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The Traveling Blueberry Pie

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The Traveling Blueberry Pie, Thanks Café Hon!
By Bernadette A. Moyer

blueberry pie

I won! I won! I won a blueberry pie from Café Hon. Denise Whiting (the owner) was so excited when she called to tell me. It was a Facebook contest and I was the lucky “like” number to win it.

Café’ Hon is located in Baltimore City and in one of my favorite city neighborhoods Hampden. There is a real sense of community there and the houses remind me of the row houses from where I grew up In Allentown, Pennsylvania. There are lots of brick houses with large front porches. It is a community where residents walk to school to their places of worship to the grocery stores and to restaurants and small boutique businesses.

At Christmastime people from all over flock to 36th Street to view the entire street of beautifully well-lit decorated houses. The shops in the area are typically owned by individual shopkeepers, truly small unique retail and restaurants with their own unique offerings. There is a “Hon” Festival (it’s a Baltimore thing) that takes place every summer. Remember mom’s beehive hairdo, lots of that and more …

Anyway back to the pie. It was Lent and I was failing miserable at keeping with my giving up sweets and then comes this pie. So what to do with it? At first I thought about donating it to a shelter but it seemed kind of rude not to go get it and I hadn’t been in the area for a while so I wanted to revisit it. I thought about having lunch there to show my appreciation but I was alone and then thought I will wait and return with my husband. We have eaten there in the past and it was always good home style food.

Many years ago when I was a Realtor I had two neighboring properties with multi-family units inside listed and it was nice to see they had been renovated. And nice to see how clean all the streets were.

I picked up the pie myself and it was beautifully wrapped and waiting for me with my name on it. The restaurant was as welcoming and charming as I remembered. You can’t miss it as it has a big pink flamingo just outside. My husband likes their meatloaf platter and I love the French fries with gravy and the crab soup. If you are interested check them out Café Hon at 1002W. 36th Street Baltimore Maryland 21211 or by phone 410 243-1230 and website cafehon.com

So now what to do with this pie …

I decided to stop at the store and pick up some to-go containers as I was going to cut it up and share it with as many people as I could. The next day I was having lunch with a Priest friend to celebrate his 45th birthday and of course I showed up with his slice of blueberry pie. Then I dropped off a slice for an elderly female friend who doesn’t get out much and lives in a high rise. I sent my husband to work with a slice for himself and an extra piece to give to a favorite co-worker. Our son had one or two pieces and I enjoyed a slice myself. So the pie went to several locations and was enjoyed by many. It truly was a traveling pie!

Thanks Denise Whiting and Café Hon! We will be back soon for some good home style food …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

All books by Bernadette A. Moyer on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

The Cupcake Kids

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The Cupcake Kids
By Bernadette A. Moyer

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How did we ever survive our youth and young adult years without “safe zones” and all the support of so many mental health care providers and college professors encouraging us to be weak and even weaker? Wow!

Youth and young adults that are rewarded by being upset and sad at the outcome of our Presidential election and to ease the blow how about a cup of cocoa or some playdough and a “cry in” and “hug out?”

What part about babying these young people prepares them for real life experiences? Real losses like when your dad dies or you lose your job or an innocent accident or any other outcome that you find to go against how you believe it should be?

The reason I take offense to “safe zones” is because it is artificial and not real life. Life can be a pretty unsafe place. Wouldn’t a better lesson be how to survive and even thrive in the world as the world is and work toward the changes that you want to see?

If the election results didn’t go the way that you think they should have gone, wouldn’t a better use of your time be to rally and to involve yourself more in the political process and work harder for the cause?

When I was young we were encouraged to write to our government officials and to communicate our case and our concerns in a succinct and polite manner. I remember writing to several political leaders throughout the years beginning when I was in middle school. And every single time I received a response.

Where I believe in everyone’s right to protest, what is the end game? What do they expect the outcome to be? How does blocking the streets from foot traffic and shoppers on Black Friday on the Magnificent Mile do anything to save lives on the south side of Chicago streets or any other inner city streets for that matter?

I think back where was my “safe space” when I was in the sixth grade and my parents divorced? Or when I was 23 and widowed with a 2-year old daughter?

There are no safe spaces for life altering events. How about teaching our young people that out of the struggle we so often find a deeper sense of enlightenment? My own personal loses taught me much, they taught me about life and about value and about being a strong woman and a survivor.

We are all trying to survive with what we have and what we know, creating artificial safe spaces inhibits growth and development. I think back about my grandparents who survived the great depressions and being immigrants from Italy, they were far too busy working and raising their seven children to fawn over “safe spaces” they had an old-fashioned work ethic that cured most things that ailed them. Keeping busy and being productive was their way of living life.

I can’t imagine either one of my grandparents ever supporting the new “cupcake kids” and encouraging weakness. They would have told them that life isn’t always going to go your way but accepting defeat with your heads held high builds character. And when you do get your way, you truly appreciate it all the more because you know first-hand what it feels like to be defeated.

Winning may feel good but in losing we are afforded an opportunity to go deeper to reflect and to think and to learn. We shouldn’t be getting in the way of the “cupcake kids” experiencing all that life offers with the good and the bad and the happy and the sad. In the end avoiding the lessons that real life affords us only does us a greater disservice.

Sure we all want the “happy ever after” and to feel “safe” but the reality is that we create our own happiness or lack of it and “safety” isn’t measured by any artificial means that someone else creates but rather how we handle and how we manage our life and living in it as it unfolds in front of us …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer
Books by Bernadette A. Moyer on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

The Agony of Defeat

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The Agony of Defeat, Post-Election 2012
By Bernadette A. Moyer

(Article was written four years ago after the Presidential election, you can change the names for today, how much else has really changed?)

