Help
Sign In
care
January 2010 
Who is the most caring person you know?
Posted on Nov 4th, 2009
by 
sandi
sandi
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for November 04, 2009:
Aunt Marie, almost 80, sharp as a pin and sometimes as sticky, nobody's fool and eyes that don't miss a thing. Quick off the mark and the first to bring a covered dish and an offer of help. Knows when to step in and shoo confusion out the door, can cut straight to the chase and where to draw the line between help and meddling. Currently taking chemo for leukemia and you'd never hear a word about from her. In her words, " Why, I'm fine! Now, what about you? Have you gotten that little problem with the lawn mower cleared up or should I send Mike to see about it.?" She has the energy of a woman half her age and uses it wisely and productively, very much like the woman in Proverbs 31. She is the Matriarch of our family and I hope to be like her as I grow in years and wisdom.
Access: Public
Sandi - It sounds to me like the nut doesn't fall too far from the family tree. And while you've described your aunt, it's also a very fitting description of you.
Now when you go to work today and stand on a ladder to finish the area over your desk, make sure you take care so that Aunt Marie doesn't have to bring you a covered dish!
I'm out the door for a haircut and then off to HolEssence. Make it a GREAT day (ladders and all) …
Hi Sandi,
I agree with Laurie your description also matches yourself Sandi!!! After reading what you wrote to me on my blog yesterday I see it very clearly. In fact that is exactly what I said about you after reading the comment, before I read this post.
Gorgeous pic!
Liza
Hi, Laurie, I have the next 2 days off to regroup for a solid weekend at work. Believe me, there are no ladders on my agenda today! All the rubber-band stretching of my muscles and ligaments yesterday have prepared me for nothing more strenuous than some shopping and leaf blowing today. Maybe a nice fire later on this early evening to drain away the busy world and ease into the relaxation I am looking forward to.
My Aunt is one of a kind, the kind of personal ideal you set for yourself and hope to one day achieve. I don't know that I'd ever want to work that hard though! Thanks, you have yourself a Great Day!
Sandi - I hope that you profoundly enjoy your two days off. Shopping, leaf blowing, and a nice fire this early evening. Ahhhhhhh, sounds like a jewel of a day!
What a blessing to have an Aunt like Marie.
Sandi, as far as I can tell by reading your words each day, it seems as though you're following very closely in your dear aunt's footsteps. Thanks for being you.
It's not by chance that you have someone like Aunt Marie in your life.
Certainly a good role model, as you are also.
The Law of Attraction
Did you perchance buy one of those dodgy second-hand tardises and by some wierd whatever actually become your own grandma? Or maybe you're gonna do that in 40 years or so.
J x
Hey there, Laurie, well, the first day has been an unequaled success. I have done no work, shopped and scored, had the fire and it's been a good day. Fresh crop of leaves in the morning, can't tell the new ones from the old ones, I'll deal with lot then. …..and I'm having pie for supper. It's been very good.
Wow Sandi - I'm thoroughly, completely and totally impressed! Tomorrow is my writing day [all day in pajamas - whoohoo!].
When you say having “pie” for supper, do you dessert-type pie (like peach, pumkin or apple), or do you mean dinner-type pie like a pot pie, or a kidney pie?
And here's another question … I'm getting ready to leave HolEssence and go home to have dinner. But you're getting ready to have supper. Are those two words for the same thing, just referred to differently by geographic location?
Hi, Jeannie, she's as good a women as you could hope to meet. Not that she didn't light a fire under our tails when we tried on all of her make-up. Or left the back door open so that dogs got in. You know, the kind of good that she didn't kill us when she had the chance. Not that any one would have blamed her.
Bob, my aunt would laugh and laugh. She is not what you would call a dear woman, she's a “toe the mark or I'll straighten your young butt out for you!” woman. And we still mind, even my Uncle minds, people who don't even know her mind. She's almost 80 and is in damn good shape, we're still nearly afraid of her. I'd have to get right sharpish to even come up to grade, but thanks for your confidence.
Hey, Gabby, no, probably not by chance, although she would be puzzled by the Law of Attraction theory. She would wonder what attracted such a gang of kids in and out of her house all summer long, pretty much hanging around the kitchen. She was up at 5:00 every morning baking, one of those women that had dessert every night. I suppose she counted us a summer plague, like flies. Man alive though, she can cook!
It must have been that rust-bucket phone booth you took back, I haven't been anywhere or anytime I planned for. Stuck in the North of Scotland for a week in the rain and fog, cowering under dripping shrubbery while some dudes in Red Coats shot up and trashed the place place, looking for some Bonnie Charlie guy.
No, me poor auld granny would stroke out in a minute in these jeans, much less seeing the store-bought pie on the counter. What I'm putting across here is the notion that some folks just do what needs to be done without having to be asked, examining motive, or blowing sunshine up your butt for the brownie points. If some one needs help, you help, who cares why, why has nothing to do with it. You just do it and go on. Nobody's keeping score.
