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I can’t believe how incredibly busy my summer has been. In a way I am grateful the end of summer is here, yet sad in another way. First off, the magazine interview and photo shoot was a success. I had to make five dishes for the shoot and all turned out wonderfully. The best part was all of us sitting around laughing, having fun and enjoying the food after the photo shoot was over. So be sure to head to your favorite magazine shop in October and check out the Carmel Magazine where lil ol me will be featured along with five yummy dishes from my cookbook.


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In self proclaimed faith healer neighbor news, you know how I mentioned that they haven’t files a Federal 1040 taxes since the mid 80’s and now they owe $125,000? Well the IRS has finally levied their property, or will in 30 days actually. So finally they hired a lawyer to try and save their house. I guess they realized they couldn’t pray the government away after all. God will do a lot, but I don’t think he is fond of helping those that will not help themselves. And lest we forget that little verse in the bible that goes something like “Pay unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.”

And closer to home, my eldest is out of town for work for the next couple of weeks (hurray!). Although he has that new car, he kept his beatup pickup truck. Since the magazine crew was coming he decided to park the beatup pickup truck in the driveway of his girlfriends house, or rather her mothers house since she lives with her mother right now. (must be contagious). Her mother lives across the street from Jas’s elementary school in a nice neighborhood. The girlfriend calls him Thursday morning and tells him that his pickup truck has been stolen from her driveway sometime in the middle of the night. The bad part? El Dumbo has had over $1,000 worth of stereo equipment in the beatup pickup truck. I never said he was bright. First off, we all think something fishy is going on with the theft of the pickup truck and his girlfriend is not telling the truth about what really happened. Thursday afternoon the cops found the pickup truck on the South side of the city where it had run out of gas. I guess criminals don’t like to gas up stolen vehicles when they are on joy rides. Stupid is as stupid does, as Forrest Gump likes to say.

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My son in law, (known as Soldier Boy to some of you) who has been on a Tour Of Duty for the last 13 months in Iraq was air-lifted out of Baghdad to the green zone for surgery due to a staff infection. We found out today that he is currently in the "green zone" and is being flown to a hospital in Landstuhl Germany.

My daughter lives in Schweinfurt Germany on an Army base that is 3 hours from Landstuhl. A Sgt is driving her to the hospital in Landstuhl as soon as Soldier Boy hits German soil. She will be staying on the base in Landstuhl for several days while he undergoes an operation on his arm for the staff infection. It's a little confusing to me, but she said that he will be getting an MRI when he gets to Landstuhl, followed by a surgery. She doesn't know what kind yet as it depends upon the MRI, but he will definitely have the balls removed from his arm that were placed there some years ago and possibly something else. I know, balls in the arm? I had to giggle at that too. I'm trying not to let my weird sense of humor run amuk. Bear with me people. LOL

In all seriousness, please keep Ben and Brooke in your prayers. Things are pretty scary right now.

Just a quick note to let ya’ll know what has been going on. I seem to be the Paula Deen of the Midwest these days. I had a call from a magazine today and they are sending a writer and a photographer out next week to do a spread on me and my cookbook. Can you believe it? Me! Little old me! I am still in shock! It will be in the October issue of the magazine. I am making five dishes for them to photograph. The cool part about it is the hubster doesn’t mind that I am on a new dishes hunt now. After all, I “need” it for the photo shoot. (Yeah, right). So I am looking at hand painted Mexican pottery and fiesta ware. I am in my glory. I love buying dishes. In fact, I have a set of dishes for every season and more. It’s true! I have Debbie Mum snowman dishes set, Debbie Mum BBQ design dishes set, and tons, tons more. And kitchen gadgets? Oh, I am the queen of those.

Now I have to shop for a new outfit because of course, I have nothing to wear!

How many people does it take to give one 70 pound dog a bath? Well, one hubster to hold the dogs head, one dog groomer to scrub the dog, one 7-year-old granddaughter to poke her grandpa in the belly every time he’s not looking, one groomers boyfriend which is also the 7-year old daddy and last but not least, one exhausted Gwanma to make sure the aforementioned dog doesn’t get loose and shake his wet fur all over her bathroom. Summary – five people. Who would have thought it?

It’s that time of year again kiddies. Yup, Indiana State Fair time. Time for this hefty Helga to get her hefty buttocks to the fair and get a pork tenderloin sandwich, roasted ear of corn from the Nora Lions club and super huge bag of kettle corn from pioneer village. And I’ll even throw in a cherry/grape snow cone for good measure. Not to mention viewing the world’s largest hog. That’s always a yearly treat to see the world’s largest hog, which is undoubtedly covered with the worlds largest flies.

One thing that you can count on each year is that at Indiana State Fair time we will be experiencing a heat wave. I have yet to see it any other way. That just means I will need to have more snow cones as far as I am concerned.

You must have thought I ran away. I wish I had some days. It has been an incredibly busy summer and I am shocked to realize it is over and that school starts next week. So much has been happening.

First of all, most recently there was the concussion I have. Almost two weeks ago I got a concussion grocery shopping. It could only happen to me. I was putting groceries in the SUV’s hatchback style trunk, and went to slam it down. Somehow my head was in the way and I ended up slamming it into my head, knocking myself out briefly. As I said, it could only happen to me. And speaking of misfortunate things, I am still in the midst of that damnable IRS audit and am ready to move to a third world country. At least in those places you know you don't have any rights. Here they pretend that you do have rights while you actually don't. It's like dangling a carrot in front of a horses nose.


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Other exciting news is I have a new book out. It’s a children’s book. And even better news about the book is it is co-authored with my seven year old granddaughter Jas. It is titled A Pony Named Penny and ya’ll should rush right out and buy it. It won’t hit the bookstore for two more weeks, but it is available online now. You can see a preview of A Pony Named Penny at http://stores.lulu.com/daisy8972.

It's kind of late and I still have a headache from my head injury so I will keep this post short. And I promise to the blogger Gods to start posting more regularly again. Hail to thee oh blogger Gods. LOL