I love this sentence so much: “You play, you fight, you cry, you marry, you work, you try your Grandma’s recipes, you do strength training b/c your dad tells you to.” Thanks, Claire!

Water moccasins are just horrifying. That’s the one kind of snake people always killed, growing up. They were always so damn big and full of hiss and thrash. But maybe I’m being unfair to the poor things. In your case, it invaded your home, so fairness goes out the window. But in my case, I’d watch boys find them in the creek and dispatch them. It’s a very strong childhood memory that means something I haven’t figured out, yet. Besides the obvious (primal need for man to kill snake). Something about the watching.

You’re getting so many different comments on this one b/c it’s a particularly rich post. If you go back to whip up some essays using these posts, pay special attention to this one.

I did take his advice. And for a while, I even drove to Atlanta to work out with the trainer he used. And yes, still doing it–twice a week. It is interesting what each of you comments on–especially with this post!

In the back of each cookbook, I included a plastic sleeve where I stashed a few of the original recipes… I’m so glad I took the time to pull it all together. Great to hear from you again, Karen–and all the way from Australia!

I love handwriting too, Terri. And how you can tell who a letter’s from just by the writing on the envelope. My grandmother was a schoolteacher so she had perfect penmanship.