pristine white, maybe smell a little like bleach.

Jimmy Buffett panties

I’ve Been Nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award

January 22, 2012January 22, 2012 / apronsandappetites.com / 3 Comments

Versatile Blogger Award

I’m so excited!! I’ve been nominated for The Versatile Blogger award. So I don’t win a trip to any exotic location or even win some kind of cool prize, but what I do get is the respect and accolades from my fellow bloggers! And the opportunity to let you know that!

The rules for receiving the Versatile Blogger Award are:
Thank the person who nominated me and link back to them in my post. So thank you ever so much whenquiet! I love her stuff; she is such a unique personality.

Share 7 things about me: [1] I love to give gifts (wish I had lots of money and time). [2] My middle name was misspelled on my birth certificate, so I have been assuming an alias all my life. [3] I am in the 68% of women who say they weigh less than they really do on their driver’s license (but that is my goal weight). [4] There are several secrets I will take to my grave. [5] My life has been one long exercise in procrastination and consternation (one exacerbates the other). [6] Gee whiz, there’s not that much to share that I haven’t already told everyone. At least not that I can tell on a public forum… or willing to tell on a public forum. Oh, here’s one. I am not an exhibitionist, therefore, no public forum sharing of non-public thoughts or events. [7] I have a dream, a hope, a goal of someday attaining peace.

Pass the award on to 15 more bloggers. This is easy. There are just so many good blog sites out there. Some are over on the widget (right-hand side) of this blog. And you will see some of the others today.

Click on the pictures or site title, and you will be directed to their web site.

The Pioneer Woman

Garnish

Pink Martinis and Pearls

Chronicles of a Rocket Surgeon

Hello and thank you for stopping by Simply Recipes, our family’s food blog, or personal website. Here you’ll find hundreds of recipes for the home cook, all tested by me,Elise Bauer, my family or friends.

POCKET FULL OF PROSE

Eat, Live, Run

And last but not least: Tell the nominees, those I am nominating, that I have done so.

Enjoy these sites!!

Giving It Back

January 21, 2012January 21, 2012 / apronsandappetites.com / 4 Comments

Brenda from Kenya

‎”If you can’t hold children in your arms, please hold them in your heart.”

Mother Clara Hale

Isn’t she just the cutest little thing? This is my sister’s adopted daughter via Trinity Global Development, a group their church is affiliated with. Dar gives a set amount of money each month and can send Brenda (I LOVE her name) gifts as well.

Wasana Supan in Thailand

And here is my little adopted daughter! I met her through World Vision. Before her was a young boy who has now grown old enough to exit the program. I send $30 a month and can send small gifts such as stickers, a bracelet, anything that will fit in a 5×7 envelope.

My friend, Crystal, has at least one child she has adopted through World Vision, and my friend, Sarah, has a child she has adopted through the organization Only Believe Ministries. It is a local organization that is in the process of raising the money for an orphanage. A great group to plug into!!

These are just three organizations. There are many. We can help children in our own homeland to those far away.

I am blessed. And I want to give it back.

What about you?

Remembering

January 19, 2012January 20, 2012 / apronsandappetites.com / 15 Comments

Today is January 19. That same day in 1970 a baby boy was born. And today he would have been 42 years old. Here’s to remembering a great guy!

Truly a man among men!

All these photos came out of scrapbooks I had made several years ago. Hope the backgrounds and the extra feet, etc., don’t distract.

We had a great time that year.

I love this picture. Look at those beautiful eyes!!

JJ and Daren

I miss you.

ah, that sweet smile

Prom

SUCH a stinker!!

And what more can I say?

Will I EVER Be Freshly Pressed?

January 17, 2012January 17, 2012 / apronsandappetites.com / 11 Comments

Life would be so delightful if I were organized. My blog would always be up to date with new posts and pics and recipes and good advice or awesome web sites for you to get coupons and free stuff. Then I would be Freshly Pressed! I need to be freshly pressed… every day.

rumpled me

Instead my little personality gets up and looks around at its rumpled little self, deciding to just wear what it already has on because, well, the chaos makes actually “getting it together” overwhelming. How on earth does one become Freshly Pressed/freshly pressed?

I gave birth to “my baby” back in January of 2011. My little blog has crawled along, sometimes actually getting up and walking really fast, but never quite getting to the point of where I imagined it would be at the end of the year. And that is all my fault. My appetite was tremendously starving for what life and I had cooked up for me, and I heaped way too many projects on my plate (hey, I am a Gemini) this past year, 2011, as usual. BUT… I actually reached those goals!! And I documented them through my darling, little blog as I went along.

JJ & Brenda 1997

The tenth anniversary of my husband’s death was the impetus for this upheaval, this craving for living, this hodgepodge menu in my blog posting. For a decade I had been stagnant, too full of grief over the losses and tragedies and heartaches I had endured. What better way to break back into life than cooking and sharing that food with friends and then sharing the whole experience through a blog?

diverse appetites

Though my goal changed from filling bellies with the magazine recipes I had been saving for years to feeding my readers with thoughts on various subjects, it has been a sharing together of not just my appetite for life, but some of yours as well.

Some of the goal dates came and went — contractors do that all the time — and were reached a little later than planned. And, well, those recipes and awesome meals for all my old and new friends didn’t quite pan out (pun intended) although I did cook a couple of good meals and make some mighty fine mice for Christmas in December of 2010, the year I started my “revamp Brenda” recipe. That recipe is still in the perfecting stage. The important outcome of this past year, though, is my accomplishments! In spite of needing a freshly pressed, got-it-all-together overhaul, I managed to do all this: