Rum Balls

My mother was a fantastic cook while I was growing up.  I’m not talking your average fantastic – I’m talking feed the neighborhood and they talk about it for years afterwards fantastic.  She didn’t start out that way.  She even tried to use not knowing how to cook as an excuse to not get married.  My father, however, was so in love with her that he convinced her to marry him anyways and then taught her how to cook. 

We ate well.  My mother, as with most fantastic cooks, had her recipes in her head and not on a recipe card.  The secret ingredient is usually the love that’s added.  For many years, I took it for granted and I didn’t learn to really cook until many years after I moved away from home.  Now, I love to cook and I start to salivate and crave some of the foods that I grew up with.  She is 87 years old now and I’m afraid that some of the recipes will be gone forever.

Over the years, I’d ask my mother, “Remember when you cooked ‘fill in the blank’.  How did you make that?”  She almost always would reply, “I don’t know”.    Over time, I started reading more into her “I don’t know”.  It wasn’t an ‘I don’t know but I wish I could remember’ kind of ‘I don’t know’.  It was more of an ‘I couldn’t care less if I never make that again’ reply. 

Finally, I confronted her and she admitted to me that she always hated cooking.   Gasp!  The horror!   She cooked daily through the entire 17 years I was at home and for the 7 years that my sister enjoyed meals before I was even born.  To think that she hated that – Yikes!

So now, I cook for her.  I don’t always have the exact recipe but I do try to cook with love.  I think sometimes that makes all the difference.

Here’s a recipe for her Rum Balls ---- this is a recipe that was handed down to her from an old friend over 45 years ago.  Luckily, this was written on a recipe card.       For that, I’m grateful.

Rum Balls

2 c. (12 oz) chocolate chips
1 c. Coca-Cola or Pepsi
6 Tblsp light corn syrup
1 Tblsp rum extract
1 Tblsp real rum (if not using real rum, add an additional Tblsp of rum extract)
15 oz. finely crushed vanilla wafer crumbs
4 c. sifted powder sugar
2 c. finely chopped walnuts
decorating sprinkles

Melt chips in double boiler. Remove from heat.  Add cola, corn syrup & rum.  Stir in crumbs, sugar and walnuts.  Cover and chill for 2 hours.  Form into balls (1 rounded teaspoon) between palms of hands.  Roll in decorating candy.  Place in single layer on waxed paper or parchment paper in shallow pan.  Chill overnight.

This is what they look like:

They don't last long:



The Light

Why are there always pictures of happy people on the covers of nursing home brochures?  That’s not what the residents typically look like….. at least not in my experience.  My father is in a Skilled Nursing home right now for rehab after a recent hospital stay.  My father, as I mentioned in my reason for my ‘Experimenting with Gratitude’, has Alzheimer’s.  A few months ago, he had pneumonia.  He only has one kidney, can’t empty his bladder on his own, and therefore, has a foley catheter inserted at all times.  His short term memory is gone and his long term memory has also dwindled to near nothing.  He has no quality of life.  How would anyone expect him to look like the faces on the brochure covers? 

I visit him every day.  Not because he remembers who I am (on any given day, he might think I’m his daughter, sister, wife, friend) but because I remember who he is…..or at least was.  My father was a hard working man who believed his family was his most prized asset in the world.  He spoke three languages fluently, and now he utters one word replies. 

He has lost connection with most of his world.  But, through my caring for him for the last three years, we’ve developed a strong bond.  Even when I have a bad day, I fake it for his sake.  I leave my troubles at the door and greet him with a smile and a hug.  Some days, we don’t use words and just communicate with our eyes, a touch of the arm, a kiss on his forehead, or a pat on his hand.  He knows I understand him because I reassure him every day that “we’re a team”.  He believes me.  And that makes all of the difference.  Even when he has a good day, he doesn’t look like the brochure covers.

I know my father and I see him light up.  And, that is what keeps me going. 

I relayed this experience to a friend and he replied, “Your father does not ‘light up’ when he sees you.  He reflects the light you bring.” 

This was by far one of the greatest compliments I could have received.  This sentiment will stay with me always.  For that, and for the time with my father, I am grateful!

Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light.... Albus Dumbledore

Smile A Little Smile For Me

Recently, on a sleepy Sunday morning, my husband sat in his recliner flipping through the television channels and I sat on my own recliner in the opposite corner of the room.  I had my laptop on my lap and was working on a Jigzone.com puzzle.  I looked up just as he was zooming past the OWN network and Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday was on the air.  I didn’t know the speaker but I yelled, “Hang on! Slow down!”   He did slow down – not long enough for me to find out who the speaker was – but long enough for me to get the gist of her message.  She related a story of looking for something joyful and not going home until she found it.  She found happiness on one particular day in the form of elephants.  That’s all that I caught before my husband grabbed the remote and clicked away.

Although I didn’t hear the entire message, I decided to put that thought into practice.  I was not going to go home today until day one of my experiment with gratitude was done.

I went to the grocery store today.  I hate the grocery store.  The produce isn’t always fresh.  The prices are too high.  The cashiers are grumpy.  I looked for items on my shopping list that the cooking channel assured me could be found at my local grocer.  They could not.  I wasn’t feeling warm and fuzzy.  I could have changed my attitude on any of the above to find my gratitude but…… well, let me remind you that I’m not always good at this gratitude attitude.

I was determined to find smiles in the faces of strangers.  I went through the aisles, glancing but not making eye contact with the other shoppers.  I was going to catch someone smiling.  That would satisfy my experiment. 

Nobody was smiling.

Then, I became obsessed.  It became a science project to get them to smile.  ‘Darn It!  They will smile and they will like it!  Darn It!’  I laughed at my own determination and you know what?? When I smiled, someone smiled back at me.  So I smiled at another, and was smiled at again.  Every smile that I showed was reciprocated.  The grumpy cashier even added a “Have a good day” with her smile. 

A smile is one of those things that you can give and still keep.  For that, I’m grateful.

'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone can say.  I say that one a lot.  Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding... Alice Walker

We can complain that rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice that thorn bushes have roses... Abraham Lincoln

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation... Brian Tracy