My friend Keith said:

He's gonna make a good Papaw someday. <3

Summer is ending...

TIME TO CAN! I took a canning class at our local Outreach for free! I learned a lot, and canned some beets! :D Here is a recipe for a Summers' End salsa to preserve the taste of the garden through the winter. <3

Caring is an investment in yourself and others.

One of the ways I learned to care for others was by paying attention to and being grateful for the way my Mamaw took care of me when I was sick.

She had a lot of kids (9 altogether), and took care of some of their kids too over the years, my blessed and lucky self included. She could actually smell when sickness was coming on, because of the increased ammonia in our sweat (genius) and she would start her wall of defense right then. Bathed, warmed and dried, into the bed with a sock of vapor rub around your neck, a good layer of it on your chest and a dab under your nose to keep you breathing. Then broth or soup or gingerale along with lots of tv and books and her sweet but curt attention around the clock, and that's how you got through it. If it was cold at night, she would put a hot water bottle (a recycled Wesson oil bottle, wrapped in a towel) under my covers at the foot of the bed, and got up in the middle of the night to put hot water in it again. She would check in regularly, and let me know in her way that she was busy, and I should appreciate this (ie: not grow up to be a spoiled, entitled-feeling layabout, and learn to do this for others) and I knew this was part of her caring too. 

To this day, when I get sick, I think of Mamaw Winnie and my father too, who took a page from her book (sloppily copied, but still kind and helpful) when it came to looking after sick kids. And it's not hard to do that for someone else, and to apply those same principles to all ways of helping one another. Doing it right, so that that person's body AND soul feel cared for, so they are strong enough to fight the next battle and the next and the next - because they never stop coming. And showing them how to do it for themselves and others too, because that is what really makes the world go 'round.

 "This is most important thing I can ever teach y'all. You got to take care of people that's smaller and sweeter than you are."

- Miss Bathsheba, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Comfort Food

Southern Living's Top 100 Comfort Food Recipes. :)
What was your top comfort food growing up? I love fresh peas and rice and greens, and my mamaws lemon pie. <3 

Purpose.

Look for the helpers.

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” 
― Charles Dickens

Gardening - taken to the next level...