Nana Kay's Stories from theKitchen Table
The Secret Sauce of Life...
Welcome!
Here is a short excerpt from the book I have been working on for the past months:
The Secret Sauce of Life...Lessons Every Teenager Should Learn Before Life Teaches Them the Hard Way
From The Welcome Page:
"Have a seat!
The porch swing's my favorite, but those wicker chairs are mighty comfortable too.
I'll pour you a glass of sweet tea, and we'll sit here a while and talk before we head inside.
This porch has welcomed a lot of visitors over the years.
It's heard laughter, quiet conversations, tears, and more stories than I could ever count.
Sometimes people stop by because they're celebrating. Sometimes they stop by because life has knocked them down a peg or two.
Everyone around here just calls me “Nana Kay”.
That means I'm the one with the sweet tea, the listening ear, and more stories than anybody probably asked for.
Some of those stories are about Papa and me.
Some are about mistakes I made.
Plenty are about lessons I learned the hard way.
And every single one added another little ingredient to the "Secret Sauce" of Life".
I've found that life doesn't usually teach us with easy tests.
It teaches us with some hard days.
With mistakes.
With laughter.
And, if we're paying attention, with wisdom.
One thing I've learned is that most folks are carrying something heavy that you can't see.
That matters.
It matters when somebody is rude.
It matters when a friend seems different.
It doesn't mean you let people treat you badly.
It just means you remember there may be more to their story than the little piece you can see.
That's the first ingredient in the Secret Sauce.
Grace.
Not the fancy kind.
Not the kind people talk about but forget to use.
I mean the everyday kind.
The kind that lets you pause before judging.
The kind that gives somebody room to be human.
The kind that says,
"I don't know what you're carrying, but I will still choose to be kind to you."
Now don't you worry.
I promise this isn't going to be one long lecture.
If I wanted to lecture teenagers, I'd just ask them to clean their rooms while I explain compound interest."
...We're doing some polishing before we're ready to share The "Secret Sauce" with everyone. Hopefully it won't be too much longer.
Read more of my stories below...
Matching Sisters
If ever I add a story here that isn't true, I'll say so. It won't be often.
Matching Sisters
One thing I remember about growing up was wearing matching outfits with my sister.
At the time... I wasn't nearly as excited about them as my Mom and Oma were.
My sister, Betty, and I were only three years apart, and it seemed like everywhere we went, we looked like we belonged in a catalog for homemade children's clothes.
Mom and Oma did almost all of our sewing at home.
Back then, that wasn't unusual.
Buying clothes wasn't nearly as common as making them, especially when you had two growing girls.
They made dresses.
Jumpers.
Blouses.
If one of us got a new outfit...
You could almost count on the other one getting the same thing in a different size.
Looking back, they were beautiful.
Back then... I wasn't so sure.
When you're a little girl, there comes a point where you don't want to be "the sisters" anymore.
You want to be...
You.
I wanted my own favorite dress.
My own colors.
My own style.
Something that didn't automatically tell everybody I belonged to my sister.
Of course, Mom and Oma weren't trying to keep us from being individuals.
They were showing us love the best way they knew how.
They spent countless hours at their sewing machines, carefully turning bolts of fabric into dresses, jumpers, and blouses for the two of us.
And when something needed the special touch that only hand sewing could provide, Oma would sew tiny, nearly invisible stitches that looked just as beautiful inside the garment as they did on the outside.
Every dress represented hours they could have spent doing something else.
I didn't understand that then.
All I noticed was that we matched.
The good part is...
We didn't have to match nearly as much in the summertime, just on Sundays for Church.
Back in the 1960s, little girls didn't wear blue jeans nearly as often as kids do today.
Most of the year we wore dresses or jumpers.
But summer meant shorts.
Running through the yard.
Climbing trees.
Riding bikes.
Playing until the streetlights came on.
Life felt a little less fancy...
And a lot more fun.
As I grew older, something else changed.
Those matching dresses slowly disappeared.
Before long, my sister and I were choosing our own clothes, going our own directions, and becoming two very different people.
The matching outfits were over.
And without realizing it...
So was a little piece of our childhood.
Looking back now, I wish I had appreciated them more.
Not because the clothes themselves mattered.
But because they were made with love.
Mom and Oma weren't trying to make us look alike.
They were giving us something they had poured their time, talent, and hearts into.
That's something you don't fully understand until you're older.
Sometimes the things we wish were different become the memories we treasure most.
I wouldn't want to wear matching dresses today.
But I'd give just about anything to watch Mom and Oma sitting together at the sewing machine one more time.
Funny how growing up changes what we value.
Here’s the Lesson:
As children, we often notice what makes us feel different from everyone else.
As adults, we begin to notice the love that was quietly stitched into the ordinary moments.
Sometimes the greatest gifts aren't the things we wanted...
They're the things we didn't appreciate until years later.
The Pixie Haircut
Another true story...
Some childhood memories make you laugh.
This one made me cry (and cry, and cry).
