• Sweet FaceTime visit…

    March 4, 2021 / 2 Comments

    The phone rang late this afternoon and I was so happy to see that it was my two youngest granddaughters calling me on FaceTime.  I had ordered them a few things, which thankfully fit, (they are growing so fast!) and they wanted to show me.  The next hour was full of the latest news, magic tricks, showing me their art work, their latest inventions, talk of school and a lot of laughter.  Whatever I am doing comes gladly to a halt while I enjoy my time with these sweet girls.  They are so creative and smart.  They love to read and both read far above their school level.  I signed them up for Literati and they love the day the books arrive.  I really miss our condo and being close to the girls in Chicago!  Thankfully, we will receive our second Covid vaccination in a couple of weeks and will feel better about traveling after that.

    January 2020 at our condo in Chicago.  I miss those days!

    I also had a sweet talk with my firstborn granddaughter this afternoon.  She is a senior in college on a full-ride scholarship.  It’s difficult to believe that she will soon graduate from college!  She is now trying to decide where she will go to complete her Masters.  I remember when she was the age of the youngest two granddaughters!  Where does time go?!

    I can’t believe this little angel is now about to graduate from college in a few short months. 

    Grandmommy and Kenzie

  • Time…

    April 10, 2015 / No Comments

    I’ve always been fascinated with “time”.  It’s a simple concept really.  The world turns…the hands of the clock go round and round…and time passes.  The movement of time seemingly at a snail’s pace when you’re young and then on the wings of an eagle as time literally flies by as one gets older.  All of a sudden – or so it seems – you’re a grandmother.  You wonder where in the world all that time actually went.  And suddenly you realize there are only so many decades left on this earth…God willing.

    A few weeks ago, I “babysat” my two oldest grandchildren while their dad was at one of the “March Madness” games in Ohio and their mom and younger siblings were at a swim meet in Minneapolis.  A fifteen year old and a seventeen year old just aren’t interested in sitting on bleachers all day and so I was recruited.

    We had a good weekend with a lot of laughter and fun activities.  I had just had my cataract surgery a week before and couldn’t see well enough to drive yet.  And so my seventeen year old grandson chauffeured us wherever we wanted to go.

    On Sunday morning, I climb into the back seat (my idea) and my two firstborn grandchildren sit in the front seat on our way to church.  Just then, I have a flashback:  it is January, 17 years earlier.  I’m in Indiana and it is snowing like crazy.  My daughter is in labor two hours away.  Nothing could have stopped her dad and me from making that journey of course – certainly not a snowstorm or icy, treacherous roads.  Twenty-four hours of labor later on my precious daughter’s part and they are first-time parents.  And I am, at last, a grandmother.

    clocksonbedsidetable

    From the back seat, I observe my seventeen-year-old grandson driving safely.  He and his sister are laughing, chatting about something.  I pick up my cell phone and call my daughter at the swim meet.  I want to check on my granddaughter’s progress in the meet and share the following amazing thought.  When she answers, I say, “you know, I remember the day he was born and here he is seventeen years later driving his grandmother to church!  What happened to all that time?!”

    Tomorrow night is Junior-Senior Prom night.  My grandson and his date and another young couple are having dinner at my daughter’s house.  My daughter volunteered to prepare one of her delicious pasta dishes (with homemade pasta) and homemade rosemary bread.  I’ve had them both and they’re delicious!  I volunteered to make a large tossed green salad and a chocolate éclair cake for dessert.  We’ll get dinner all ready with tablecloth and cloth napkins…and then disappear upstairs…after we take a few pictures of course.

    sundial-200x300

    Another milestone…another track in time. 

    If you’re curious about the number of times I’ve written about the idea of  TIME, go to my earlier blog My Southern Heart and type the word TIME in the blog search bar!

  • Time traveling…

    November 2, 2012 / 4 Comments

    I’m amazed at how our senses can take us back to another time and another place…

    The taste of a delicious, hot Southern biscuit reminds me of my Mama’s wonderful cooking. One bite of homemade banana pudding with the golden brown meringue, I close my eyes…forty six years pass…and I’m home again.

    If I get even a slight whiff of the perfume “Windsong” by Prince Matchabelli or of the men’s cologne, “English Leather”, it’s 1966 all over again and I’m a young newlywed.

    If I hear the song “Aldi-La”, it’s 1964 and I’m sitting in the coffee shop at Mississippi College (I think it was called “The Wigwam”) with my roommate, Linda, who had just broken up with her boyfriend and we are both in tears. If the old movie “A Man Called Peter” is playing on the classic movie channel, I think of a Saturday night in 1963 and a young man named Ross.

    Sometimes our senses can even play tricks on us. Not long after my father passed away, I was shopping at the grocery store and saw an elderly gentleman who looked so much like my father, even down to the slight parkinsons tremor and the gait. I found myself closely following him for two or three aisles in the grocery store…it was almost like looking at my Daddy all over again. I managed to pull myself together long enough to park the shopping cart and left the store in tears.

    Touch. What can I say? I’m a hugger. I come from a long line of huggers. The human spirit can only go so long without being touched…held…hugged. There have been dozens of studies on how many hugs a day a human needs. As a Registered Nurse, I spent many years taking care of patients and made sure I incorporated some form of touch besides the routine care…a pat on the back or arm…a reassuring hug. Perhaps this is also why the studies have attributed having a pet to a sense of well-being and an overall decrease in blood pressure.

    Have you ever noticed how much we learn from our sense of touch? How many times have we seen something that we’d never seen before and our first response is to want to touch it. Ever notice the sign “Do Not Touch” in a museaum or exhibit?

    I walk into a fabric store and my senses are overwhelmed with row after row of bolts of fabric…all different colors…patterns…textures. I’m also overwhelmed with memories of spending time growing up in the fabric store with my Mama. She was an excellent seamstress and made most of my clothes. We’d spend time together selecting a new pattern and find the fabric for it together. I did the same thing with my children…and, now, my daughter with hers. Mama had so many offers to sew for payment, but she reserved those talents for her family. She told me:  “I only sew for love”.  Years later, after I began the tedious work of sewing for my family, I understood and said the same thing to my family. Who knew that would come full circle as now I hear my daughter repeat the exact declaration as she works hard to sew for her family…

     

    Originally published in My Southern Heart.  

    I’m headed to the fabric store this morning for a super sale on patterns and it brought back memories of this past post.  Thought I’d share…