Grandma's Caramel Rolls + A Broken Heart

There are a few things that will make me smile regardless of what the world has handed me.  These include the following:

1. Saturday morning coffee in bed.  Normally I would say this includes the coffee being brought by the man I am in love with but for this modern day Princess, I have yet to encounter that one. 
2. Flowers.  Regardless of whether they are picked from a garden, delivered from an order in Atlanta, GA or drawn with a crayon - my face lights up. 
3. Grandma Monica's caramel rolls.  

Grandma Monica passed away quite some time ago.  What I remember most about her is the way her house would smell after Church on Sunday mornings, like fresh caramel rolls.  She would bake them in little 9-inch round cake pans, flip them onto a plate and served them to my little sister and I on small white dessert plates and her miniature silver forks.  The caramel was incredible, the texture of the roll was perfection and one bite would melt in your mouth upon contact.

This recipe has been passed on to my Grandma Shirley and as of early this week, me.  I associated her caramel rolls with a broken heart because there isn't much that can be done to cure a heart which has been broken.  But as I woke up this morning to the thought of how bad my heart hurts and as tears fell, the one thing that came to mind was Sunday morning at Grandma Monica's house....eating a caramel roll....and the way that my Grandma Shirley's house smells when she makes this recipe.  It never fails, on Thanksgiving morning, I wake up at 6:15-6:30 to a house that smells so insanely divine I cannot help but crawl out of a warm bed and up to the kitchen to eat caramel rolls with Grandma.

There are so many moments of pure joy in my life and I have truly been a blessed young lady but nothing compares to the before-sunrise moments in my Grandma's kitchen when it is just her and I and caramel rolls.  Grandma sits at the same spot and I across from her:  two forks, two dessert plates (although sometimes paper plates), one container of butter and a two warm caramel rolls. 

Oh.....and coffee :)

Happy Friday (all the way from Minnesota),
Danika