DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn. She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”
I guess what I’m about to write about includes food, so the “Let’s Eat” is still a good title. You see, I didn’t grow up drinking wine or beer or any hard alcoholic drinks, even with my meals. So I have never “acquired” the taste for any of it.
And, as a matter of fact, when I was teaching aerobics, I was appalled at the horrible sweat odor oozing from the pours of women who had been drinking beer. Blech! That would NOT have encouraged me to drink beer in any form! So I haven’t.
I must admit, that I have tried – many times – to accompany my evening meal with a glass of wine. And I just can’t do it. The taste turns me off. When I have mentioned this to friends, the usual response is “oh, you just haven’t found the right wine yet!” And so, when we were in Heidelberg, by invitation I went to a “wine tasting party” in an apartment near where we lived. After sampling several different wines, I finally found a wine that I thought I could enjoy, and so purchased a bottle to take home with me. Days later, when I opened the bottle to enjoy with my meal – I found that, once again, it turned me off. So that bottle of wine was used later in my cooking.
Photo Credit:Pixabay
And that brings me to another topic of wine. Many years ago I was given the recipe for making French Onion Soup. A friend had made it for a meal, and I was quite taken with it. Her husband had been a soldier in Vietnam, and had eaten French Onion Soup in a restaurant in Saigon. He told her it was the best French Onion Soup he had even eaten! And he had her try every recipe for it that she could find, and then tweak it until it tasted like what he had tasted in Saigon. This was the recipe I was given.
Credit Google Search and Sharon Uzell-Meek
Well, that recipe called for “cooking sherry.” Being a good non-drinking Baptist girl, I thought that I should use the “cooking sherry” instead of regular sherry. When I tried it in the soup, I found it to be quite distasteful! And as someone once told me – “If it isn’t good enough to drink, it isn’t good enough to cook with!” And I have to agree.
So from that point on, I have been cooking with regular wine. The alcohol is burned off by the heat, and the flavor is left in the food. I find it enhances the flavor of the food deliciously.
And I still don’t like the taste of wine!
Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .
Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.
After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.
Since January I have been ignoring a date on my calendar. February 23, 2022. For months my time has revolved around caring for my husband. Taking him to doctors, finding a specialist, sending medical reports, coordinating appointments and managing the “arranging” of life. I didn’t feel I had time for February 23rd and truth be told, I was a bit afraid.
At my annual checkup with a specialist in January, the doctor suggested I undergo a diagnostic procedure, as a precaution. My initial thought was I don’t have time for this. Then I remembered that a cousin close to my age had died from a cancer my doctor was concerned about. I agreed to the test but pushed it until late February . I was just too busy.
The day before the procedure I was feeling all grumpy. In the past when my husband or I had to go to this particular diagnostic center, it seemed an appointment time was merely a suggestion. My procedure required nothing to eat or drink after midnight and I don’t do well without food and morning coffee.
Photo Credit-My husband taken at The Ark Encounter
Mid-afternoon the center called and asked if they could move my time to 7 am. Along with not doing well with the hangries. I am not an early morning person. I would have to wake up at 5:30 am.
Ark Encounter
Just as I was about to say no way, sanity hit me. 7 am would make me one of the first cases. No hours wait because they were running behind schedule. I could give up sleep for that perk.
From the time I woke, February 23rd turned from dreaded too delightful. I woke before my alarm and spent some time reading scripture and meditating on it. That always makes my day better. My daughter drove me to the diagnostic center in a nearby town. Traffic was light and we even had green lights at most of the traffic signals.
Once at the center, the staff was friendly and on time. Even the IV line went in smoothly. Not a bit of bruising either. The procedure went well and no signs of cancer were found. Hallelujah! And get this, next to the diagnostic center was a Dunkin Donuts and I really like their coffee.
After my coffee fix, I told my daughter I felt wide awake and let’s run her errands and have some fun. Our first stop was a discount store we had been wanting to visit and look for bargain books. We found some bargains but didn’t buy a single book.
Then it was back in the car to drive to another town to pick up a ship to store order. My original cup of coffee was history and we were both wanting more and as luck would have it, there was a coffee cafe, Bold Cup Coffee a few stores away from where the ship to store item was picked up.
I think it may have been new as neither of us had seen it before, We decided to give it a try and I am glad we did. We asked the barista what drink was her favorite. She recommended her families special brew, a Peruvian cafe con Leche. It was really good.
