Dipped Strawberries and Exciting News!

Okay, which do we want first????

THE STRAWBERRIES, OF COURSE!!!!

I was sittin' 'round, twiddling my thumbs, wonderin' what I could do for the Yankee Belle during the week of Mother's Day (a made-up holiday if ever there was one, but I digress!!!)...

Dave called and said "They've got strawberries buy two, get THREE free..."

So I said "YES!!!" and he bought them and now I had five quarts of the Most Beautiful Big Berries I've ever seen...

And a pantry full of Ghirardelli chocolate.

1 + 1 = Chocolate Covered Strawberries....

And add a bowl of crushed almonds to the mix????

Oh.
My.
Stars.

So start here:

And then take two 12 oz. bags of Ghirardelli chocolate chips and put them in a bowl over a pan of hot water. I prefer this to microwaving because it helps avoid "graying" of the chocolate, but if you want to microwave your chocolate, I won't tell anyone!!! Promise!!!

Crush a bunch of almonds for second dip maneuvers:

Now take the strawberries by the stem....

Dip them in the melted chocolate....

Then in the almonds....

And then set them on a foil-lined cookie sheet:

Chill until chocolate is firm.

Your family will love you. There is no reason on God's Green Earth to buy expensive dipped berries because I promise, they will not taste or look better than these.

You can use white chocolate as well.

Delicious.

I will not, will not, will not tell you how many of these I ate. It's a secret.

But here is something that isn't a secret.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/nielsen/massmarket.html

This is a MAGIC LINK TO THE PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY BESTSELLER LIST FOR LAST WEEK...

SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!  :)

I won't spoil it by making you guess who's on it, I bet you have that figured out, and you know me, I'm not the kind that worries about contests, or lists, or anything like that, it's not in my nature... but what I love is that God is touching hearts through my work, my hands, the talent he gave so willingly a long, long time ago.

And that's like the coolest ever.

Hearts... souls... minds...

I'm truly blessed!!!!

And then Dave had flowers sent to me to say he was grateful for all I do....

No occasion....

But making that list might have spurred his actions, LOL!

So what are your plans for Mother's Day? Mine will be with cute kids and grandkids hanging out at our place admiring Dave's new roto-tiller....

We go all out around here, LOL!  :)

I will make our traditional Mother's Day strawberry rhubarb pie.... and chocolate pie.... and... who knows?

And know what?

These flowers have a scent. I miss the scent of flowers in so many commercial varieties today. It's sad to walk into a room full of flowers and smell feet.

:(

Give me those scents, the hyacinth, the rose, the hydrangea... and in this bouquet?  The flowers smell wonderful!

Oh, happy happy, joy, joy!  :)

My house doesn't smell like dust and dirty shoes, it smells like lilies.

♥♥♥♥♥