Laurie, Look, just go ahead and get MImi on the phone, don't want to have her miss this……IT'S A SOUTHERN THANG!! When people my age or younger are in a business or social setting, we stop in the middle of the day for Lunch. At home we know that 12:00 straight up is Dinner-time. Lunch is a sandwich or snacky thing, Dinner is a meat and three, with sweet tea and maybe dessert. Supper is the last meal of the day, what ever floats your boat. Mine happens to be Peach pie, with hummus and flatbread on the side. One of the joys of living single is that nobody complains, and if you don't like what you've had, there's no one to blame but yourself. Haven't you ever heard of the Dinner Bell that would ring to call folks in from the fields? They needed a big hot meal to keep working until the end of the day and then, thank God, it was Supper time and you could eat and rest. Okay, let me ask a searching question here, do you eat kidney pie? I like pot pies, but I haven't got around to a kidney pie. I'm afraid it would come through my nose while I was retching.
I sense Aunt Marie loves hearing from you.
You two seem to carry the same spirit.
Do you carry the same cookbook?
So when's desert?
Sandi - We make our kidney pie with cubed round steak (leaving out the kidney) and add lots of onions, potatoes and garlic. Trust me, you'd like it that way.
So dinner is your BIG meal at Noon, and supper is light – more like what I would call lunch (a sandwich or bowl of soup). That's actually a very healthy way to go about it because you eat the majority of your calories earlier in the day and have time to burn them off.
I can see just the peach pie. Or I can see the hummus and flatbread. But the peach pie with the hummus/flatbread combination doesn't sound like a set of flavors that my tastebuds would be very happy with.
Len's making salad, spaghetti/meatballs and garlic bread for dinner. I'm so hungry I could scream bloody murder!
Gabby, she lives across the road, and we see each other pretty often. Once again she'd laugh at the notion, she is a laughing person. I may show this page to her one day, I can out run her, always could. Wow, I don't have dessert, I have SUPPER, and it was a peach pie. I do have some Pecan Sandies though, and hot tea. Those Keebler Elves keep me in cookies and you're welcome to them.
I am struck by image of “blowing sunshine up {someone's] butt for the brownie points” – sounds like a real, um, crapshoot (<==== looky there, there's that four-letter word again!) to me; okay enough with the innuendo; I love that you, and I, and Laurie, and Liza, and Bloomer, and Jeannie, and Gabby, and Aunt Marie, and J., all live without someone having to come along and beg us please to get off our asses and do something, anything, to show we are alive …
Sandi - I forgot to tell you that I put some information regarding the color white out on the 50+ Stars group. Here's a LINK.
Hey Barbara - I'm headin' over to your blog right now.
Hey Barbara, I was going to say asses too, but didn't want to offend Jon's delicate sensibilities, in fact I didn't even use his name while I was talking about that crappy tardis. What, you never heard of blowing sunshine? Take a friend next time you go to buy a car. I know what you mean, I'd rather go outside and count stars as I would glue my eyes to a television night after night. There are coyotes screaming all over the place out there tonight. I'm staying in.
Laurie, thank God! I was thinking, well, never mind what I was thinking…David's been to the U.K. several times and I have asked and he said, “I don't know, I couldn't eat one either.” Please send me that recipe because I'm all for the rest of it. I had pork pies in Mass. and pork pies when I lived in Louisiana and neither one of them tasted like pork at all. I think it was mystery meat from some school lunch room.
When some one wants a very light supper in the South, a favorite is cornbread and milk. A tall glass full of crumbled corn bread, salt and pepper, cold milk over all, and sliced tomatoes and green onions on the side.
Sandi - Well that light supper just sounds plain nasty!
No Kidney Pie
Pastry for 1-crust pie, 3 lbs. cubed round steak, 2 tablespoons oil, drippings, or shortening; 2 cups chopped onions, 3 cloves finely chopped garlic, 2 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. pepper, 1/2 tsp. dried thyme, 1 bay leaf, 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce, 2 cups water, 4 cups diced raw potatoes, and 6 Tbs. flour
Brown cubed round steak in hot fat. Add onions, garlic, seasoning, and 1 1/2 cup water. Simmer until meat is almost tender, about 1 hour.
Blend together flour and remaining 1/2 cup water; stir into meat mixture. Continue cooking and stirring until mixture thickens. Pour into 3 qt. casserole.
Roll out pastry slightly larger than top of casserole. Place over meat mixture and trim to overhang 1”. Fold under and flute against inside edge of casserole. Cut several steam vents in center.
Bake at 425 degrees until lightly browned, about 30 minutes.
Serves 8
No, It's really good, for a cold supper on a hot day, and lot's of people enjoy it. I would think it akin to other folks saying they had a bowl of cold cereal for supper. Ask Sylvia if she ever heard of cornbread and milk for supper. You have the tomatoes on the side, not in it. The pie recipe sounds yummy and I may do that tonight. Thanks for sending it. Even more thanks for “no kidneys”.
Sandi - If you try the recipe this evening, let me know your thoughts. You can adjust the seasonings to taste (more/less salt, pepper, etc).
Tomatoes on the side eases off the disgusting by about a half notch.