I’m posting the Food Quote Meme on this blog this week just because this was our funniest meal time this week. Earlier this week I made pork chops and spinach for dinner. It was an uneventful meal, one that we have at least once a month because it’s fast and easy to prepare after I get home from work. While we were eating dinner, my daughter received a picture text from her Aunt Sherry. Her Aunt Sherry and cousin Valerie were at Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion having dinner and they sent a photo of their entree, Rustic Grilled Pork Tenderloin (photo #1).

My daughter Jade, like most of us in the family, loves food. We become most animated when talking about food. So to tease her, her aunts would sometimes send her photos of what they’re eating especially if it’s something really good or if it’s something that they know she would drool over. So when my daughter received photo #1 in the middle of our mediocre pork chop dinner, she picked up the biggest pork chop from the pile on the platter in the middle of the table and plopped it onto a similarly shaped plate as the one the tenderloin was served in, and sent it to her aunt.

Sherry and Valerie had a good laugh over that humongous piece of fried meat in the middle of the plate (photo #2), with Valerie texting back with: “OMG, what the heck is that?” By this time, we too were all giggling while we were eating. Sherry and Valerie were at their table at Roy’s too, giggling over the comparison and attracting the attention of other diners with their silliness.

A few minutes later, they texted again. This time with a photo of their dessert (photo #3), Roy’s Famous Chocolate Lava Cake. Well we hadn’t finished eating our pork chop dinner yet and I didn’t cooked anything for dessert anyway. So we were scrambling for ideas on what to send them next. Then we had an idea! Jade pulled out another square plate and drizzled some Hershey’s chocolate syrup. I grabbed an apple from the bowl at the center of the table and cut it in half then plopped it in the middle of the plate. Jade took a photo (photo #4) with her cell phone and sent it back to her aunt and cousin. They texted back, “OMG, we are dying here!!! This is hilarious!”

We were also laughing so hard, I had tears in my eyes, imagining those two in their fancy schmanzy restaurant and Jade had a comeback for every dish they sent. LOL! Her Aunt Sherry made the collage of the photos they sent back and forth and she said, “LMAO during dinner was priceless….. made dinner more fun and enjoyable!”

It sure did. We had a great dinner and I bet we didn’t even pay as much as they did.

I was cleaning out my emails the other day and I happened by this email from my youngest daughter from when she was eight years old and we finally let her have a GMAIL account. She sent me the following from her newly created email account.

FROM THE CLONE:
Thank you for gmail, thank you thank you thank you!
I ever love you so!
I love you, I love you!
And you helped me type when I couldn’t spell,
and you’ll always know,
that I love you so,
and that,
your the best mother I’ll ever know.

To which I answered:

FROM HER MOMMA:
You’re welcome, your welcome!
I do it cause I love you
I do it cause you smile
I do it cause it makes you happy.

I hope I will always give you happiness
I hope you will always appreciate.

I love you, I love you, I love you.
I’ll always love you no matter what you do.

I was looking through the draft posts I have on this blog this morning. Cleaning out some that I know I probably won’t finish or have passed it’s time. If you’re a blogger, you’re probably like me and start draft posts with ideas then come back to it later. Well I had quite a few saved up. Some of them with just a link to something that I may want to write about later, or short notes or sentences that would spur my memory later so I would remember what it was that I thought to write about.

Coincidentally, I found this draft that I had saved two years ago and never got around to finishing it. It was saved July 10, 2008, and this is what I had written so far:

Is it the weather or is it that I have just been too busy to blog? It’s probably a combination of both but I am almost sure it also has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve started my summer reading routine. So nowadays instead of heading straight to the laptop and the bedroom when I get home from work, I take my book outside in the garden along with a nice cool drink and read until the sun goes down or get hungry, whichever one comes first.

It got me thinking whether I should add a little more variety to my life because I am still doing the same thing! LOL! Well, I haven’t been as religious about my reading as I had been. Facebook got me tied to my laptop most of the time and I was just thinking yesterday how I haven’t read much lately. I have been too busy chit chatting on facebook or being nosy and reading about other people’s lives on facebook. Yeah, I’m addicted to facebook just like I was addicted to blogs. I can’t stay away from it! So much so that I have let blogging fall by the wayside and the same thing with my blog hopping. I don’t visit as many blogs as I used to since now I get to interact with those same people on facebook! How about you, are you on facebook yet? Are you addicted too?

This weekend though, I’ve made a pact with myself to be more regular about my reading and blogging. Especially my blogging obligations. I have agreed to read and review several books and I am awfully behind. Months behind, actually. So today, I am turning over a new leaf and this draft post from two years ago just reminded me.

My dad is not perfect and he knows it. He’s never been the ‘know it all’ dad. He’s never claimed to always know best either. That’s what made him special. He was always the first to joke around and always the last to leave when you most need help. He never was one to impart deep philosophical diatribes; what he dished out instead was a lot of common sense and straight forward advise. I’ve always appreciated that. It’s probably the reason that I am growing old with the tendency to appreciate straight forwardness and simplicity and common sense. And I kind of like that, still.

During my teenage years, my sisters and I came to live with my mother here in the U.S. along with our step-father. Our relationship with him was tentative at first but slowly developed into mutual respect and understanding. He always introduced us sincerely as his daughters and soon we also saw him not as a ’step’ to anything, but just as a father. He loved people and he loved to travel. As I grow older, I take that gift from him; that of wanderlust and living life in the moment and for accepting people for who they are, nothing more and nothing less .

Then there’s the father of my daughters. He has been the kind of dad that if you measured your future beaus against him, you will be looking for a boyfriend for a long time. He adores his daughters and only want what’s best for them. He is raising them to be strong and independent women. He spoils them and yet makes sure that they stay evenly grounded. He makes sure they feel secure and safe and most of all, he is proud of them. Embarrassingly so, according to the girls. He would boast and talk of his girls every chance he gets, and he does love to talk to he gets a lot of chances to boast

I was blessed to have so many wonderful fathers in my life. These are just three of the immediate ones but I have always been surrounded by men who showed me everyday what it is to be a father in every sense of the word. To all my uncles, cousins and friends, I wish you all a HAPPY FATHER’S DAY! Continue doing what you do to influence and nurture the children in your lives…