Author: Donna Chandler

By: Donna Hale Chandler

I’m thinking of particularly high heels worn by women when they want to dress to impress. You may be confused as to why these would be considered ‘noisy shoes’. If so, let me ask you this, have you ever been so sick that you were hospitalized. Have you ever tried to rest in a hospital? Just about the time you doze off a cheerful nurse comes to draw blood or check vitals. This constant intrusion on your sleep may be annoying but we all know it’s necessary.

After a day of constant in and out by staff, it’s finally evening, getting dark outside. You turn down those bright hospital lights, close you door and try to drift off to dreamland. And that’s when you hear it — high heels walking down the hallway toward someone’s room. They are loud – click, click, click on the tiled floor. Your eyes are once again opened, awake, sleep interrupted.

At last the high heels seem to have reached their destination and it’s quiet once again. Lean back, relax, clear your mind, close your eyes, sleep is not far away. AND THERE IT IS AGAIN —- click, click, click — they are returning! You wonder about these women in the hospital hallway, in the high heeled shoes. Are they so clueless that they can’t fathom that the click, click, click is disturbing to the ailing patients or are high heels just naturally noisy to distraction.

Who invented high heels anyway? The person was obviously HEALTHY. Perhaps a warning label – “Not to be worn in hospital hallways” should be required.

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Gram use’ta say

“You don’t marry your sweetie’s relatives,
but it’s a must that you get along with them.”

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By: Donna Hale Chandler

I can remember as a child there was most always a pitcher of sweet tea in the refrigerator, particularly in the summer. For special dinners, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc., the fancy crystal glasses came out – only for the adults, of course. The children drank milk from jelly glasses so if one hit the floor, nothing of value was lost.

The ‘brewing’ of tea always seemed to be quite a production to me. Boil water. Place 3, or was it 4 teabags in the teapot. The tea bag strings with the label on the end must hang over the edge and held in place by the lid. The boiling water is poured into the tea pot, over the tea bags and allowed to steep. How long to steep? Always a mystery, but evidently if allowed to steep too long, the tea was too strong, steep not long enough and the tea was too weak. My mother must have had in inner timer because she knew exactly when that tea should be poured into a pitcher where it was immediately sweetened before placing it in the refrigerator.

If a guest wanted unsweetened tea — well that NEVER happened because tea wasn’t ‘finished’ unless it was sweetened and letting each person sweeten their own was unheard of, unless you were drinking hot tea and only rich people drank hot tea. Working folk drank coffee, black but we’re talking about tea.

For a treat my granny would have a tea party with me when I visited. She would pour hot tea into a pretty tea cup; make quite a show of stirring in a teaspoon of sugar, no more than 1 teaspoon. Then she would saucer her tea. Don’t know what that is? Well, it takes the ‘fancy’ right out of tea party because that’s when you pour a bit of the hot tea into the saucer under the cup. Holding the tea cup in your left hand, you blow on the saucer of tea to cool it and then drink it from the saucer. This is done until the tea is cool enough to drink straight from the cup. My granny was the only person I ever saw drink hot tea and the only person I ever saw who ‘saucered’ their tea. She was one special lady.

I still enjoy sweet tea and am thankful that it can be purchased already made at the grocery store. With my cooking skills, I’d surely burn the water.

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Grams use’ta say

“A good kiss must last at least 10 seconds.”

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By: Donna Hale Chandler

I believe I’ve already established that the kitchen holds many challenges for me.  With Thanksgiving just around the corner, my now-adult children enjoy remembering the year that Mom nearly burned down the house.  Of course with each passing year the story gets wilder but basically facts are facts and you can’t argue with the truth.

At the time of The Great Turkey Fire we lived in Michigan where there was already a chill in the air and our heat had been turned on in the house.  It was going to be just the four of us for Thanksgiving dinner.  As a working mom, I would often over-compensate on holidays, trying to alleviate the guilt that would, at times raise, it’s ugly head scolding me for working so many hours, etc.

Naturally I had a list of foods to prepare.  It was going to be a feast – turkey with all the trimmings – enough to feed an army.  Watching the clock as our bellies started to grumble in anticipation, I decided to peek in the oven and see if the turkey had started to brown and if the little ‘button’ had popped out, which is pretty much the only way I would know if it was ready.

As  I eased open the door, flames rushed out toward my face.  Yikes!  I jumped back, letting the oven door slam shut as I yelled, “Fire!”  The kids came running to see what was the excitement was about.  My husband never moved a muscle from his recliner in the family room.  Disasters in the kitchen were an ordinary occurrence to him and he was not about to miss a touchdown.

I tried to peek again and from what I could tell, I’d used a pan that too small for the turkey and grease has spilled over onto the bottom of the oven.  My mind swirled with what to do for a grease fire.  Water?  No.  Baking powder, baking soda, salt?  Maybe.  I grabbed a box of each, quickly opened the oven door and threw a box of each item onto the flames, AND the turkey.  I have no idea which product worked but the fire went out.

