Go For It in 2012

I recently marked my calendar through the end of the year with the dates for my blog posts. I’m a pretty responsible person, but I’m also human, so the possibility of my forgetting to blog is very real.

When I marked my calendar for blog posts in 2012, I never imagined how life would change for me this year because of the unexpected death of my father. I knew he would go before my mother because he had congestive heart failure and diabetes, not a good combination for anyone. He’d been feeling poorly the last few months and never looked like he felt good, but he went to the doctor and was never admitted to the hospital. Nevertheless, the phone call from my mom rocked me to the core.

I had a difficult relationship with my dad, one that never came easy to either of us. I can admit now that most of the reason for this is because we were so much alike. Scary! I had lots of things I wanted to say to him, none of them easy. All of those words died on my tongue when he died. That is my fault and I will learn my lesson about waiting for another day.

At church today (I’m writing this on Sunday), our wonderful preacher talked about goals for the year and committing yourself to doing the one thing that is most important. That one thing is different for everyone and is usually a very difficult thing. If were easy, he said, we would have done it already. If my dad were still alive, I feel pretty certain that talking to him and trying to mend our relationship would have been my one thing. But I don’t get to go back and change things, so I have to come up with another one thing.

My one thing is for me to know—I’m not going to get too personal and vomit my deepest desires on this public blog. But I thought the message was a good one. We all have demons that haunt us that are generally easy to put off doing anything about. Notice the pattern—putting things off is easy while confronting them is hard.

At this point in the year, when the calendar is open and most of the pages are empty, think about the one thing you want to do this year. I don’t mean goals or accomplishments, but the one thing that if the year goes by without doing it, your life could change forever.

You don’t have to tell me what your one thing is; I’m not telling mine, but know that I’m rooting for you every day of 2012!

Poppycock: A Family Favourite Recipe

This week marks the second anniversary of my Dad’s passing so I’ve been thinking about him a lot. And thoughts of Dad always lead me to memories of his sweet tooth, which he kindly passed down to his kids. Inspired by Myndi Shafer’s recent blog, and in honour of my Dad’s memory, I’d like to share with you my recipe for Poppycock, which I used to give to him every Christmas.

Sheila’s Poppycock Recipe

1 cup pecan halves

1 cup whole un-blanched almonds

8 cups popped popcorn

1 1/3 cup brown sugar

1 cup margarine

1/2 cup golden corn syrup

1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

1/2 tsp. soda

1 tsp. vanilla

Heat oven to 300 degrees. Spread pecans and almonds on an ungreased cookie sheet and toast lightly. In a very large unbuttered bowl, mix nuts and popcorn together.

In a small heavy saucepan, combine the brown sugar, margarine, corn syrup and cream of tartar. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture forms a soft ball when dropped into cold water, approximately four minutes. Note: if you like your poppycock less chewy, then cook until the mixture forms a hard ball when dropped into cold water, approximately five minutes.

Remove from stove and stir in the soda and vanilla. Be careful because the addition of the soda makes the mixture foam up.

Pour over the popcorn and nut mix. With a wooden spoon, stir until evenly coated. Leave in bowl until the poppycock is partially cooled but make sure you stir it once in a while to keep the mixture from forming into one hard ball.

When the popcorn and nuts have cooled some, dump it on to the countertop or on large cookie sheets and continue to stir occasionally until fully cooled. I usually leave it out overnight and every time I walk by, I stir it to break it apart. Someone will no doubt sneak a piece or two but that’s okay because it’s easy to make a second batch.

This makes a wonderful Christmas gift. I like to put it into jars and tins to give to family and friends. Enjoy!