It has been about a week now since the 2012 Presidential election and we have our “winner” and we know who lost too. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to give it your all in such a huge public way and then not reach your intended goal and become President of the United States of America. I believe Mitt Romney when he said, “Paul Ryan and I left it all on the field.” I believe they gave it their all and in the end it wasn’t what the majority of the people wanted.

I am a registered Republican and I voted for Mitt Romney, I supported him the last go round too when he was my pic over John McCain in the primary before McCain got it. Romney always seemed so Reagan like to me. I liked his large family and I thought he would have been the right choice to help turn our economy around. I thought we needed a business minded man with a proven track record on what it takes to run a business.

Whether we like it or not, our President is running a business with a budget, even though they have not set and balanced a budget in years. Our country would be so much better off if we didn’t spend more than what we take in. Most American families get this, they live on a budget. You can’t spend more than you have and expect that there won’t be an adverse consequence for that kind of spending.

Even though I am conservative in many ways, I probably could be labeled as liberal when it comes to some of the social issues. I believe our government should stay out of everyone’s bedroom, straight, gay, abortion or pro-life. To me these are personal choices. I lead what may appear to be a very conservative life style, my husband and I tease each other that we are a “dying breed” since we are an all-white heterosexual couple, one man and one woman in a traditional marriage. This is the choice that works for us.

We have friends living in openly gay relationships and we respect them and their right to decide what is best for them. I don’t know anyone who has had an abortion that didn’t at some time feel some sort of regret after the fact. But I do know many women who believed at that time it was the right choice for them. Seems to me a far worse choice might be to have a pregnancy and a child that was unwanted, uncared for and unloved.

Most of us will never know what it feels like to go after such a huge goal like running for President, and engage all your friends and all your supporters to help you to achieve it. And then not make it. What does that morning after feel like? When you had such high hopes and aspirations and then it doesn’t work out for you?

Wouldn’t it be great if our newly elected President hired Mitt Romney to assist him with some of our “fiscal cliff” issues? Wouldn’t it be great if our leaders really did put all the people first and the best interests of our country ahead of their egos and hired the most qualified person for the job? If they could do this no matter what party they were affiliated with? We have come a long way in electing an African American as our President, we are a nation made up of many minority groups and they all should be celebrated and represented. I just hope and pray that during my lifetime we see a qualified woman in the White House too.

As a Monday morning quarterback all I would say to the Republican Party is this, when you present two white males as the President and the Vice President, when you try and lead with what is no longer the majority, you can’t act surprised when the majority of the people do not feel as though they personally have been represented.

It is our job now, no matter what political views we have, to come together for the common good and to find areas where we can compromise and thrive. We need a leader who can rally the troops and lead us as one nation, the United States of America; I pray that Barrack Obama is that leader.

And for the future I pray that we will see the first ever female President and/or Vice President!

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer
All books by Bernadette A. Moyer on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

No Money No Mission

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No Money No Mission
By Bernadette A. Moyer

 

money

It doesn’t matter how good your mission or your ministry is, if you are out of money, you are out of business. Far too many in the nonprofit arena have this way of thinking that 1) money and abundance are bad things and 2) if they do good work that will be enough to carry them through the day.

The problem is that money isn’t a bad thing and that you can do excellent work but without proper funding you will not make it very far. I’ve witnessed it time and time again. The “do gooders” the people with the vision to help others or teach or supply and support a very real and valid cause are often lacking the piece that marries their mission to the necessary funding.

How about the term “struggling artist” let’ s say that an artist creates wonderful pieces of art but doesn’t have the understanding on the marketing skills necessary to bring their art to the marketplace, what happens next? And many artists do not fully appreciate that the business pieces are just as critical as the making of the art. There has to be a symbiotic relationship between the creator of the art and the selling business in order to succeed.

Years ago in ministry the nuns would meet with money people, the successful businessmen in the community, the scenario went something like this; serve weak coffee and stale doughnuts in a stripped down environment as they plead their cause. Who could say no to that sweet little old Catholic nun? They might even have been successful and received some small donations.

But then … many other religious and nonprofits began to understand the mindset of those that are most successful in the community; successful businessmen. They learned that the most common trait shared was the desire to be part of a winning team. The most-needy didn’t need to start by being successful but they had to be in a position to communicate their vision in a way that a business brain would understand. This much support nets this much growth and development and provide the plan of action.

Today we see a great divide in the nonprofit community with those that are failing or just getting by and others who have a history and track record of measured success. It is not by accident. The organizations that thrive, even in competitive economic times are the ones that fully appreciates the need for the vision to be well supported by the money. You need great salespeople to go along with a great vision.

Most successful people want to help communities that are struggling and to help the under-served communities but they also want to know that the hand out is providing the support for a hand up. Will the money make a difference?

We hear the term “social justice” more and more today, we hear about the inequality of the wealth in our country, we hear that those that “have” should be willing to “pay more” but what incentive do the ones that do not “have” have to succeed if support/money comes with no effort?

What I know for sure is that you can have an excellent mission but without proper funding you will not sustain success. But if you can marry that same mission with money, the sky truly can be the limit. It takes hard work, it takes persistence, it takes an understanding that to appeal to those that can support your cause, you must first communicate that by coming together you can and you will create a winning partnership. Everyone likes being part of a winning team!

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

All books by Bernadette A Moyer on Amazon and Barnes& Noble