I woke up around 4 AM to potty. I stayed awake because my sinus's woke up and I laid in bed blowing my nose and sneezing until almost 5 AM. Seeing I was not going to return to slumber and that I was depriving my dh of his last precious moments of sleep before he had to get up and off to work I decided to go ahead and get up.

Now getting up early is a rarity for me. I prefer to rise around 9 or 10-ish. However, when I do get up early it is because I'm restless so I normally get straight on the house work. So, I put on the coffee and decided to make biscuits, bacon and eggs. As I fussed about the kitchen...my granny's kitchen...the kitchen I've spent hours watching her work in I couldn't help but to think of her. So I started making a mental list of what I remember best about Granny.

She was always up before dawn, worked until lunch, napped during the mid-day heat, then cooked supper and was in bed by no later than 9 pm.


If you slept past 8 am she would wake you up and ask if you were going to sleep all day.


She made everything from scratch.


She wore aprons when cooking and/or cleaning.


For at least 10 years every week she saved the cartoons from her newspaper and put them away for when my cousin visited because he once said he liked to read them.


She sewed her own clothes.


Her home was a smorgasbord of yarn colors (mostly burnt orange, mustard yellow, and olive green. YUCK! LOL) bought from garage sales. She crocheted dolls dresses, arm chair covers, rugs, dish towels, throws, afghans, you name it and she could crochet it.


She once made me a quilt from scrap fabrics and I recognized several patterns as being from pairs of my grandpas old boxers.


She used to make me lay on the counter once a week so she could wash my hair in the kitchen sink because she didn't believe I washed it when I bathed.


She had her own green house and could grow anything. And knew the name of any plant you could point at.


She could also can, or make preserves or jam of anything.


She once sewed me a little ruffly top with a matching pair of bloomers from a pink fabric with little strawberries on it. I ruined it the first time I wore it by sitting in the middle of her strawberry patch and eating all her strawberries staining it with the juice and she didn't even get mad.


She spanked with a fly swatter but was known to hit with whatever was handy be it a flip flop or her cane.


She once beat my ex-husband about the head and shoulders with her cane and the last time I saw him he was still afraid of her.


She called any woman that paid too much attention to my grandpa a "Hussy".


She once tried to shoot grandpa for talkin' to a "hussy".


She believed wrestling was real.


She always shared her ice cream with her dogs.


Her dogs were always over weight.


The oldest girl of 12 children she quit school after 3rd grade to help her mom with her siblings.


She wrote every thing the way it sounded to her so that her letters were like deciphering code. This also meant that for years she wrote my maiden name as Wallass which always made me laugh.


Despite her lack of education she managed all the house hold bills, ran her home like a drill Sargent and read her KJV front to back several times in her life time.


When company left she would strip the guest bed, wash it's linens and remake it. Then when she knew company was coming she would strip the guest bed, wash it's linens and remake it. I never could figure out how it got dirty in between guests.


She had Osteoporosis, Parkinson's, Rheumatoid Arthritis and eventually had both knees replaced but never stopped working in the yard or home.


She used to pretend that hugs and kisses frustrated her and she'd shoo you away but couldn't quite pull it off because she'd always giggle.


She had 2 miscarriages and out lived all but 3 siblings. She outlived her first husband (my mother's father), but God spared her when at the age of 80 she died in a car accident just months before her second husband lost his battle with cancer.


When I picture her I either picture her working in the yard in the morning or sitting in her chair crocheting at night.


My Granny was a true Southern woman cut from a special clothe. I just wonder as her generation with it's talents and skills die out...will people in the age of computers and cell phones ever realize what they've lost?