My Mystery Adventure

Summers fly by so quickly. I hate how fast they vanish. I often think I’ll have more time in the summer to spend with my grandchildren and then, POOF, they are back in school. This year I was determined not to think about making time but to actually make it. Thus was born our mystery adventures.

A mystery adventure is one trip every week where Grandma Pat picks you up for the day and doesn’t tell you where you’re going. Yesterday, our mystery adventure was to a local hobby store for cake decorating supplies.

My ten-year-old granddaughter’s favorite TV show happens to be about cake decorating. When I told her what I had planned, she squealed, “Can we use Fondant?” I said yes and she actually jumped for joy. Who knew?

I thought the sugar high came AFTER eating the cake.

I confess that I have never done more that slap frosting from Betty Crocker’s cans onto a cake and called it good. My local grocery store has a great bakery where they make cakes with Fondant, so why should I go to all that mess and trouble. Well, as it turns out, the mess is the best part of a mystery adventure.

Icing bags in hand, my granddaughter and I spent an hour trying out all the tips in our kit and licking our fingers. We frosted a cake shaped like a castle, rolled and cut Fondant into flowers, and added candy unicorns for good measure. It was an afternoon of fun that was over all to soon. I hope she never forgets it.


Happily, I sent the cake home with her and her parents. I had the fun, let them have the calories.

What are some of your fond memories of time spent with your grandparents? I’d love to hear your stories.

Ask Elnora--Are Christian Romance Novels bad for us?? Lenora Worth

Hello, my lovelies. Elnora has had a good week. I can see the end of the tunnel on the work in progress. It's all downhill from here. Whew. I'm pushing through the black moment and into my happily-ever-after. And we do still believe in happily-ever-after, don't we? Let's be honest, when we read a love story and reach the end, we HOPE the couple will be happy for a long, long time, right? But we leave them at a good place. We can't predict what will happen the day after we close the book.

But we can hope. Elnora so believes in hope, faith, and love. If we don't hope that a couple will make it, then alas, all is lost. When I married my dear Big Daddy right out of high school, I was scared and unsure of my future. But I HOPED that we'd make our marriage work. That doesn't mean every day was like a fairy tale with flowers blooming and animals chirping and following Elnora around the house. No prince put a shoe on my foot. No, darlings. My prince went to work in the car factory and came home tired and smelling of industrial paint. My prince made sure we had food on the table and a roof over our heads. And in return, I tried to be the princess he could admire. I grew strong and found my own style and ... I followed my own dreams so I wouldn't have to be so dependent on him for the things only I could make happen. I followed my dreams, but I was settled in reality--the reality of a marriage with ups and downs and all sorts of adventures. So I ask, dear darling people, is it so very bad for women to read Christian fiction? Or are we as smart and capable as Elnora believes us to be? Are we smart enough to know that novels are good clean fun (but the real world is still there when we reach The End?) I believe Christian women are smart enough to know ... in a happy marriage a prince can sometimes seem like a frog and a princess can easily turn into a diva, but we love each other, flaws and all. Most of the women I know have no illusions about life and what is required of them. They love their husbands and their families and ... they have the fairy tale, they accept the adventures, good and bad. They have someone to love, they have faith, and they have hope ... always. And they have these values even if things in real life go terribly wrong.

Please, someone tell me I'm not wrong? 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 states: "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

That is why we write love stories. How can that be bad for anyone?