The photo was taken in Natchitoches, Louisiana. It’s pronounced Nac.a.desh. The old legend is that there were twin boys born to a native American chief. He wanted to grant each child land. So, Natchitoches was granted land on the east side of the red river and Nacogdoches was granted the land on the west side of the river. Nacogdoches is a town in Texas. Might be more legend than true, but it’s what we were always told, and two weeks ago, my husband and I visited Natchitoches for the first time. The two towns are really quaint and both use the same color brick for the cobbled streets.

I have a new grand boy, and now have three grand boys and two grand girls. They are all so sweet and fun to be around. Their ages start at ten, then six, five, almost two, and almost one. What a sweet pack of good kids. I do not post their names or their pictures on the internet, not on Twitter, Insta-gram, or FB. I know all my friends would rave over them, but I don’t want them to ever end up on inter-webs of any kind. It’s called protection.

I haven’t quit reading. I read between one and two books a week. There has only been one book I quit reading because the violence in the book was directed towards women and their little ones. Not something I want to read about – it’s too much like non-fiction. My tastes are still all about the mystery. If you want to see my book reviews, please become a “friend” on Goodreads. Here is a link to copy and paste: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8320107.R_L_Nolen

I am still cooking my mother’s recipes. My next installment from my mother’s cookbook will be her recipe for dinner rolls. I’ve already made them, took the photos then had to get a new computer. Sometimes everything will not transfer over to a new computer. I believe the photos did transfer and were put somewhere I can’t seem to locate. So my plan is just to start over and redo the photos. Of course this will never be what you would call a hardship. The dinner rolls are good, too, so not a problem to re-create.

Instead, I’m going to make my mother’s favorite holiday delight, a Christmas Plum pudding. And I’ve finally figured out how to transfer photos to my desktop.

The above photo is me and my older brother Bobby. He passed away unexpectedly September 2021.

Since we spoke last, I’ve had some health issues, not Covid. I did get the jab and a year later, my arm still hurts. Weird, but true. I’ll be honest the thing that happened is a congenital knee problem. I called it my Knee-monia. At the end, my knees were bone on bone, but my right one developed bone spurs and yowzers, I could barely walk. Knee replacement time last November. They don’t ever tell you how very painful bone surgery of any kind is. I hope I never develop bone spurs on the left side because I’d rather not ever go through that again. Alls well now.

I’m in the process of copying all my old transcripts to my computer to get rid of paper files. Much of it is painful prose, but I’m working to make it better. Perhaps my next project will be to put some of it here, after it’s cleaned up. Not all of it. Sometimes there’s only so much that can be done! Stay tuned, beautiful reader.