By Sheri Hopkins, Lifestyle Contributor
Hello everyone! Such beautiful fall weather we are having and a much-needed rain. I love this time of year and Halloween is Monday. I have all my full-size candy bought and ready for the little goblins, I can’t wait. I have cotton candy, sour punch straws, popcorn balls, candy bars, and ring pops. N, I’m not a witch, but I love seeing all the kids in their costumes, they are so cute.
This week I’m going to talk about my sweet momma. Today is her birthday, if she was alive she would have been 94 years old. She had Alzheimer’s and it is a horrible disease. Please don’t think I’m making fun of her when I tell some of the stories because if you didn’t laugh you would lose your mind and cry your eyes out.
One day we kept hearing a bird in the living room. I would randomly hear a bird and thought maybe there was a nest on the front porch, which turn out there was. We were sitting in the living room and I could really hear this bird, so I start looking around thinking it has to be in the house somewhere. I finally get closer to the sound and it appears to be coming from somewhere around mom. I decided to look in her purpose and low and behold she had a baby bird wrapped in a handkerchief inside her purse. I go and investigate and the nest had fallen on the porch and she found a baby bird that had fallen and she saved it. Mystery solved, there was a bird in my house. Bless her heart, she just wanted to save it.
One day Jimmy was pacing around the living room whining saying he was starving and wanting me to hurry up and cook them some dinner. Mom pipes us and says “Jimmy you will be lucky to get a glass of water in this house.” Jimmy has never let me live that down. Those that know me, know how I love to cook. It was so funny, we have laughed and laughed over that. This was one of her famous sayings, even before she had Alzheimer’s, she would always say when she heard about something that was crazy or dumb, “that’s just ignorance gone to seed.” It was usually about my niece’s ex-husband, I sure hope he don’t read this. Too late if he does.
Happy heavenly birthday momma. I can just picture Hazel Elmore playing the piano and mom singing heavenly praises.
This week’s recipe is a strawberry upside-down cake. I love anything strawberry. Who am I kidding I like anything sweet.
STRAWBERRY UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
2 cups fresh strawberries (sliced thin)
2 boxes strawberry jello (3 oz. each)
3 cups miniature marshmallows (optional)
1 strawberry cake mix prepared according to the box directions
Cool Whip or homemade Dream Whip
Take your two cups of strawberries and crush them with a potato masher or a fork. Pour them in a greased 9×13 pan (you may want to line it with parchment paper) sprinkle the dry jello over the top of the strawberries. Then sprinkle the marshmallows over the jello. Prepare the cake mix according to the directions. Pour over the marshmallows. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes and then run a knife around the edges of the cake and flip onto a serving tray. Refrigerate. Top with Cool Whip and enjoy. Keep stored in the refrigerator. If you don’t want to flip it, just serve it out of the pan you baked it in.
