Today I’m taking a step forward and picturing my grandma as I knew her. I’m going to go back next week and show a photograph of her younger, but since we are approaching the last day that I saw her, I thought this would be appropriate. My rules anyway 😉

And, the photo is doubly special since we are sitting in my favorite Red Chair. I actually took this with me a couple years after starting college to my apartment. (Thanks mom, I totally stole this photo from your facebook page)

This is my grandma “grammie” with myself and my brother who was pretty brand new in 1988.

This is how she was and looked like for most of my life. My mom said that we always had a special bond (and apparently my first “on purpose” smile was for her rather than my mom… oops! sorry mom ;)). I used to go stay with her and my grandpa for a week in the summers by myself and often didn’t even look back.

She had the coolest attic and basement with all kinds of hidden treasures. The piano that was supposed to play itself, but I don’t know that it ever worked properly. It was always out of tune but we loved playing on it anyway. They had special grandma and grandpa toys that we only played with when we were there, like Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs. Grandpa had old school games on his old school computer like Trophy Bass, arcade games, Tunnels, and some dinosaur photography game.

She had a lovely flower garden off her porch which I never really appreciated until it wasn’t kept up anymore because it brought bees around. I have an off shoot of her hibiscus plant that she gave me the summer before she passed away which I love.

I loved her wrinkles and saggy skin (and told her so). I loved her pies, and her house, and all the special “breakables” she had. She had little crystal animals and bigger crystal serving pieces. She had cross stitch up all over her house that she had made. I used to draw two flowers which hung up over the couch all the time. But when I made (awful) cross stitch for her and when we gave her little grandma trinkets, she would never hesitate to put them up right next to her expensive decor.

Later, I loved the photos and the history. And things got harder for her (and likewise for us). But that’s a story for writing a little later. This is of happy times: strawberry picking, jam-making (I never really did remember how though), Klondike bars, sprinklers, and the circle swing. She lived a couple streets over from a school which playground we used to go to often with swinging horses.

She did the work of two grandmas, since my mother’s mom passed away when I was very young.

I had the best grandma in the whole world.