I think the caffeine was holding off the post-procedure sleepiness and I was ready for the next errand on my daughter’s list. So back on the road to yet another town to have her car serviced, washed, vacuumed and fill the gas tank. Oh, and the car dealership had free coffee, a brand named Jittery Joe. I had to try it but it didn’t come close to the flavor of the previous coffees.
With the errands complete we began to think about lunch. We didn’t see any place interesting along the interstate as we drove home so I decided we should splurge and dine at our local and famous seafood restaurant, Dixie Crossroads.
There was a twenty minute wait and the day was so beautiful, with a gentle breeze, we decided to wait outside. The restaurant has a small pond loaded with fish and turtles. The turtles were taking advantage of the beautiful day to get some sun.
My dreaded day became a delightful day shared with one of my favorite people.
I have become addicted to local roast. Who needs big chains? Well, except I really did enjoy my cup of Dunkin Donuts. Tomorrow we plan to try out a local coffee roaster close to our home. Can’t wait!
PS: Once we were home, I began to feel the effects of my morning anesthesia.I changed in Pjs and enjoyed a two hour nap!
Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with over flowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life,
Philippians 4:6 The Passion Translation
After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience. Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites, Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix
In addition to blogging, I work as the publicist/marketer/ amateur editor and general “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books
My 2021 goal is continue to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media.
Have you ever run into someone you knew, in the store or at church and can’t remember their name? That is so embarrassing! Especially when they remember your name. Well, that happened to me the other day. I ran into this guy from my model airplane club, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name. He said, “Hi Bill. It’s been a long time. How have you been?” As we shook hands, I said, “Hey there. You’re looking great. How is it going with you?” We talked about the club, his new model airplane, and the health of some of the older club members. All the while I was racking my brain to remember his name. It just wouldn’t come to me.
It wasn’t until after we had parted, and I was driving home that I finally remembered his name. Now what is wrong with that picture? Why couldn’t I remember his name? What do you suppose causes these ‘mental blocks’ when we want to remember a person’s name or the name of a place? I know I’m not the only person with the problem. My wife and many friends I’ve talked to say they have the same problem.
So, what is the answer? I don’t hold with the idea that all these people have some kind of temporary amnesia or dementia. I’ve been told that our memory tends to weaken naturally with age. OK, I can buy that, but many of the younger people I have talked to seem to have the same ‘mind block’ problems when it comes to remembering names.
If you can believe the Internet, it informs me that single families started out as hunter gatherers, so there was no need for individual names. Once farming came on the scene, around 8,000 to 10,000 BC, there were more fixed roles in a larger community of people. People had to come up with a way to distinguish individuals from each other. That’s when people started to assign names to individuals for local identification purposes
As I was looking for answers to this question, I happened upon a neurobiology professor that said the way our brains are designed, he called it ‘associative architecture,’ we tend to associate a person’s profession with that person before we associate that person’s name with the person. Maybe that’s how people started identifying those in the community by their profession. I’m afraid I’d have to hear a lot more on that concept before I accepted it as the truth for the general public.
As it happens, my wife, DiVoran, was reading a novel recently about an old Welsh community where many of the residents were of one family and everyone in the community called them by their profession; with names such as, Evans the Milk, Evans the Bread, Evans the Meat, and Evans the Pub. That seems to confirm, at least to some degree, what the above-mentioned professor was saying about what he was calling ‘associative architecture.’
Now I haven’t had the time to fully research the idea of why so many of us have trouble remembering people’s names or the names of places. But, as for me, it seems to have something to do, in part, with my mental capacity to concentrate and with the association of what a people does professionally. I’ve been told it might help me with the problem if I would try to create a mental picture of the person and how I know that person. Food for thought. What are your thoughts on the subject? Got any helpful ideas for me?
—–The End—–
Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 64 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing. He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville. Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.
DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn. She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”
PREFACE: I had been thinking of writing about the food we had in Germany, when I realized I had already written about it. So I am re-blogging this one. Enjoy!
I had never really eaten any type of “international” food as I was growing up, just what was around Albuquerque. You know – pizza, Mexican food, Chinese. But I don’t remember there being a German restaurant in Albuquerque – at least one I knew about.
