Presents

In my preparation for The Ultimate Homecoming, I have cleaned out, organized, donated and tossed probably more than I've kept.  It is amazing how much stuff you accumulate in ten years!  And while I was cleaning, organizing and tossing, naturally I discovered some forgotten treasures.

My grandma, our Maw, passed away almost two years ago.  Before that, though, she had been living in nursing homes for almost a decade.  When she was living on her own and shopping on her own, she would buy all of us Christmas presents.  ALL of us.  And if you know our family, we're aplenty!  I can't remember exactly but I'm guessing the last time she was able to shop for us was around 2000 or 2001.  

The very last Christmas present I got from my Maw was a big box of candles.  I had completely forgotten about them until I went through my candle cabinet and found them, way in the back. Apple Cinnamon, French Vanilla, Mountain Berry and Wild Orchids.  There are three of each in the box.

This being my birthday month, I've been all about some presents!  And I've been enjoying my Maw Candles.  

I can feel her presence so strong most days but even more so when I'm enjoying her presents.  :)

Wrappin' it up

I'm packing up, bagging up, wrapping up on this Christmas Eve Eve because tomorrow will be a whirlwind for me!  I'll be with Larry until 3:00, church at 5:00 and then I'll head on down to Macon County as soon as church is over.  I've had such a peaceful, calm December that I won't mind one crazy day.  I got all my shopping done early so I wasn't out in the crowds much, although I DID have to go out and get a new toilet seat today.  The hinge finally broke after being wobbly for two weeks.  Guess it got tired of me ignorin' it.  Since I live so close, I was just going to run to Target and get another one.  When I got there, though, I could not find a parking place.  At ALL.  And traffic was horrendous.  Did everybody wait until the last minute??  So I went to Lowe's instead.  No trouble there.  I was in and out with my new beige guaranteed-to-be-wobble-free toilet seat in less than ten minutes.

These are all the presents that were under my tree.  They ALL get opened at Mama and Daddy's house.  :)

 Here are some goodies I'm taking!

Dinner rolls and chess bars that sweet Beth Yoder made for me, reindeer food for Rudolph and the gang that a precious set of triplets made for us at work and I brought home today, some homemade cranberry sauce that I made and a gallon of my apple cider that I made Wednesday.

Close up of Beth's chess bars. There were 12 of 'em. 

I put them in this gift box and one of 'em got lost during the move. :)

Maw's sweet little bird casserole dish will serve our cranberry sauce.  I am really going to miss her Sunday.  :(  My first Christmas in 44 years that I won't tell her what Santa Claus brought.  But you know what?  I bet she already knows.

Here's everything ready to go!

Two huge Christmas gift bags, one jumbo IKEA bag and one Trader Joe's bag.

Gotta leave this in the mailbox!

I have to share my Christmas cards!

Well, one wall of them anyway.  I get so many because my sweet husband makes sure I get one every day in December, right on up until Christmas.  He sends me 26!  He gathers some and makes some.  Precious boy, that one.

One more of our tree.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours!

We had a wonderful day today!  We were all together and we were all stuffed!  Here are a few pics of the spread!

 

Ami had a great idea for us to make clay Christmas ornaments after dinner! She brought all the stuff we'd need, clay, paint, cookie cutters, stamps and ribbons.  I think we've got a new family tradition!

 Here are the ones I made!

I'm pretty proud of my Santa!

These were some Ami made to show us how. She gave them to me and I think I'll put the ones without holes in a cute Christmasy bowl on my foyer table.  The ones with holes are going on my tree! 

I got some goodies today, too!  Mama and Daddy gave me a couple of new ornaments for my tree and this precious little stuffed red fox.  He was stuffed before we ate!  Ha!

His name is Todd.  :)

Ami got me this beautiful peace musical snow globe!

I LOVE it!!  I'm going to leave it out all year.

We had such a great day.  We ate, we made Christmas decorations and we put up Mama and Daddy's tree.  Our first Thanksgiving without Maw was sad, as we knew it would be.  There wasn't a moment when she wasn't a part of it, though.  Ami made a sweet hope ornament in memory of her and it's hanging right in the front of Mama and Daddy's tree.  Ami also shared sets of pictures of Maw with all of us and we talked about her and shared memories of our Thanksgivings with her.  

I had my own Maw moment last night when I was making the crust for my sweet potatoes.  I have Maw's mushroom canisters and inside them were two measuring cups that she used.  I put one in my flour and one in my corn meal.  I needed 1/3 cup of flour to make my crust last night and I really didn't want to get my measuring cups down from the cabinet so I was just going to scoop some out of my flour canister and eyeball it.  Close enough is good enough, I thought.  I went to the pantry, grabbed Maw's scoop and filled it full of flour and as I was taking it back to the counter, I looked down and saw that the scoop was 1/3 cup!!  Exactly what I needed.  I said, "thank you, Maw!" and I knew my sweet potatoes would turn out perfect.  And they did.

I hope everybody reading this had a wonderful day with your family and friends.  We have lots to be thankful for!

What I'm loving Wednesday!

Today, on this BEAUTIFUL fall day, I am loving another chance to compost something!  My friend, Jami, gave me this cup yesterday that is made from corn and is 100% compostable. 

This is that Sun Chips bag that's been in my compost since June 2010.  SIXTEEN MONTHS.  And as you can see, you can still read the writing on the bag.  It was advertised to break down in 14 weeks IF your compost maintained a high enough temperature (130 degrees Fahrenheit).  My compost doesn't get that hot but they SAID it would STILL BREAK DOWN under lower temps, IT'D JUST TAKE LONGER.  Longer than 64 weeks??  Come on.  I don't think it's happenin'.

