Christmas from the Heart

This Christmas my very heart melted when I opened the present given to me by my son and Bri. The moment I saw my gift, the waterworks started.  I couldn't even hold back the tears and I didn't even do the silent, tears slowly falling down my face cry.  I did the big, blow your nose, I need a tissue cry.  For the past 30+ years, I have collected various recipes from the newspaper, friends, family as well as my own recipe creations. The ones I have written are almost indecipherable.  Often when I perfect one of my recipes, I have tons of scratch marks, deletions and new additions so it is almost to the point where I am the only one who can read it. All these scraps of paper, index cards and notes have been shoved into a ziplock bag. I have instructed all of the children that this bag is one of my very prized possessions.  It is to be revered and honored and saved at all costs.

Any time I want to find a specific recipe, I have to sort through this entire bag.  The recipe I want is never the one on top either!!!! For years I have dreamed of organizing these recipes.  This Christmas, I opened this:

At first I thought it was a photo album

But then I saw this

and my tears started flowing immediately.

My own recipe book!

I opened the first page 

My heart couldn't even contain all the happiness and love it felt at that moment.

This was truly a gift of love.

Now when I need to find that Banana Bread Recipe, I don't have to empty the entire ziplock bag and go through every recipe until I find this

Instead, I just open my new recipe book, turn to the letter 'B' and voila! 

Every single recipe has been typed and printed and bound.  I even have a digital file copy. And if that weren't beautiful enough......they made books for both my daughters as well.  

Now we all have my recipes ... forever.