"Life Is Like A Bag Of Candy!!"

Growing up, I was blessed with a special great aunt. Aunt Joye was my maternal grandmother's sister. Her parents named her right, because she was a true "JOY". Aunt Joye never married and for the most of the time that she was in my life she lived in my grandparent's home.

Aunt Joye also never drove a car and I never saw her go out on a date. However, on her birthday and other special occasions a Whitman's Sampler box of chocolates would mysteriously show up. "Us kids" (my brother and cousins), always thought that the "box of chocolates" came from her "secret admirer"!!

In the Whitman's Sampler box all the candy was chocolate except for two candy coated nuts. Aunt Joye introduced me to Jordan Almonds!!

Pink for girls and blue for boys!!

During our travels, the PUPS and I often stop at Cracker Barrel. Most times I buy a bag of Jordan Almonds and fondly remember Aunt Joye.

In many ways the bag of Jordan Almonds symbolizes the life I expected when I sold my house and bought a truck and fifth wheel and started RVing. I never cared for the chocolates that much, but, I really liked the Jordan Almonds. When I discovered that you could buy Jordan Almonds separate without the chocolates, I was very happy. Mistakenly, I believe that life could be that way too.

Forrest Gump famously said: My momma always said, "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

When we set out on this adventure we never knew what we were going to get. Several times the PUPS and I have been made to feel like we were a discarded candy bag that had been thrown out the window onto the ground, litter! Once the good or new was gone or something unexpected happened, we were thrown away.

My father died a year ago today. I apologize for being a little melancholy. At times we feel like we have been dealt lemons.

The PUPS and I are determined to continue our journey looking to make the lemons that come upon our PATH into "lemon-aide"!! It is friends like Byron and Mary that open up their home and hearts to us that make this possible. They make us feel welcome and that we have worth and value. The PUPS and I are blessed. We have a sense of family here. I have really missed that "sense of family" since my father's and second mother's deaths. Alzheimer's is worse than death they say. None of us get out of here alive.

Some people only value "blood-kin". They just don't know what they are missing out on and for them I am sad. Last night Byron and Mary's youngest children, Savannah and Lily, gave me a good night hugs. Didn't feel any different to me from my "blood"-granddaughter A Z's hugs. Mary invited me to go with her to have lunch with Lily and Savannah at their school. That too didn't feel any different to me than being with A Z.

My father's parents were rich with dollars but poor when it came to their family. Don't remember them having many friends. My mother's parents and Aunt Joye were poor with dollars but rich in their treatment of friends and family. Sunday around the dinner table with Byron and Mary and their children and friends reminds me of being with Aunt Joye and my grandparents Miller. The PUPS and I are blessed and made to feel here that we have worth and value. We are not put on the "back burner" and made to feel like a last resort choice.

Well, enough of this. Mary just called and invited me to go with her to pick up Savannah and Lily from school. "Grandpa" Steve will just have to treat them to ice cream cones at Pete's!! Check back, photo will be posted...

AS PROMISED...