By Sheri Hopkins,
Lifestyle Contributor
Hello everyone! We have had spring and now we are back to winter here in Arkansas. I like living in a state where the weather is unpredictable. It keeps the excitement going, never boring. I hope ya’ll had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. Sherri and Justin Weaver have always made my Valentine’s Day special since Chuck passed away. This year, I got beautiful flowers and balloons and a pretty Hobo purse. I was so excited; they are so thoughtful.
Speaking of Justin Weaver, have ya’ll ever heard him tell a story? He is hilarious. We had our Valentine’s Day Church dinner last night and he had us rolling with his stories. I have to tell ya’ll the story he told. It probably won’t be as funny as listening to him tell it. He had to go to McAlister, OK to a meeting, so he stopped in a small town at a diner to have breakfast. He said the waitress takes his order and he orders the “Big Hoss.” It’s a breakfast special. He gets eggs, pancakes, gravy, biscuits and bacon. I don’t know what all, but he got a lot of food. The sweet waitress brings his food out and he looks down and sees something on his pancake. Low and behold, it was one of the waitresses’ false eyelashes. Justin, being Justin, didn’t have the heart to tell her she had lost her eyelash on his pancake. I have laughed till I hurt over that and still laughing today. Things like that always seem to happen to him. Good laughs, with good friends.
Back to me and Valentine’s Day. I had scheduled an appointment to volunteer at the college for the students to do a heart ultrasound. It’s in Chaffee Crossing, and let me tell ya, I felt like I was in a corn maze. I could not find this place. I’m so used to having my kids with me and they will put in the directions in my phone, and it leads me right to where I’m going. Honestly I did not know how to do it. I finally found a building that had a nice lady there. She put it in my phone and it led me straight to where I needed to be. Everyone was so nice and said my heart looked good. I left there and went to pick up lunch for Sandy, Gina and myself. Tracy Epperson bought our lunch for us for Valentine’s Day. I’m in the turning lane and a big Dodge Ram rear ends me. I just slammed it into park and jumped out. He says, “did I bump you?” I said, “bump me? You cracked my bumper.” This just had me all unnerved. He says, pull over to the parking lot at the gas station. What did I do? I ran over the curb at the gas station, and I looked in my rearview mirror and the guy behind me did the same thing. He was a nice man with a super nice Dodge truck that come to find out, Justin Weaver had sold to him, small world. Ended up having a great day after all that. That evening, my three E’s brought me in some Dove Chocolate to top it off. I made this cherry chip cake for a friend for Valentine’s Day, and they said it was a keeper.
CHERRY CHIP CREAM CHEESECAKE
1 cherry chip cake mix
1 jar of maraschino cherries
1 8 oz. cream cheese
1/4 cup maraschino cherry juice
Powdered sugar
Mix the cherry cake mix according to the box directions, but instead of a cup of water, use about 1/4 cup water and the rest cherry juice and bake according to directions. While the cake is cooling, make the cream cheese icing. Mix the cream cheese, cherry juice and butter. Add the powdered sugar till it is thick enough to spread, around four cups. Just add a cup at a time till you get it to the consistency you like. I added a little more cherry juice and I took some of the cherries and put them in my chopper and chopped them up fine and added them to the icing. Enjoy this quick and easy recipe. Have a good week!