I was about ten years old when my best friend's mom offered to cut my hair.
I had long, blonde hair that reached well past my shoulders. I loved my long hair, and I had never had it cut short before.
She smiled and said, "I think a pixie cut would look adorable on you."
I wasn't really sure what a pixie cut was, but I usually trusted grown-ups, especially my friend's mom. So I sat in the kitchen chair, wrapped the towel around my shoulders, and waited.
Snip.
Snip.
Snip.
With every cut, more of my long blonde hair drifted to the floor.
I remember watching it fall, but I still had no idea what I was about to see in the mirror.
When she finally handed me the mirror, I wanted to scream.
But not there. I didn’t want to make her feel bad.
After all, I'm the one that said it was alright to cut it.
My long hair was gone.
In its place was the shortest haircut I'd ever had.
I didn't even recognize the girl looking back at me.
I just stared.
I kept hoping if I looked long enough, somehow my hair would come back.
Of course... It didn't.
I quickly told her I had to go.
I said I wanted to show my mom, but I just wanted to hide in my room.
I cried for days.
My mom did everything she could to convince me it looked nice.
"It looks good," she would say, over and over.
I'd just shake my head.
"No." I knew better.
Then came school.
A few classmates said they liked it.
Most of them didn't.
More than one kid told me I looked like a boy.
At ten years old, those words hurt.
I couldn't wait for my hair to grow back.
It seemed like it took forever.
Looking back now, I smile every time I think about that haircut.
Not because I liked it.
I didn't.
But because life has a funny way of changing our perspective.
The things that seem enormous when we're children often become the stories that make us laugh years later.
That pixie cut taught me something I didn't understand at the time.
Not every problem has an instant solution.
Sometimes you simply have to be patient.
Sometimes you have to wait.
And sometimes time quietly fixes what nothing else can.
Eventually... My hair grew back.
And I've NEVER had another pixie cut since.
My pixie didn't look nearly this nice.
It was more of a kitchen hack job...
The Chocolate Milkshake Hamburger
This is a true story. You just can't make this up!
One of my favorite birthday memories happened when I turned nine years old.
My sister and I always celebrated our birthdays together because hers was just six days before mine. That year, she turned six, I turned nine, and our party was in the back yard, at the picnic table.
Like any group of excited kids, we were laughing and playing, waiting for mom to hand out the burgers and fries.
My dad sat down with a hamburger in one hand and a chocolate milkshake in the other. Somehow, without paying attention, he took the lid off the shake, tipped it up, and poured half of it right onto his hamburger!
He looked down at his lunch and said,
"Ohhh nooo!"
For a second, everyone froze. We were sure he was going to throw it away and take another one.
Instead, he just shrugged his shoulders, smiled, put the lid back on the milkshake, and said,
"Oh well."
Then he picked up that chocolate shake-covered hamburger and took a big ole’ dad sized bite.
Every kid at the birthday party watched in complete disbelief.
Then, almost in perfect harmony, we all said,
"Ewww!"
Dad just kept eating.
After another bite he looked up, smiled, and said,
"It's actually not bad."
And with that, he finished the whole thing as if nothing unusual had happened.
We laughed about that chocolate milkshake hamburger for years.
Looking back, I realize my dad taught me something that afternoon without even trying to.
He wasn't worried that his lunch wasn't perfect. He simply accepted what had happened, made the best of it, and enjoyed it anyway.
That's contentment.
Sometimes life doesn't turn out exactly the way we planned. We can complain about it... or we can smile, make the best of it, and discover it wasn't nearly as bad as we imagined.
Funny how a chocolate shake-covered hamburger could teach such a valuable lesson.
I found this image online after the story was published! How weird!
The Little Red Crosley: Summers I'll Never Forget
This is a true story that I never told my parents!
One of my favorite childhood memories takes me back to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, when I was between 8 and 11 years old.
Every summer, I'd spend weeks with my Aunt Kathy, Uncle Eddie, and my three cousins. I counted the days until school let out because I couldn't wait to ask my mom,
"Can I go to Aunt Kathy's again this summer?"
One of the highlights was my Uncle's little red Crosley convertible.
I know exactly what my parents would have thought if they'd seen what we were doing! I probably wouldn’t have this memory to share.
My oldest cousin would drive that little Crosley around their big circle driveway while the rest of us hung onto the back where the trunk lid reached the seats.
We held on for dear life, our feet almost dragging the ground, laughing so hard we could barely breathe.
My cousin Dave was the instigator. My cousin Steve fell off more than once! Never more than a scratch, though.
Back then, kids had a way of finding adventure wherever they could.
But back then...
...it was freedom.
My cousins were a little older than I was, so when I was with them, I got to do all kinds of "big kid" things. I felt invincible. Like nothing could stop us and summer would last forever.
I can still picture that little red Crosley.
Every spring, I'd ask the same question:
"Mom... can I go to Aunt Kathy's again this summer?"
I wasn't really asking about a trip.
I was asking if I could go make another summer full of memories.
