Sweet Shoppe Designs

Journaling:

I was so excited to find this old photo of my Grandma & Grandpa Shay working on the little play kitchen I got from them as a Christmas gift when I was 5 or 6 years old. We have photos of me with it on Christmas morning, but I hadn’t seen this picture until just recently. I especially loved the stove with its painted-on burners and little plastic knobs.
I had one adventure with my oven that was particularly memorable. For some reason I took a small pumpkin from my Grandpa Bouza’s garden. I also got hold of a knife (not sure exactly how I managed that), took it all out to my little kitchen, which was in our detached garage, and began carving the pumpkin. There was some sort of interruption, at which point I shoved the pumpkin into the oven, shut the door, and forgot all about it. Until months later, when my mother opened the door of the oven and started screaming at the sight of what she took to be some small dead animal. It had grown quite a coating of gray fuzzy mold over the months, and was no longer identifiable as either animal or vegetable. Of course I had to ‘fess up, which was very awkward, and Mom was very unhappy with me for a long time afterward.