So I didn’t really have any kind of frame of reference for what to expect in the way of food when we got to Germany in 1967. I am most happy to report that my experience with German food was off the charts! It was wonderful – or as I used to compliment the server – “Ausgezeichnet” (outstanding!!). That always got a chuckle from the server – whether it was my pronunciation or what the word means, I’m not sure. But I like to think it left a good impression.
And let me make this statement right now: we NEVER had a bad meal in any German restaurant – no matter where it was. It could have been in the town where we were living at the time – or it could have been along the roadside where we would stop as we were traveling. It was ALL good!
Our first experience was in the hotel where we were to stay for about a week when we first arrived in Wiesbaden – the American Arms Hotel. We ate many of our meals there and were pleased. Our military sponsors took us out to eat that first evening, and it was at the zum Keller in Wiesbaden. I had my first taste of schnitzel there, as well as the wonderful salad they make (you know – cucumbers and onions in a vinegar sauce on butter lettuce…yummm!), and the French fries (pomme frites). Wow…my mouth is watering just remembering!
Credit: Google Search
Credit: Google Search
In later years, when we returned for Fred’s second tour of duty in Germany, we found a wonderful restaurant, called Grimmingers, that was just down the street from our apartment. They had the most wonderful schnitzel there – and we each had our favorite. Fred always wanted the Jägerschnitzel (hunter’s schnitzel).
Credit: Google Search and Quick German Recipes
Our daughters both loved the Rahmschnitzel (topped with a cream sauce).
Credit: Google Search and German Culture
Unfortunately, I can’t remember the exact name of my favorite schnitzel, and it’s possible that it was a house speciality. It was the usual schnitzel with a couple of stalks of Spargle (white asparagus) on top, and covered with a cream sauce. Delicious! Also unfortunately, our daughter, Karen, told us following a visit to Heidelberg in recent years, that the restaurant is no longer there – it is now a bank! Shucks!
In a previous musing, I mentioned that we had a favorite Gasthause, the Schwartzeradler (Black Eagle) where we always stopped on our way to Rothenburg.
Credit: Google Search and swartzer_adler_rothenberg.com
It was in a very small village, right on the road we drove on. I believe we always got their schnitzel there, rather than trying to eat somewhere within the walled city of Rothenburg. Our girls didn’t understand that, until we told them that the “local” restaurant had to have good food, or it wouldn’t survive, while the restaurants within cities that attracted tourists didn’t – the tourists probably wouldn’t return, so it didn’t really matter how good the food was. It was an eatery that was well attended by the local population. If the locals didn’t like the food, they wouldn’t return – and this one was well-established.
I have nothing but good memories of food in Germany. It’s one of the things I miss the most about living there. We are grateful God allowed us that time in our lives – and the memories that accompany it.
Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .
Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.
After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.
I want to cry out “Help, I’m married to a man made of stone. I wish just once, on Valentine’s Day, he would display a little romance.”
Is romance what she really wanted? Here is the definition: Romance is the expressive and pleasurable feeling from an emotional attraction towards another person associated with love. (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance)
Who wants romance associated with love? We want true love, complete and everlasting. Let’s be real. From the beginning we women have been fooled by the longing for romance and mixed it up with love.
The woman at the well mentioned in the Bible has no name, possibly because she bears the name of most women today.
She’s hungry for acceptance, for fulfillment, wholeness, nurturing and lasting commitment. But many Valentine’s Days go by and the emptiness still aches.
Here are seven ways to find true love, the sincere kind of love that goes beyond Valentine’s Day’s fancy dinners and red roses.
Remember that what you want is not the feeling romance brings, but the love that commitment holds.
Resist the Hollywood kind of love and choose instead the forever kind of love from the Holy One.
Refrain from believing the lies that romance fills the emptiness.
Realize the Lover of your soul waits for you.
Receive the never-ending love Jesus offers you.
Revive the passion of love for Him who loved you first.
Reject Satan’s lies that lure you to relationships empty of love.
The woman standing beside the well missed all of the above. She longed for the human kind of love to soothe her lonely nights. Thus, her thirst was constant. Jesus knew. He answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water” (John 4:13-14).
Let’s Pray
Father how often we keep reaching out to the world for satisfaction, and cling to another human being to find true love. I choose to drink the water that will keep my heart hydrated not only on Valentine’s Day, but every moment where loneliness tries to come in. In Jesus’s name, amen
What is your heart thirsty for?
