My Ireland!

Ahhh, Ireland! My Ireland!

As the plane circled over Dublin airport for the 3rd time giving Aaron Feldman a close-up view of the lush green carpet of earth he called his "beloved Ireland" he sighed, muttering under his breath, "American by birth, but Irish by the Grace of God".

That's exactly what he would write to Des when he arrived home from this bloody trip.

Anxious to hear from her, he hurriedly dropped his bags in the elegant entry of his country estate, ran to the library and sat down at his computer.

Logging onto Yahoo!, he double-clicked on the Inbox. What he saw made him smile. Although he had only been gone a week on one of his numerous top-secret missions into Israel this time, with all the added problems he had encountered, it seemed like an eternity.

Too close for comfort, much to close for Aaron's liking, but he had accomplished his objective and had taken out a really bad man.

Hopefully, he was back before his six-year old daughter, Lilly, could barely miss him. A week was a short time to plan and carry out his assigned mission, but too long for a single parent to be gone. Good thing he had his personal assistant, Rose, take over the parenting duties while he was gone. Rose was old enough to be Lilly's grandmother, but she was young at heart and Lilly adored her.

He missed Lilly like crazy, but he had really missed Des, too! Looking at his inbox, she didn't disappoint. There were four ecards and at least that many emails, three of which contained several of her beautiful, original poems.

As he opened the last "missing you" ecard he smiled even broader as the tune of "Somewhere Out There" played softly. Our song, mine and Des. It may seem silly to other people because it was from a children's movie, but one Lilly had watched over and over. At some point, after he had listened to the soundtrack at least a thousand times, he realized it fit he and Des perfectly .

"Somewhere out there if love can see us through, then we'll be together, somewhere out there, out where dreams come true". If only it were that simple, he thought.

And one day, even though they lived thousands of miles apart, he vowed he would meet the woman of his dreams who had captured his heart via email over a year ago.

Just seeing her email ID always caused his heart to do a flip flop.

Amazing what words written on a computer screen had come to mean to him.

Opening her letter, seeing the warm, sincere salutation (although both knew salutations in emails were not necessary), told him at once how her heart really felt as she began, "My Dearest, Darling Aar." Again he sighed with satisfaction and longing as he did so many other times he opened her mail.

The letter said she had missed him, missed his daily correspondence and to remedy her loneliness he wrote in response:

Dear Des:

Thank you, Des, for all the mail awaiting me. It's always good to be home, but even better to have all your mail welcoming me back. I've missed you, too.

It was a long trip this time and I am exhausted. Things are so bad in Israel, anything and everything that could go wrong did.

Then to top it all off, my Glock was stolen out of my car while it was parked at the airport and I spent half of the bloody day at the Police station. The powers that be in Ireland aren't going to like it one bit.

As yet, I don't have a bloody clue as to what my punishment will be, but I'm sure there will be some meted out, on that I can depend. Hopefully, whoever took it won't use it to commit a crime, but what are the odds of that? I shutter to think.

Guess now I'll trade the BMW in for something much simpler, and less attractive. Over here, once a car has been burgled, it's marked, and they will burgle it time and again. So it's best I get rid of it. Thinking of a two-door Toyota, just large enough for Lilly and me.

Thanks again for all the cards, poems, and emails. They made my day. Guess I'd better trot off to bed, I am so exhausted I may sleep for a week.

Will write more later when I am fully rested and awake,

Always,

Aar

Yes, Des made him laugh from the inside out, and that was a good thing. So few things did anymore, as his life became more and more bogged down with both personal and international cares.

Written by Deborah Gibson Taylor

Copyright 2011

COOKING

Believe it or not, I love to cook! Yup, me the career woman. I just love it. More importantly, I love the positive reactions from others for my endeavors. I suppose these "platitudes of gratitude" are why I do it.

Yesterday I was really in the "mood" for doing some major cooking and baking.

When raising my family, I thought one meal at a time. But, over the years, I've learned the joy and ease of batch cooking.

On my last shopping trip, I purchased six pounds of ground turkey, a dozen thin cut pork chops, and a large rump roast.

Using a crock pot for roasts is the ticket! It makes all my Sunday dinners a breeze, now I know the secret to making them taste good. I do the following late Saturday evening for a perfect Sunday roast. First, I peel and quarter a large onion and put in the crock. Next, I put the roast on top of the onion, add a little salt and then liberally sprinkle garlic powder (or to taste) on top the roast. Lastly, I pour in about 3/4 cup hot water around the roast. Turn the crock on high and let it cook overnight. Next morning, you'll awake to a tender, moist roast beef to die for!

But, don't limit your crock cooking to just roasts. You can also fix chicken, turkey, chops, just about anything and everything in a crock pot.

Next, I'll tell you about the ways I use ground turkey for nutritious and simple meals.

In the meantime...

Be well, be blessed!

EVERYDAY THINGS

Sometimes we think the everyday things are mundane things. Perhaps they are, but one thing I've learned over my numerous odd years on Earth, this is exactly what life is made of.

The thought occurred to me, maybe I should write about them? After all, one (wo)man's mundane is another (wo)man's excitement. We'll see. After all, reading this blog is purely voluntary. Those who like it can come back and those who don't can move on, and that's perfectly okay too.

Be well, be blessed!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I know I'm a little late with this posting, but better late than never, my Momma always said.

Speaking of which, we had a great Christmas and I hope you did as well.

As for me, the snow here is nearly melted, the creek running high.

The birds, especially the cardinals and blue jays, are ecstatic about the new bird feeders we've recently hung out in the trees, near our back porch.

Of course, our motive was purely selfish as we can get good closeup shots of the birds with the new camera Santa brought us for Christmas, without setting a foot outside. :-)