Well my Packers couldn’t quite pull it off last night. But you know what? That is ok. We had a wonderful year. It was fun as a fan and I’m hoping the team feels they had fun too. I still think it is a magical team.
Well Green Bay had some bone chilling weather last night and even though it isn’t as cold as it was there, it is still a very cold day here today. I’ve been busy piling wood on the fire since early this morning. We have all dressed in multiple layers too. I’m a big woman already so putting layers on me really gives me the old world bohemian look of my ancestors. Strong like bull?
As weird as it sounds I really don’t mind this kind of thing. As implied before, I love anything that helps me feel connected to Grandma. I used to listen to her stories attentively about how she grew up or how she raised her kids. She mostly spoke of raising her own. She had eleven children and raised them during the Great Depression. As hard as it was for her at times she always spoke with a sound of satisfaction in her tone. Yes the work was hard but there was worth in the work. That is the message I came away from it with. I miss her so much.
She was the one that planted the seed in me for my passion for gardening. Mercy did she have a yard. And her flowers. I bet if one flew over her place in a plane that those couple of acres were a brilliant patchwork quilt all their own. She was also very thrifty. Well really, how could one not be living through the time periods she did. I was always fascinated by the ball of string and one of rubber bands she had. She would wash and reuse plastic bags and aluminum foil. The plastic bags were never store bought baggies. These were bags that other items came in. They were just as good and didn’t cost extra. And I used to play with her button jar when I was really young. I wonder if kids could be happy anymore playing with buttons? She always wore an apron and when she had time to sit she was working up doilies. Yes, I make doilies too. I have two of her aprons but I don’t wear them. I treat them like treasures bringing them out occasionally just to hold.
I could sit here all day tumbling memories of her through my mind and into type but I too have tasks to get to and children to raise. I like to think her influence is evident in all I do. She was the one jewel in all of my youth.
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4 comments:
Ah, the button box, or jar, in your memory Theresa.
My Grandmother's was so valuable when she passed on to my Mother, and hence to my brother and I to play with, we kept it on a top shelf in the game cabinet and kept all from touching it.
When Mother would occassionally actually have to find a button to sew on we'd have to go get it for her.
Abalone and mother of pearl. Wood and brass. Glass and porcelain buttons filled that box, and a few plastic just to remind us the world was changing for the worse.
We'd use them for game pieces in Monopoly, line them up as soldiers at war, and handle or sort them like rare coins on a rainy day. Undefined and totally wonderful treasures, now of a bygone era.
We don't have a button box anymore. The tin of my memory drifted off to the place all such treasures go when we grow up a bit and are too sophisticated to care for such things.
Today we have a few plastic circles with holes in them of basic design which like as not came attached to some article of clothing themselves as "extras" on the lot.
Buttons, except for the very expensive and even then rarely, are a craft of the past; much like one of their founding cities, Waterbury, Connecticut.
Waterbury was once called the brass capital of the nation and brass buttons and clasps helped make it so. The Union Army would have had no shine to it's blue coats without Waterbury's buttons, and the brass hooks on Grandma's high shoes would never do to be from elsewhere.
Now and for oh so long the brass factories along Waterbury's several rivers have been silent, or turned into condos. Like my mother's button tin, lost in a world of oil derived everything.
Ken D
That was such a connected and sensory laden response. It is heart warming to know others can look back and appreciate these simple pleasures we took for granted growing up. I don't know....maybe we didn't take them for granted, it is just at the time we didn't realize the importance they would have in our memories some day. I wonder what my children and future generations will have in their memory attic?
Well from the sounds of it, I have a bigger memory attic than the three younger children. Either that or the have huge holes in their floors. LOL
Perry! Are you going to sit still for your sister's comment? Perry! Perry? Uhoh. He fell through the hole in his memory attic floor again!
MMMMMoooooommmmmm!!!!!!
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