I gently took the turkey out of the oven, wiped off as much of the mess as I could, poured out what grease was still in the pan, and as the button hadn’t popped yet, I sat it right back in the powder-covered oven thinking “Well, that should prevent another fire.  I’ll clean it tomorrow (or the next day)

The end result was a happy Thanksgiving and now the children had an exciting Fire Story to tell their friends plus a memory that keeps popping out like a button on a turkey year after year.

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Grams use’ta say

“The happiness in your life depends upon
the quality of your thoughts.”

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By:  Donna Hale Chandler

I started shopping with coupons years ago, primarily at the grocery store. No matter now painstakingly I prepared for shopping day, I never seemed to be organized enough. I would spend hours scouring the newspapers for coupons. I’d sit at the dining room table with my scissors snipping away. Sometimes a page had coupons on both sides. This slowed down the process considerably, because then decisions had to be made. Which coupons were  the most important, or did I want 3 coupons from one side of the page and 4 coupons from the other side. It’s a process that takes time and talent.

Once in the grocery store it’s likely that I would discover that the money-saving slips of paper that I collected over the weeks were home on the kitchen counter. If I actually made it to the store with coupons in hand, they were never organized enough. I would be standing in the middle of the aisle trying to sort through these little scraps of different sized papers to find the ketchup coupon. Was it for Heinz or Hunts?

My ‘system’ was taking at least 1/2 day of my precious time off work. To make the shopping experience even more exciting, I’ve been known to accidently drop that wad of coupons on the floor. It’s amazing how far those little rascals can scatter and how difficult it is to pick that thin paper up from a sparkling clean smooth surface. I would notice other ladies whipping from aisle to aisle with their little plastic coupon holder attached to the handle of their cart and think, “Now there goes a Professional, for sure!”

Just minutes before the store manager was ready to accuse me of loitering because I’d been in his store so long, I would pull up to the check-out counter, unload my cart, and hand over the now sweaty, wrinkled coupons. With a slight frown the cashier usually handed back about half of them with an announcement, “These are expired.” I don’t know why this should make a grown woman hang her head in shame but it does. “Honest, Miss Cashier, I wasn’t trying to cheat the store out of 50 cents. I swear I wasn’t!”

These days, however, I am a member of the 21st century with my smartphone that is attached to my right hand at all times. Not only did I find the handy dandy Publix Shopping List App, I found their digital coupons. My scissors are now comfortably nestled in the Junk Drawer (a subject for another day). Before I head to the store, I go to the site, click on each coupon I want to use and a true blue miracle happens. All of those checked coupons suddenly appear on my Publix Shopping List — in the order of the aisles. It is a wonderful thing to behold for sure. Now perhaps a harried shopper will look over at me and think, “Now there goes a Professional for sure!”

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Gramps use’ta say
R.L.King2012 #354

About: Optimism

“Though frequently well hidden,
every negative also has a positive

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By:  Donna Hale Chandler

I love homemade bread, the smell as it bakes, and the way the butter melts when it’s still warm.  Yum.  As I went through one of my many precious cookbooks, I found a recipe for bread baked in a coffee can in a crockpot.  I read the recipe several times, completely intrigued by the idea.  It seemed to be simple enough for even me.  After all it’s pretty hard to mess up a crockpot recipe.

For once I had every ingredient listed, even an empty Maxwell House coffee can.   I followed the instructions exactly, sprayed the inside of the can with Pam, mixed everything together, poured the batter into the can, placed the lid on the crockpot, set it on high and sat back to wait the specified three hours.  Soon the smell began to escape the pot and wander through the house making my mouth water.  It smelled like it was a success.  I crossed my fingers and continued to wait.

When the timer went off, my sweetie and I stood side by side as I removed the lip and peeked inside.  What we saw would warm anyone’s heart.  The bread was perfect!  Carefully lifting the coffee can out of the crockpot and tipping it, the bread slid right out, a picture of beauty.  After cooling just a tad, we sliced off a couple of pieces and it was melt-in-your-mouth good.  Had I actually been successful in the kitchen?  Well, not really.

After the crockpot cooled, as I prepared to put it away, I glanced inside.  Oh dear, what is that inside on the bottom?  It’s yellow.  The inside bottom of my crockpot was never yellow before, was it?  I didn’t think so.  Sweetie was called to the scene. He looked in and verified that yes, the bottom is yellow.  Did the coffee can melt?  No, the Maxwell can isn’t yellow, it’s blue.  I gingerly put my hand inside to touch this mystery yellow.  If felt like melted plastic and when I pulled on it, it lifted right out.

Strange, where did this come from?  What a puzzle?  I decided to pull the can out of the recycle bin and see if it had a yellow bottom that I had never noticed.  As I held the can in my hands, it finally hit me.  The plastic TOP of the Maxwell Coffee can was yellow.  When I took off the top, I put in on the bottom of the can, as is my habit, since I tend to lose most anything that’s not nailed down.  The plastic top melted onto the bottom of the crockpot as the bread baked.

Oh well, another good laugh at my expense – I followed the recipe exactly.  It’s not my fault that it was not specific about discarding the coffee can lid instead of baking it.

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Gramps use’ta say
R.L.King2012 #367

About: Apology’s

“Forgiveness can’t change what was,
but could change what will be.”

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