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.

Happy Birthday, Lisa!

We had a birthday party for Lisa today at work and as always, we had a table full of food and lots of fun and laughter.  I needed that.

Here's what we had!

 Michelle made these delicious (and pretty!) 

lemon cheesecake squares!

 Cheryl's famous homemade onion dip 

that is out of this world!

 Lisa P's yummy little pickle 

roll-ups that we love so much!

I'm sure there's some kind of law against Dr. Patrenos' brownies with the butter and brown sugar crust on top. Good Lawd.

 

I made...guess??

Buffalo Chicken Dip!  :)

I hope she won't mind but I stole this picture of Lisa off her Facebook.  It was taken last month when she and her family vacationed in Hawaii.  I absolutely love it and I wanted to share it here. 

Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

Thanks for being such a wonderful friend to me.

What I'm loving Wednesday!

I'm loving my Maw.

Sarah Belle Holley Hall Beard

February 24, 1923 - August 28, 2011

Happy Birthday, Mama!!

 

Today is my mama's birthday!  

I ain't saying which one.  You wouldn't believe me anyway.

The older I get and the more pictures I post on Facebook, the more I get told, "you look just like your mama!"  That always makes me happy.  I think it is so cool how you can look at somebody and see where they came from.  I do it all the time.  I've always seen my daddy in my face and now I'm seeing Mama.  It's a blessing to look like my mama but what I really want is to look like her on the inside.  

My mama is the strongest, most generous, selfless, giving, loving, protective, friendly person I've ever known.  I've never known one time where she put herself over us or Daddy or anybody else for that matter.  She's raised beaucoups of children, loved on everybody she knows like they're family and led a life that makes Jesus proud of her.  She's what people mean when they say "beautiful inside and out".

She's exactly what I want to be when I grow up.  :)  I want folks to say, "you act just like your mama!", too.

Happy, happy birthday, my sweet mama.  I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck!!

You is kind, you is smart and you is important

In the movie, The Help, that I finally got to see this afternoon, this "you is kind..." line was the most precious exchange between Aibileen, a black maid, and Mae Mobley, the little white baby girl she took care of as part of her job as maid to the Leefolt family.  Not only did these women cook and clean and do laundry for these white families, they also raised their children, loved their children, taught their children.  Mae Mobley is completely ignored by her mother and is kept quiet with cake so she's a little butterball.  Aibileen makes it her mission to make sure Mae Mobley knows that she is loved and that she is special.  I was just SO TOUCHED by this one little part!!  

The movie is awesome.  Amazing.  Funny.  Sad.  Sissy Spacek is hilarious as bad girl Hilly's mama.  I loved the scene of her eating chicken salad and watching her story, a very old Guiding Light! 

The movie is about three women, Skeeter, a white girl who was raised by a black maid (the amazing Cicely Tyson!), and Aibileen and Minny, two black maids.  Skeeter, who aspires to be a writer, comes up with this idea to write a book of stories told by the maids, their own thoughts and feelings about being maids for white families, about taking care of white babies while their own babies are at home being raised by someone else.  The maids don't want any part of it at first because we ARE talking about 1960's Mississippi, at the very cusp of the Civil Rights Movement.  They could lose their jobs or have their homes burned to the ground or worse, they could be killed for even talking about it.  Skeeter convinces them that it'll all be anonymous and they start telling their stories.  Those stories become a published book that rocks the city of Jackson to its core.

I absolutely LOVED it!!  I laughed out loud so many times and I cried twice.  I thought Hilly (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) was just too twisted for color TV and I was tickled to death at her comeuppance.  Did Minny really DO THAT or did she just say she did??  Hmmmm. 

I was happy to see Lafayette from True Blood playing sweet, good guy, Henry the waiter, too.

I loved the beginning, I loved the end and I loved all the in between.  

I expect lots of Oscars to come out of this one.  'Cause they is kind, they is smart and they is important.

There are 10 types of people...

...those who understand binary and those who don't. 

This is what I'm learning in school. How to read binary, hexadecimal and octal numbers and convert them into each other.  I think I'm getting it!!  My instructor told us that once we get this down, Digital will be the easiest class we've had yet. I remember analyzing series/parallel circuits (HARD!!) and solving linear and quadratic equations (RIDICULOUS!!) so I'm really looking forward to an easy class!! 

This look easy to you? 

Binary

Hexadecimal

Octal

Yeah.  I'mma have to study.  :)

Fill in the blank Friday!

One of life's most simple pleasures is sleeping in on a rainy day.

People who call me JUST to sell me something make me want to punch someone.

I like patchouli because it's sweet, warm and earthy.

Brouhaha is a funny word.

If I had to choose one beauty product to use every day for the rest of eternity, it would be a really good volumizing shampoo.  I cannot stand for my hair to go flat!!

I'm happy that it's Friday!!  I'm doing a whole lot of nothin' this weekend and like it.

I would never drink a beer.  Yuck.