I am almost settled in my new home. My bedroom is all furnished with new purchases, just have to wait for the man who painted my walls white to come back with his ladder and hang a few of my high school paintings. I am still working on my studio/sitting room.

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Sunday November 1st Tracy Pamela and I met Maia Morrison at the Casey Key Fish House for a 2:00 PM lunch. She is such a super lady with her beautiful red hair streaked with gold. She was dressed so neat in yellow denim knee shorts. Yellow with green and blue lace short sleeves and inserts, and yellow strap sandals. Quite the stylist!!!

We all enjoyed drinks while sharing a plate of crab cakes and a plate of coconut shrimp as we visited reminiscing of by-gone days.

Maia was in my blog in January 2014 “PLASTIC SURGERY! WHO? ME?” She was president of the Venice Area Board of Realtors and had named me membership chairman and just after I had inducted as realtors the new salespeople of the Venice area, she ask me to tell everyone that I had just had a face lift and I had foolishly declined.

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Tracy, me, Maia

We all enjoyed our delicious sea food meal while Tracy and Pamela questioned Maia of developments in the area since we were last here. This delightful lady is still helping people find the perfect Florida home.

But wait a minute! My birthday wasn’t Sunday…….so now it’s Monday November 2nd and I am now 93 years old. And……….Tracy made a delicious dinner of short ribs, mushrooms, carrots and tiny red potatoes slowly roasted in a wine sauce. YUM!!! YUM!!! Followed with slices of birthday cake and ice cream all washed down with red wine. Who could ask for anything more?

Footnote:
I have a sister Fannie who is 97 and 1/2 and another sister Mabel who lived to celebrate her 98th birthday.

HEY! I MIGHT LIVE TO BE100!!!!

FRF ❤️


My daughter Meredythe Wedding gave me her recipe for making these delicious salmon cakes. And………she gave me several pint glass jars of her home canned salmon the her husband Joey had caught while on a fishing exposition in the icy waters off Alaska. She added a teaspoon of vinegar and a teaspoon of ketchup plus water to each pint of salmon before canning.

Here is her recipe

  • One pint salmon
  • 12 soda crackers
  • 1 egg
  • 3 shakes of garlic powder
  • Mix together using a fork to keep little pieces if the salmon in the mix
  • Press into cakes and fry in butter

My version when I make them:

  • I add of lemon juice (I use a few drops of lemon from the lemon plastic container of concentrated lemon juice)
  • Make it 14 soda crackers ( mine are saltines)
  • Add a tiny pinch of each of the following herbs
  • Dill weed
  • Thyme
  • Rosemary

Form cakes and fry to light golden in skillet with a quarter stick of butter on low heat. Here is a picture of my salmon cakes as soon as I removed them from the skillet of butter.

SAVOR THE DELICIOUS FLAVOR!!!!!!

FRF ♥


Back in the 50’s and 60’s while on my dairy farm I would attend meetings given by Mrs Diehl who ran the Union county Extention office in  Marysville Ohio.

At a pre-Christmas meeting for the entire county a lady brought orange cookies with orange icing and gave out a printed copy of her recipe. I have over the years some how misplaced that copy but my daughter Meredythe had written it down and gave to me.

Recipe

  • 1 cup shortening (part butter)
  • 1 and 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/3 cup frozen orange juice (thawed)
  • 4 cups flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon soda (rounded)
  • 1teaspoon baking powder (rounded)
  • 1 cup buttermilk (can be made with I tablespoon vinegar and finish filling cup with milk)

Cream sugar and shortening, add eggs one at a time and cream, add orange juice and mix. Mix flour, salt, soda and baking powder and add alternately with buttermilk adding flour mix first and last.

On greased cookie sheet place tablespoons of cookie dough and bake in 350 degree oven until just barely done. Do not over bake. When I remove them from the oven I can just barely see my thumb print in the center of the cookie. I ice them while still warm.

Orange icing

  • 2 cups confectioners sugar
  • 1 tablespoon soft butter
  • Add frozen orange juice (thawed) to spreadable consistency.

As I have done over the years I did revise this recipe from the original given me. I have now given you my secrets to how I make these (loved by everyone) orange cookies.

It has become a family favorite and often made for Christmas by some of my family. You have to be careful to get them out of the oven at the right time (like seconds before they are quite done) and ice them soon while still warm. When I was making them at my daughter Susie’s home in Lawrenceville Georgia, her step-son Scott was there and as I baked the cookies, he iced them. It almost needs two people.

Actually, he was having fun icing them. Whenever I made cookies or cupcakes, I always allowed my children and grandchildren to eat them while they were fresh from the oven and warm and he loved that little tasty favor.

When I was growing up, my mother would come to the home by my dad’s stone quarry where I lived with brothers and sisters and she would make a big batch of bread dough into several loaves of bread. I watched this procedure in amazement as the bread would rise to well above the baking pans before she placed them in the oven to bake and then enjoy that wonderful yeast aroma that filled the kitchen and beyond.

But the best part of all was after those beautiful loaves of bread were taken out of the oven, removed from the pans the golden tops of each loaf buttered and glistening. Because……..we were not allowed to cut them unto they were cold made me want more than ever to eat a ‘heel’ of that warm bread spread with butter. YUM!!!

I would always get a good scolding for my reckless actions. But that never stopped me. Those times are some of my best memories of growing up. I wanted my children and grandchildren to have some of those same wonderful childhood memories.

AND………THEY DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So when you bake these delicious orange cookies give your children and grandchildren the enjoyment of building good MEMORIES THAT LAST A LIFETIME!!!!!!!!!!!

FRF ♥


I have moved to Sarasota Florida and living with my daughter Pamela and her husband Tracy Drake. For my privacy they have given me two rooms and a bath. Pretty nice for this old soon to be 93 year old. I’ll be celebrating my birthday November 2nd in Florida this year. After living in Venice Florida 28 years before moving to Salem Ohio, I feel like I AM BACK HOME AGAIN.

Beautiful flowers and gorgeous trees line the blvd in Deer Creek gated community to their home located in Palmer Ranch area of Sarasota.

Mrs Palmer, a wealthy widow from Chicago purchased a large area of land that now runs from south Sarasota down to and beyond Osprey, in the 1800s and so the area is named for her. Nice legacy!

Picture of home


My Bedroom

FRF ♥


Five times in the hospital in less than a year takes its toll on this soon to be 93 year old. But a couple days before going home my Real Estate agent brought the listing forms to my hospital room for my signature. In one week I had a contract full price all my furniture included. I signed it!

This is the pictures that were advertised by my real estate company.

house01 house02 house03 house04 house05 house06 house07 house08 house09 house10 house11 house12 house13 house14 house15

FRF