Who loves you with an everlasting love?
Have you found true love yet?
Janet
I invite you to dance with me—celebrating one of my books, “Contagious Courage: A 30-Day Journey to Overcoming Stress and Anxiety.” Get your copy HERE and tell your friends, too.
______________________________________
Did you know I wrote a book filled with words of encouragement, uplifting thoughts and illustrations of real-life triumph to empower you? Its title, Trials of Today, Treasures for Tomorrow: Overcoming Adversities in Life. You can get it HERE.
Looking for a speaker for your upcoming event? A great speaker makes the difference between a so-so event and one that shines with impact. I invite you to view one of my two-minute videos HERE.
Please share: Feel free to share Janet’s posts with your friends.
Some say she should be the last person to be dancing. Her life is summarized in this 3-minute video: http://bit.ly/1a8wGJR
Janet Perez Eckles’ story of triumph is marked by her work as an international speaker, #1 best-selling author, radio host, personal success coach and master interpreter. Although blind since 31, her passion is to help you see the best of life.
Have you ever gone looking for something, only to realize when you get to the room, you have to stop and ask yourself, “What am I here for?” The other day I was reading a book at my dining room table and wanted to underline and highlight a paragraph. I got up and headed for our studio to get a straight-edge and a highlighter. As I passed thru the kitchen, I happened to notice the clock on the stove read 9:43. When I got to the studio, I had to stop and ask myself, “What am I here for?” I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what I had come to the studio for. I had to return to the dining room to find out what I needed. As soon as I saw the book on the table, I remembered what I needed. Sound familiar? This sort of thing seems to be happening to me and my wife more often these days.
A friend of mine told me about this time when he went up stairs to get something, and by the time he got to the top of the stairs, he had forgotten what he was after. He had to go back down the stairs to the room where he had been working, before he remembered what he needed. Then he had to go back up the stairs to get what he had originally started for. That caused him to have to make two roundtrips to finally get what he was after. Sound familiar? He tells me this sort of thing is happening to him and his wife more often these days too.
So, what is going on? It seems like everyone I talk to these days (young or older) is having these same kinds of problems. Then someone suggested that it is that we have so much more to think about these days that our minds are cluttered. Someone else thought it was because we have stored so much ‘stuff’ in our brains that it takes time for our brains to sift thru all that ‘stuff’ to remember what we are looking for. It’s my opinion that we get distracted with so much that’s going on around us, that we forget what it is we want to remember.
Take for instance my example mentioned above. By looking at the clock on my stove, as I passed thru the kitchen, it might have caused me to think of something I was planning to do later that morning and wondering if I was going to have time to do that thing before lunch. My brain starts analyzing that question, and I might remember I need a special tool to complete that task, and there goes my memory of what I was headed to the studio to get. And of course, there may be any number of distractions like that before I get to the studio. It seems like it might be a matter of concentration for me. If I can only keep my mind on the task at hand and not let it be distracted by fleeting thoughts, sights, or sounds, I might be better off and remember the initial thing. So, what do you think? Do you have any thoughts or opinions on the subject? Come on, everyone has an opinion. Right?
We won’t even talk about forgetting names and places. That’s for another time and a whole nother blog. Have a great day and remember what you are there for. If I remembered all I wanted to say, then this is…
—– The End—–
Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 64 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing. He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville. Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.
DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn. She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”
I was hunting through some of my “stuff” recently, trying to find a particular picture to use in one of my posts. I was unable to find that picture, but I did come across something that my Mother had cut out and sent to me. I found it all too true to life – and unfortunately, I think I’ve made this same statement myself. I’m an “old lady” now (just over 80 years old now), so perhaps it really doesn’t apply to my life now, but it’s still something I could reconsider.
How does this apply to YOUR life, hm?
As a matter of fact, I’ve heard that the famous last words of a church that is declining are those same words – I’ve (we’ve) never done it that way before! So just not as individuals do we need to re-think our words, but perhaps as members of churches we need to re-think our position, and ask God’s guidance in what we do.
Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .
Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.
After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.
(C) Copyright 2012-2024 Old Things R New All rights reserved. This website is an Amazon affiliate and the income from sales helps to defray the cost of running the site.
Old Things R New 