That's What They Said.

-"A mere friend will agree with you, but a real friend will argue." Russian Proverb
-"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." Michelangelo
-"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." Elie Wiesel
-"Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief." William Faulkner
-"As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary." Ernest Hemingway
-"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's." J. D. Salinger
-"Is the chemical aftertaste the reason why people eat hot dogs, or is it some kind of bonus?" Neil Gaiman
-"I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it." Edgar Allan Poe
-"You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country." Robert Frost
-"It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it's one damn thing over and over." Edna St. Vincent Millay
-"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." Abraham Lincoln
-"Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind." Thomas Jefferson
-"A good indignation brings out all one's powers." Ralph Waldo Emerson

To Stop, or Not to Stop?

After all of my years driving (not that many really) I have come to the conclusion that as a driver each person is either a stopper, or not a stopper.
Very simply this means if you come upon an accident that has recently happened on the side of the road (you didn't see it, you have just came upon it), you either stop, or you think to yourself "well, that guy there stopped, they don't really need me", or " I will call 911 in case they don't have a cell phone, but I am already passed them...", and "they are out and walking around they must be fine".
This also applies to when people are pulled over to the side of the road with broken down cars. There are stoppers and non-stoppers. Now I don't claim to know what makes the difference between the two people. What makes someone a stopper? Did they have someone stop for them in a moment of need and now they too have become a devoted stopper? Were they always a stopper?
I am not a stopper. I have never had a horrible wreck right in front of me. I do believe I would stop then, but when there are people on the side of the road with flat tires, broken down cars, and other vehicle breakdowns I don't stop. When I see people with vehicular issues such as an accident that is fairly fresh, I don't stop. My main thought is 'what could I do to help them anyway?' I see other people stopped and that is enough for me to keep driving. I was raised in the time of the Jacob Wetterling mothers. Every stranger was a danger to your child. This was carried over into adulthood with some of my generation, especially women, we were told that if you stopped when a car was pulled over to the side of the road it was an easy way to get abducted and raped. Is it no wonder I have never stopped!? What with that thought bouncing around in my subconscious?
So are you a stopper? Or Not? If so Why or Why not?

From Generation to Generation.

When my mother was little, her grandmother taught her how to make fresh bread from scratch. This was something that my mother used to do all the time when I was little. She would bake fresh bread, caramelized sticky buns, and cinnamon rolls, pies and cakes. Then she became sick, discovered that not only was she so allergic to yeast that she should not be touching it let alone eating it, but also that she should not be eating wheat flour products of any kind. So, the baking pretty much stopped. I mean would you want to bake a bunch of yummy food you couldn't eat?

So, this year I have decided to learn how to bake my great-grandmothers bread recipe. Whenever my mother made it when we were little she would make enough for a pan of buns, and for at least two loaves of bread and we were lucky if it all lasted a week. It was so delicious. There is nothing in the world that tastes like homemade bread, this homemade bread.

I have a bit of a head start as I used to help my mother make it when I was younger. I would help her knead the dough, and stir until it got too stiff and she would have to take over.

After I get the bread recipe down, I will have to try to tackle her pie recipe next. It is also a family favorite.