I've reached Great-ness!

We found out recently that we are going to be Great-Grandparents! As excited as I was with our Grands, I just can't imagine what this is going to be like! We've already been giving advice and even a list of family names that they might like to "consider." Go back a couple of generations and Virgil and Nola's children were Hobert, Walton, Tracey and Joy. That's where my name comes from... my Aunt Joy ♥ On the other side we have Clay and Selva and my Mom, Willadean! A few more generations back, the names get more distinctive... Bird Moore Milum and his bride America Allison~ really!!!

My maternal Grandparents Clay and Selva Keeling

My parents considered the name Nola after my paternal Grandmother, Vance after my maternal Grandfather. What would I have been like if I'd have been a Nola? Would it have made me have a different personality, more outgoing or more reserved? 

"Reserved" is not a word we use much on my side of the family! We are a noisy bunch who speak our minds, laugh out loud and never meet a stranger. When we are all together, the decibel level is off the charts loud. We all talk at once, we talk about EVERYTHING under the sun and food is always involved! I'm looking forward to summer picnics, lots of time to hone my Great-Grandma skills!!!

Fish Bowl Jello is a great idea from Martha Stewart Living that would be perfect for a party centerpiece. It's made with jello and gummy fish!
Print Recipe

Instructions:

Fish Bowl Gelatin: Fills a 2 1/2-quart fish or glass bowl

1 two-liter bottle lemon-lime soda, flat

4 1/4-ounce packages unflavored gelatin

2 drops blue food coloring

2 ounces gummy fish

Place 1 cup soda in a large bowl. Sprinkle gelatin evenly over soda, and let stand to soften,

about 5 minutes.

Place 2 cups soda in a small saucepan over medium heat. Heat until just before a boil. Add

the softened gelatin, stirring to dissolve the gelatin completely over the heat, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Add the remaining soda and food coloring, and stir to combine. Pour the liquid into the fish bowl. Using a damp paper towel, carefully remove any bubbles that have formed on the surface. Transfer to the refrigerator to chill overnight.

When ready to serve, use a sharp knife to make vertical slits in the gelatin; insert the fish in a random pattern to make it look as though they are swimming in the bowl. Keep refrigerated until serving. Serve within 6 hours.

Note: To make the soda go flat, twist off cap, and let the bottle stand at room temperature

overnight.

The second appeals to my 1970's HIPPY~DIPPY self! I like the name Groovy Cake, I  like saying Groovy, I may drive the kids a little crazy adding it to every sentence where I can  work it in!

Groovy Cake Print Recipe

1 box (18.25 oz.) white cake mix
3 whole eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
Red, blue, green and yellow food coloring
2 (12 ounce) cans whipped vanilla frosting
Assorted colors decorating gel tubes
½ cup SKITTLES® Bite Size Candies
2 8-inch round cake pans

1. Blend cake mix with eggs, oil, and buttermilk. Spoon 1/2 cup of batter into four  separate bowls. Tint each bowl a different color, set aside. Divide remaining white batter  between two greased and flour cake pans. Drop spoonfuls of tinted batter randomly over  the white batter. Gently pull tip of a knife through batters, creating a marbling effect.

2. Bake in a preheated 350°F oven until golden and an inserted toothpick in the center  comes out clean, approximately 28-31 minutes. Cool cakes completely.


3. Trim the tops of the cakes, leveling them. Sandwich the layers together with frosting  and set on serving plate. Spread remaining frosting over sides and top of cakes. Using photos as your guide, pipe concentric hexagon shapes of different sizes and colors on the  sides and  top.Gently pull the tip of a toothpick through the frosting (not the cake), starting in the enter of gel circles. Randomly dot the cake with SKITTLES®  Bite Size Candies.

Main Street Cafe- Hackett, Arkansas

The noon crowd that gathers at the Main Street Cafe in Hackett, Arkansas are hungry, hardworking folks. I looked around the room and saw the faces of middle America. The ones who live simple lives and like it, the ones who struggle to pay taxes and most likely the ones that Congressman Steve Womack talked about last week at the Town Hall meetings held for District 3.

We can't help but worry our future, it's apparent that Washington is clueless to what we face with higher prices for gas, groceries, utilities... the list goes on. Unlike government, these folks would be in sad shape if they didn't have the money to cover their debts. Miss a few payments to the bank and the farm that pays your bills is in jeopardy. Lord help us if we get sick, because health care plans are hard to pay for when your work is your cattle.

The cafe was full the day we visited. Friends and neighbors of the small community of Hackett, a town of roughly 800 people gather at the Main Street Cafe to talk politics, to exhange the news and share their worries and their joys. 

Most of them ordered the Blue Plate Special of fried catfish, fries and brown beans. Table by table, they left... off to an afternoon of hard work. Another day, another dollar.

Local Flavor

Daddy called it "Local Flavor," the Mom and Pop places that hide away in small towns along your trip. The one's that you might drive right by and miss out on a life experience if you judge the book by it's cover. I heard him say it over and over throughout my childhood. We visited many places just like the Main Street Cafe as we traveled to and from my Grandparents in another state.

Aunt B. and Uncle George had just such a place in mind to take us to when we visited last week. The town of Hackett, Arkansas had so much to offer that it's going to be a week of blogs! We got there early, just a few minutes before noon. The hometown hangout had a few tables taken, the choice tables were near the window air unit that was struggling in the River Valley heat. It was near 100 that day and we were glad to be inside with our head in the shade!

I started taking pictures and it wasn't long until a nice young man struck up a conversation. Come to find out he had just moved back to Hackett from Rogers, our stomping grounds. He had worked up here for a while and missed home.

Rural Hackett is farms and stone quarries, Fort Smith and Van Buren are close-by if you need to run to Target. It's not the middle of the boondocks, in fact it's only a few miles from "civilization." But for those who choose to live there, it's all about lifestyle. These are the people who choose to march to a different drum.

They go to high school ball games and church potlucks. They bake cakes and cookies to raise money for the senior class trip and they carry covered dishes when someone loses a loved one.

Hugs and Biscuits, the local convenience store sets right across the street from the cafe and if you live in Hackett, it's where you fill your tank and get your morning sausage biscuit. It's where you talk politics and no one gets their nose out of joint cause you're friends, in some cases you're lifetime friends. All those "Local Flavor" experiences taught me a valuable lesson in life. It taught me to never pass by the small places, or miss out on the simple pleasures in life. He didn't know that he taught me to never judge a book by it's cover, whether it was a place or a person.