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Sunday in the Sticks
We visit the sticks once a month. We used to visit on the fourth Sunday of the month but we’ve moved it to the third Sunday.
We visit so we can spend time with Grandma. Grandma is getting older and tireder and she doesn’t do as much as she would like to but she still really loves to have company so company we be. It’s fun to be company. It’s nice to have a big family dinner as a tradition too. The older I get the more I love tradition.
My Aunt Keren always fixes us something fancy. She’s good at fancy.
And of course there is always dessert. Usually something Bug helps with.
My Dad even got in on the action this time. It’s been so nice having my dad around more. It sucks that he’s home because he busted his rotator cuff and is in so much pain at night that he’s taken up drinking a glass of wine to help him sleep but it sure is nice having him around. I hope his glove business takes off so he can stay home all the time. His surgery to fix his shoulder is scheduled for January and then he’ll have time after that to heal so I guess we’ll just have to see.
Then back on the road again, jiggety jog.
Bug was kinda out of sorts on our way home. Probably lots of mixed feelings about missing old friends. So we stopped and painted a plate. Painting always cures what ails you.
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Garbage Pancakes
I’m not sure exactly how this tradition started but I have a feeling it was probably something my aunts did when I was little. My mom has four little sisters and they liked nothing better than to spoil me when my mom, their mean big sister, wasn’t looking.
Whipped cream sprayed right into my mouth, chocolate chips in my pancakes, square dancing in the kitchen, homemade tortilla chips in the broiler just because I asked how chips were made, a stash of presents on the top shelf for “just because” days…I have so many fond memories of my crazy aunts.
Naturally, when I was blessed with a daughter (after waiting many many years) I found myself wanting to be just like them. There is nothing more fun than the conspiratorial gleam in a child’s eye when they know you are letting them do something that is just a tiny bit forbidden. Chocolate for breakfast? Why not! Grown ups can be fun too, right?
So over the years we added chocolate milk powder and then food coloring and then we started putting the pancake batter in squirt bottles and next thing you know the pancake decorating turned into an olympic event. What they taste like is completely irrelevant.
This is what we like to call Garbage Pancakes. They taste like crap. But they are so much fun to make!
Oh yeah.
A dash of this a swirl of that. Halloween candy? Why not.
It’s a bear! It’s a plane!
It’s Super Turkey with a burned up beak! Eat one of these and you’re guaranteed to crave broccoli for lunch (or something else healthy if you’re not a fan of broccoli).