 

So we're gonna see what our little corn cup does.  I'll keep y'all posted! Thanks, Jami and John!!

I'm loving the fall gorgeousness that's going on around the condostead this week!

And I'm loving these few things I have that belonged to my Maw.  I went Saturday with Mama, Ami and Brian to Maw's house and it was a pretty rough day.  Our family is doing what's got to be done, sort through her things, you take this, I'll take that, but it was overwhelming and very, very sad.  Very sad, too, that her little Easter bunnies and eggs and chickies were still out because the last time she lived there, it was Eastertime.

Ami spied these ceramic mushroom canisters and said they looked like they belonged with me.  Thank you, sissy.  They sure do.
 

I thought these New Orleans Bourbon Street lamp post salt and pepper shakers were just the coolest thing!  I don't remember Maw ever going to New Orleans but she and Major traveled a lot early in their marriage so maybe they took a trip over there.

 

This was really the only thing I truly wanted.  It's an aerial oil painting that Major had made right after they married in 1976.  I have loved it since I was a child.  It's of their house and land in Montezuma.  You can even see Maw's car parked at the back door where she always parked.  So much about this picture makes me cry.  The trees near the road that were like a forest to a little girl.  I'd go in there and hide!  It was dark and cool and cozy.  There was a fig tree closer to the house and I ate so many figs one day, I got a bellyache.  To the right of the house, they had a huge garden and we'd go pick peas and tomatoes and squash in the summertime before Daddy started planting his own garden every year.  I saw a snake one time in the shed out back and it scared the crap outta me!  I sat on Major's old blue tractor many a summer day pretending that I was driving it.  Just seeing the house reminds me of years and years of Thanksgivings and Christmas Eves spent there, of afternoons spent there when Maw would come pick me up from school because I was sick (and sometimes when I wasn't!) and she'd take me back to her house and fry me some cornbread and we'd watch the stories all afternoon.  Just so, so many memories of that warm, comforting old house.  This picture means SO much to me.  I will cherish it forever.

 Ain't it so beautiful?

You really have no idea.

Sarah Belle

 

 She was born February 24, 1923.

Look at that precious little face!

Here she is at about four holding her baby brother, John.

This is my favorite picture of my Paw and Maw, taken around 1940.  

I love the smile on her face! (And the hint of one on his!)  

She was young and so in love.

 

Here she is in February on her birthday.

88 years old and tootin' her own horn! 

Here we are on August 20th.  Eight days before she died.

 I thank Brian for this precious picture.

She was my grandma, my Maw.  She was 44 years old when I was born and she was mine for 44 years.  She gave me so much, taught me so much.  She was such a wonderful, adoring mama and Maw to all of us.  That's why she held on as long as she did.  For us.  I pretend that I was ready for this.  I wasn't.  Even though I saw her when she was having bad days and I knew her time was getting short, I wasn't ready.  I didn't want to let her go.  There's never been a day in my life that she wasn't there, that she wasn't where I could get my hands on her.  The past three days have been hell.  My chest is heavy, the tears come easily.  I know, I know, I know she's in a better place, she's not suffering anymore and she's free.  Free from that nursing home bed that held her captive, free from nurses who poked her and lost their patience with her, free from pain, free from worry and the bad dreams she had, free.  I know all that.  I still want her.  I want her here, well, happy, fat and sassy.  I'm selfish.  She'd had bad days before and had bounced right back and had really, really good days.  We laughed and talked and I crawled up in that bed with her and laid on her, just breathing in that sweet smell of her and listening to her heart beat.  

How blessed we were to belong to Sarah Belle.  All of us.  We're a huge family.  Maw had seven babies of her own, Gene, Brenda, Rick (my sweet, loving, incredible, handsome daddy), Robert, Linda, Carol and Wendy.  We lost Uncle Gene to a car accident in 1973.  All of those babies grew up, got married and had babies.  Kim, me, my brother Ricky, Debee, Angie, Adam, Jennifer, Kevin, my baby sister Ami, Jeremy, Lesley, Ryan and Sarah, Maw's namesake.  And some of those babies have had babies.  Maw's great-grands.  Lesley, Blaine, Cindy, Jessica, Christopher, Skyler, Emily, Tabitha, Cambria and Bennett.  We are her legacy.  We'll keep going so she will keep going.  

Maw was the greatest cook ever!  She taught my mama how to cook so I was blessed twofold there.  It's their fault I'm chubby.  :)  We spent every Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve at Maw's house.  I can still smell that kitchen.  

Maw loved her stories.  She's the reason I grew up loving CBS soaps.  Young and The Restless, As The World Turns and Guiding Light were staples in the Hall family.  Shoot, those folks WERE Halls as far as we were concerned.  We worried over them, talked about them, like they were family.

And let me tell you, Maw made the rounds every Christmas morning, to everybody's house, to see what Santa Claus brought.  Even after we were teenagers and were getting stereos and clothes, she came.

And when I met my Larry, she was so supportive.  She always told me she wanted me to be happy.  She knew that I was.  And she was just so tickled that she and Larry share their birthdays, they're both February 24th babies.  So was Uncle Gene.

I always said, "I'll see you later, Maw!" when we parted, at the nursing home and when she lived on her own.  I say that now.  No goodbyes for us.  I'll see you later, Maw!  But until then, I'll carry you with me, in my memories, my short stature, my Hall legs and my heart.  Your little Kewpie Doll will love you forever.

What I'm loving Wednesday!

I'm loving my Maw.

Sarah Belle Holley Hall Beard

February 24, 1923 - August 28, 2011