Blake, Kelli Mark's younger boy (11 yr-old), is over here for a few days--we're actually providing taxi service, but he sure is fun to have around when he's here. He fixed omelets for lunch today and other than the fact that we should have had 2-egg omelets instead of 3-egg, they were very good. He had a bit of trouble flipping his own, but was able to rescue all except one little bite. Fortunately he held it over the stove and not over the floor to flip. I'm sure he inherited some of his culinary skills from me, for instance, he said and he's right, that he's a good cook and baker, but messy. Stan insists that I must pre-flour the counter before I ever start to make pies.;-)

I think we've all made a few blunders in cooking. Don't know if I've already blogged about the time my sister Audrey baked an angel food cake from scratch and I'm not going to search back through to find out, so if you've read this before, you can ignore it. One time when our folks were gone and she was about 12, she decided to make the cake as a surprise. It was truly a surprise because she didn't beat the eggwhites. I don't think you could have cut it with an ax. I know when it was thrown out for the chickens to eat, their beaks bounced off it.

Recently my oven accidentally got turned off while I was baking cookies and one sheet was just a big blob of mess. I won't say who turned off the oven, but next time I ask Stan to turn off the timer, I will be sure he knows which button that is.

My dad had to have been the worst cook of all time. Once when Mother was in the hospital, and he was in charge, he made cucumber omelets for us. Another time he fried mush with green beans in it. You know the expression, "at least he tried," well that still didn't make it edible. I will say he wasn't afraid to try something new.

As I'm sitting here typing this (keying), I wish that I had have inherited my grandma (Anna) and her brother Victor's abilities to tell stories. For whatever the reasons, story telling seems to be mostly a lost art. I suppose it has much to do with the availability of books, tv, movies, etc., that we don't depend on stories being passed on from one generation to another.

I think you know that I am a deacon at my church--the first year of a 2-year term. Anyway, at our meeting last Tuesday evening we put valentine boxes together for the widows and widowers in our congregation. There were some homemade cookies, homemade as well as "storebought" candy and a couple of other things that I've forgotten. Each of us delivered them to the widows and widowers in our parishes. I know that I enjoyed delivering them and visiting with my three "deliverees" at least as much as they enjoyed getting the boxes. I hope it becomes a tradition.

Speaking of homemade cookies, I should get off here and mix up a batch. When Blake gets back from his Grandma Karen's tomorrow and before he is picked up by his friend's mom to go skiing, he and I are going to roll, cut and ice some sugar cookies.