Recipe reminiscing.

Maybe it is because I am getting old. Or maybe it is because I am trying so hard to deal with STUFF. And it's HARD> to let things go. Some of it, I am just putting in a box, and am going to let someone else deal with it, namely my kids, after I am gone. Then they can let it go or keep it forever.

I mentioned in my little secret group about the problem I am having, and the first thing was someone wants a table. Crazy however is that is one thing I want to keep for sure! My plan was to let the big dining room table go and put the small one in its place. However, I told the person who asked that she could have it!! I'm still just trying to please everyone else? Sigh. Truth is, I have another little drop leaf table that would work there, and even that big mosaic one. Actually that would be gorgeous there.  So I think I will be fine with letting it go. 

The biggest problem with letting go is it drags in all the trauma emotions. I know that what I really need to do is deal with the trauma emotions, let them go. Let go of the feeling of such intense loss. This year there have been many who have passed on, the latest Jackie M and Joanne W. who I really let go of 20 years ago when I moved away from the dreamland. So instead of seeing all the loss, I see their gain and the unbelievable celebration in heaven. Whatever that looks like. Whatever is okay. I could go on for a long time thinking of those I have lost. I have to believe that I will see them again, join the party. 

The dreamland is hard to release. I thought I was going to live there until I died. Well, life happens, and I had to leave, and I am here, trying to make this as much as my dreamland as I can, but it doesn't have starry nights, and howling coyotes, and crickets in the night, and gorgeous big trees, and wild flowers in the spring..... but I still have my memories.

HIRAETH

In my cleaning out, I found Evelyn's recipe box. In my trying to fix better meals, I thought it might be fun to try some of her meals. Most of the box, however, is salads and desserts!! There are a few things to try though.

I also have my mom's box. I have dismantled my own, and stick things in notebooks on just look online. It is kind of sad, not passing down recipes like has been tradition for generations.

Another valuable thing I found and remembered was that people used to swap recipes with each other. And since my mom and hubby's mom were friends and had many friends in common, there are many familiar names in these cards. Fran, Audrey... and Irene, my friend Nancy's mom.

So there's Audrey's chicken casserole, and Irene's salsa, and Betty's instructions on freezing cukes. What a blessing these women had, to be friends for so many years. 

And I saw Aunt Oletha's and Ola's and some of the mothers of friends from grade school. Lots of jello recipes. It seems that growing up there were always jello salads at pot lucks. That pink gooey stuff, the strawberry pretzel salad, the green lime stuff with cottage cheese with pineapple. Main dish recipes using mushroom and tomato soups. 

That generation were mainly stay at home moms, but Evelyn worked outside the home as a nurse. She worked with some of the people she swapped recipes with, Fran, Laverne. My mom went back to work when I was in high school, but she worked at the Ice Company, and I doubt if any of the men swapped recipes! 

I made some onion pickles the other day, and ended up starting a whole conversation on facebook about them. I ended up sharing Grandma Butler's old German Dills, Uncle Tom's dills... well it was fun. Made me want to find some pickling cukes. Not super badly though. 

These aren't in order and I always screw stuff up when I try to rearrange them in a blog post, so if you are seriously trying to figure out what goes with what, have fun. 

Also in here is one that made me laugh, I haven't needed that particular remedy for many many years.

So maybe tomorrow I'll get some card making in. Seems like today was a Remembering Day. Leave me a message if you would like a clearer picture of anything, or the rest of the recipe if it isn't all there, or my dad's dills, or that lime and cottage cheese with pineapple recipe, or just about anything you can think of, really, between my mom's, and my two mothers in law, my sister in law, and my recipes. I try and I sometimes do a good job with dinner, other times I wait for "let's go out"...