By Sheri Hopkins, Lifestyle Contributor
Hello everyone! Beautiful weather we are having in the River Valley. I love this time of year. This week I am going to talk about my husband, bless his heart. This November he will have been gone eleven years. It sure does not seem that long. When you lose your spouse your life changes forever.
Now don’t get me wrong we were complete opposites, and he would drive me as crazy as a road lizard. I can just hear some of y’all saying that would have been a short drive. We had some knock down drag outs in our marriage, but we also had a lot of fun. My nephew, the Judge, told me one-time years ago, “If you would have killed him when you first thought about it you would have been out on good behavior.” The good behavior part was the problem, ha ha! I would have been on cell block C and they would have nicknamed me Maude.
I’m sure some of you have read this on Facebook, “Nobody told me that when you get a husband, the ears are sold separately.” This is a true statement. One day I was talking to Chuck and just a rattling on and on ninety to nothing, then I asked him a question about what I was talking about, and he had no clue. I said, “You don’t listen to anything I say!” He looked at me as serious as could be and said, “There is no possible way I could take in everything that comes out of your mouth.” I will give him credit for that statement, it’s true. We had a lot of adventures together. Some of his were a little wilder than mine.
Let me tell y’all about the time he almost went to prison. He had been working in Georgia, his job traveled a lot. From Georgia he went to Venezuela. He was on his way home from Venezuela and was in the airport in Florida. All of a sudden, he is whisked away to the back. They have him in this room and they start questioning him about a murder in Georgia. Yes, he had been in Georgia, but he hadn’t killed anyone. They raked him over the coals for a long time. He was actually scared. The man that was wanted had the same name and birthday as Chuck. Finally, a man came in and asked him to remove his shirt, so he does. Come to find out the man they were looking for had a tattoo on his side. Chuck Hopkins did not have any tattoos. That saved his life that day. They let him go. So, to all you young people getting tattoos, you may want to be careful if you ever fly to Florida. Not having a tattoo saved him from the rock. This is just one of his crazy stories. I have many more.
It’s almost time for pumpkin spice, apple cider and chili. I will be doing more fall recipes starting this week. This week’s recipe is a Cinnamon Toast Crunch Apple Dump Cake. It screams fall of the year. If you don’t like apple, exchange the apple pie filling for peach.
Cinnamon Toast Crunch Apple Dump Cake
2 cans apple pie filling 20 oz. size each
3 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal
1 1/2 sticks of butter, sliced
1 box vanilla cake mix (dry)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, spray your cake pan or dish with non-stick cooking spray. Layer the 3 cups of cereal in the bottom of your 9×13 inch baking dish. Add the canned apple pie filling (I like to cut my apples up to smaller pieces), spread it out evenly over the dry cereal. Spread the vanilla cake mix evenly on top of the apples. Add the sliced butter evenly over the dry cake mix. Bake in the oven for 45-55 minutes, ovens will vary just check it after about 40 minutes. You will be able to tell if it’s done. It will be nice and bubbly. Serve warm with ice cream. Have a nice week and remember always be kind!
