About Me
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| Me on a decent hair day |
I’m a sixty-something wife, mother to three, grammy to a gaggle and friend to a few.
The number of people who call me Grammy has more than doubled since I started my first blog back in 2006. Since then, we’ve retired and moved across the country. When two thirds of our grown kids decided to move across the country themselves, but the other direction, we decided to split our time between the middle of Texas and northern Idaho, which looks a lot like Boulder, Colorado.
The part of Texas I was born in is mostly red dirt, scraggly pines and bugs the size of dinner plates. My family loaded up a small U-haul and moved away when I was a gangly teenager and I never dreamed I’d live anywhere in the state again. More than putting up with the number of books I cart home, or how chatty and fiercely independent I can be, it is a solid testament of my husband’s undying love for me, that we split our time between two states, neither of which is his native Colorado, to be near the family we made.
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| Our three kids with their families. Our absolute favorite people on the planet. |
The part of Texas I was born in is mostly red dirt, scraggly pines and bugs the size of dinner plates. My family loaded up a small U-haul and moved away when I was a gangly teenager and I never dreamed I’d live anywhere in the state again. More than putting up with the number of books I cart home, or how chatty and fiercely independent I can be, it is a solid testament of my husband’s undying love for me, that we split our time between two states, neither of which is his native Colorado, to be near the family we made.
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| My favorite person on the planet, Cub Sweetheart |
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| Miss Lily |
I also consider it a direct gift from God to find pee spots on our mattress liner when I changed the sheets right after we gave her away. They reminded me I loved her, but I do not miss having a clingy, slightly neurotic dog.
I'm forthright, practical except when I'm not, and fiercely protective of those I hold dear. (Oh, the stories my kids could tell...) None of my hobbies or interests burn a single calorie, but if I wear ear buds and listen to a book on Audible I'll suffer through time on a treadmill. I cry when someone wins a game show, and dislike people who are not nice to the waiter.
My number one pet peeve is being tailgated in traffic. Which is terribly handy, living in the Dallas metroplex half the year, since there is absolutely never any traffic there.
I hate TV shows that start with autopsies, and crass comedies. Really all comedies.
I attempted the giving up of movie popcorn and creamer in my coffee, but then decided life is just too short to do so. I've had a love affair with books since I met Nancy Drew in junior high. I love feeding birds from the deck, watching sappy musicals and taking road trips as long as I have a knitting project in my lap. The world would be a much more peaceful place if we all took up knitting.
I hate politics.
I'm not an introvert. I'm also not an extrovert. Pretty much halfway between the two, which some people call ambivert. Basically, if you're my friend and we have coffee I'll really enjoy it, then not need to be with you again for a week or three. Unless I'm related to you; then I could see you the next day.
I'm allergic to nickel, don't care about jewelry and don't understand the whole shoe thing.
I'm confident all insects with crunchy shells are a result of the fall of man. Iwould could not pick up a grasshopper for $1,000.00.
I am terrible at most games, especially if they involve moving my body. My all-time favorite board game ever is Scrabble, and I so wish I could have one more game with my Mom, who beat me every single time we played, until she didn't and I realized she had Alzheimers.
I attempted the giving up of movie popcorn and creamer in my coffee, but then decided life is just too short to do so. I've had a love affair with books since I met Nancy Drew in junior high. I love feeding birds from the deck, watching sappy musicals and taking road trips as long as I have a knitting project in my lap. The world would be a much more peaceful place if we all took up knitting.
I hate politics.
I'm not an introvert. I'm also not an extrovert. Pretty much halfway between the two, which some people call ambivert. Basically, if you're my friend and we have coffee I'll really enjoy it, then not need to be with you again for a week or three. Unless I'm related to you; then I could see you the next day.
I'm allergic to nickel, don't care about jewelry and don't understand the whole shoe thing.
I'm confident all insects with crunchy shells are a result of the fall of man. I
I am terrible at most games, especially if they involve moving my body. My all-time favorite board game ever is Scrabble, and I so wish I could have one more game with my Mom, who beat me every single time we played, until she didn't and I realized she had Alzheimers.
If I could go back in time, I'd hang out with the nerds instead of skipping class to smoke cigarettes at the little store around the corner; I'd join the swim team in spite of being skinny and flat-chested, and join the yearbook staff instead of getting my 15 year old spirit crushed by being rejected by the Friendship Club.** I'd learn a foreign language and not bother to date til after high school. At least. I'd get a degree in some genre of literature or art and teach at a junior college.
The three humans we brought into the world are such great people that we should have made at least one more. I'd buy a Dyson ten years earlier, in spite of the cost, and learn to waltz and two-step. I'd keep on taking piano lessons from Mrs. Wiggins on the corner, instead of quitting when I was thirteen.
I'd learn how to do Algebra. Just because. (Nobody really needs Algebra after high school.)
I’m a homebody at heart, which likely comes from having moved more than forty times in my life. Home makes me happy, and if you add books, yarn, my bathtub and popcorn I could stay holed up there for a solid month.
If I knew I was going to die tomorrow I’d eat a supper of shrimp and grits, ice cold watermelon and buttered corn on the cob, followed by a heaping bowl of strawberry ice cream. I’d spend the second to last hour of my life in a scalding hot bubble bath, reading the first few chapters of At Home in Mitford, then the last hour (*) I’d grab my sweet, sweet husband, our three kids, their spouses and those eight grand kids, kiss them all goodbye and make them promise me they’d play Martina McBride’s Happy Girl at my funeral, for indeed I have been, thanks to them and the God who was so gracious as to put them in my life.
* I'd get out of the bathtub and dress first.
** I still treasure 48 years later, the folded note, written by my best friend, Tracie, after she got into the club, telling me how sad she was that I didn't. It is one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me.
Life verse #1:
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and attend to your own business, and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need. 1 Thessalonians 4:11
Life verse #2:
And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
* I'd get out of the bathtub and dress first.
** I still treasure 48 years later, the folded note, written by my best friend, Tracie, after she got into the club, telling me how sad she was that I didn't. It is one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me.
Life verse #1:
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and attend to your own business, and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need. 1 Thessalonians 4:11
Life verse #2:
And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
