Keeping my word.

Look at those muffins! Ina Garten's blueberry coffee cake muffins. Usually, when I make muffins with berries in them they are simply Summer berry muffins. Always, they are more delicious than these. These were good. I used blueberries, blackberries and raspberries which trumps just blueberry hands down. But I like my old recipe better. Probably because I have been making them since my daughter was so little I had to make at least one muffin berry-less. Yep, a blueberry muffin, hold the berries. Must be related to the onion soup with the onions "stranged" out. I could have given that kid a cup of beef broth and called it a day. But then maybe, if I had...she would'nt be the amazing cook she is today. Let me tell you if I had been the cook she is at her age, well, I'd be on T.V. right now not this computer.

Enough about the muffins already. I really want to tell you about the roses. Since I started with the muffins I think it's okay.

Van Fleet roses. They bloomed in profusion along the old wood fence in the backyard of 16 Franklin Street, our first address. Ten days after a New England wedding we came home to a wall of the most beautiful roses I had ever seen. The most perfect shade of pale pink. We ate our dinners on the grass outside just to look at them. We had a dining room and a screened in porch but while the Van Fleets were blooming we dined with them. You could pick them to your hearts content and no one would ever be the wiser.

For two summers we carried our dinners outside. And then it was time...for our own house. Mrs. Eakens, the owner of 16 Franklin Street came for dinner. With her she brought a massive root ball from her yard with blooming, Van Fleet roses.

I came downstairs yesterday morning to this bouquet my husband picked for me. Mind you, they have grown so high up in the pine trees a ladder is needed to pick them. You have to look way up and know to look for them, they are our secret along with others going back to dinner on the lawn thirty-four years ago.

My rose story is just too good not to tell, and I did start with the muffins.