Uncle Jim typed out a couple of recipes for me and brought them to Peeta's
Birthday Party last night.  At the bottom of the recipes he wrote this:

These Recipes were written by Grandma Hattie Chappell Simon, and saved
into her White Ribbon Cookbook.  (Her cookbook is not in as good a shape
as the one pictured above.)

Cottage Pudding
1/2 cup sugar.  1 cup milk
1 pint flour, 2 tablespoons
melted butter.  1 teaspoon
soda.  2 of cream tartar.
2 eggs.  A little salt.
Little ginger or cinnamon.
Bake 1/4 hour in small pan.

Gingerbread
Mix one cup molasses with
one cup sour milk.  Mix and
sift 2 1/3 cups flour, two
teaspoons ginger, 1/2 teaspoon
salt and 1 3/4 teaspoon soda.
combine mixture and add 1/4 cup
melted shortening and beat
vigorously.  Pour into a shallow
pan and bake 25 minutes in a
moderate oven.

I am going to try them when I get a chance.

I also saw one, as we were flipping through the pages in Uncle Jim's
yard, for Burnt Sugar Cake.  Now, I just made a burnt sugar cake last
weekend from a recipe in Tyler's Wooden Spoon Cookbook.  It was
pretty yummy, though Debby said it wasn't exactly like her mother's
recipe.  So, I am hoping to get both her mother's recipe and the one
from Grandma Hattie, make them both , and then I can compare all
three of them to see which is the yummiest of all.

I found William Blake and below is the poem:

To Spring

O thou, with dewy locks, who lookest down
Thro' the clear windows of the morning, turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

The hills tell each other, and the list'ning
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
Up to thy bright pavillions: issue forth,
And let thy holy feet visit our clime.

Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds
Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
Thy golden crown upon her languish'd head,
Whose modest tresses were bound up for thee!


I also found the poem I wrote.

Early Spring

The morning was cold upon my face,
But the promise was there:
The promise of noontime warmth;
The promise of afternoon kissing breezes;
The promise of perfume wafting on the evening air.

We birthday partied with Peeta tonight.  Our sweet guy turned 3 a few
weeks ago, and we are sometimes slow to arrange the celebration.

He wanted macaroni and french fries.  So Natalie made macaroni and
I made jojos.  We also added brisket and roast, stir-fry zucchini and
mushrooms, green beans, cantaloupe, bread, salad, chow-chow, and the
cutest cake.  Natalie baked a chocolate cake with chocolate whipped-
cream icing.  Then she took a toy scoop truck and placed it on top
with a hunk dug out of the cake for effect.

Peeta had no problem blowing out his three candles.  He was so
sweet opening his gifts and so careful to look at his cards and tell
everyone, "Thank you."

Last week I was visiting Uncle Jim and I mentioned that I needed to
get some kitchen chairs.  A few of mine fell apart and needed
to be replaced.  He suggested I take Grandma Opal's chairs.  So today
Kent and I and Uncle Jim went in and got the 4 kitchen chairs.

They needed to be bleached and cleaned and I did that and we used
them at the party tonight.  We also found an old cookbook that belonged
to Grandma Hattie Simon.  She has several old handwritten recipes in
the book.  It is a treasure for sure!  Maybe Uncle Jim will post some
of the recipes on his Facebook page.

So, so busy.  But I had to share this.

One of the mothers at our church texted me this today.

"Jedd keeps talking about his teacher, so I asked him
who his teacher was."

(aside...I am his Bible Class teacher)

"He said, 'That tiny girl. She is this tiny.' And then he showed
me with his fingers how tiny she was."

I knew when I got older I would end up just an oil spot on the
floor.  It has begun!

Also, just so you know, there are violets in bloom.  And, of course,
my second favorite tree, the miniature magnolia that the kids use
as a climbing tree, is in bloom.

And, so are the bradford pears, but they are just boring, copycat
trees, hardly worth remarking about.

I had a poem about spring that I was going to share from a book
of poems by William Blake, but Hattie has been reorganizing the
house with a vengeance.  She has reorganized my book somewhere
that I can't find.  So, that may be a blessing or a curse for you,
depending on your love for poetry.

I also wrote a poem the other day when I was out watering the cows.
It was also about spring.  Well, I didn't write it while I was outside,
but I composed it as I waited for the water containers to fill.  Then,
when I went inside, I wrote it down.  But, it disappeared.  I don't blame
Hattie this time.  I just have no idea where I put it after I wrote it.

The robins are flocking.  In my yard now there are dozens of them.  Yesterday
and today I've also seen red-wing blackbirds, blue jays, and flickers in the front
of my house.  Oh and my cardinals...the ones that so sneakily steal the cat
food from off the deck.  They are very, very careful to check for Debut before they
flit in and out.

Cousin Mary fractured her back in two places last evening.  She had been down
to visit Uncle Jim, and when she got home, she slipped walking up the hill to
her house.  Uncle Jim took her to the ER.  Poor girl!  She is going to hate
sitting around when the garden needs planting.

Last weekend Bill and family were down and we had some exciting times.
It rained all day on Saturday...so the kids were pretty much stuck inside.  By late
afternoon, they were a tad bit stir crazy.  My lovely daughter-in-laws, Natalie
& Stacey were cooking, I was in the computer room texting directions to a
lady, and the guys were all in the living room talking.

The kids, meanwhile, were amusing themselves.  Boy howdy were they amusing
themselves.  They were spinning themselves around on one of the computer
chairs.  We heard a crash and loud cries and went running.  Somehow Peeta
got hit in the forehead and it popped out a foot.  It really did seem like it was
that big of a goose egg.  Natalie and Joel hopped in Joel's truck to try to get to
the ER, but it had been raining so hard that we were totally flooded in.  After
they came back and we re-evaluated, we could tell that he was really fine, just
gargoyle looking.  Poor baby.

Besides that, Papa has had the flu, but what a strange case.  He couldn't stay in
for long.  When Kent had the flu, he couldn't leave the bed for days.  We had a
quiet little birthday party for Tandy and Jim on Friday.  The kids were gone to
Georgia because Natalie's Grandma Gagliardi died and they were down for the
funeral and to visit with their Georgia family.  I really liked Grandma Gagliardi.
She was a home economics teacher and a lovely person.

The down-daffy-dils are up.  What a ray of sunshine on a gloomy day they are.
I have three on my table that the grandkids picked for me yesterday.