Things I inherited from my Grandma...

{Thanksgiving 2005}
Me, my Mom & my Grandma

So my friend Dana at Plum Tree Studios did a post of her favorite things around her house. I loved it - thought it was so fun! So I was going to copy... and I started to think about some of my favorite things in my house. Most of the pieces I could come up with, I got from my grandma.

She's been gone 8 months, but I don't think I've still fully grasped it & I think it's because I still see her everywhere I look. She had given me so many things. Here are some of those things:

This sofa table. I just rearranged our furniture & found a new spot for this. I love having a place to display photos. (She & my grandpa are in a frame in the back!) Oh & while I see it, I should mention that a bunch of those magazines are probably from my grandma, too. She always handed down her Good Housekeepings. This desk chair. Reproductions, eat your heart out. I love this chair, I'm sitting in it as I type. :)

This gorgeous chair. Mom, comment & I'll update because I know I'm going to get this wrong. But I believe this was my grandma's grandfather's chair. Soooo my great great grandfather, or my kids' great great great grandfather. When I got it, it was a pale yellow pretty scuffed up. I gave it a coat of brown (leftover from the previous owners after they painted the office). It is in our entry way.

This bench. And her love of birds. This bench she always had in her pass-thru between the living & dining room. At family get-togethers, it always was pushed to the dining room table as extra seating. We have it in our living room for the same purpose. It always had a little stencil on the back (a heart motif in red and blue).  The stencil wasn't "me" and I really didn't want to paint the whole thing.  I loved the color.  Luckily... some finger nail polish remover took it off without disturbing the rest of the piece!  :)  In the photo of the bench, you'll see a fabric collage I made of a tree w/ 3 bluebirds. The bluebirds were actually inspired by the bluebird ornament you see in the photo on the right. I had bought it at a craft fair last fall, waiting to give it to my Grandma for Christmas. Since she missed out on getting to open up gifts on Christmas Day, my mom slowly took up some of her gifts to her while she was in the hospital. This was my gift to her, which my mom gave back to me after her death. The bluebird ornament now sits on a shelf in our bathroom. My grandma ALWAYS requested I make her some personalized stationery. She loved it because it was special enough to serve as stationery to anyone for any reason... she said she didn't always have time to go out to get a Birthday card, or a Thank you, or a Sympathy card, but her personalized stationery she thought was special enough to serve all those purposes. [she's so smart] So this is what I gave to her. :) She and my Grandpa headed up a Bluebird housing project in their lake neighborhood out at Lake Sherwood. The bluebird is Missouri's state bird... and the cardinal is St.Louis's city bird. :) She & my grandpa loved BOTH! (see her sweater she wore on Christmas Eve?, photo w/ the boys)

A love of baking breads & a love of recipes. Summer of 2005 Gigi along with my parents made a trip down to Corpus Christi, TX to see us. We didn't have room for 3 adults, so my parents got a hotel room on the island and had Gigi stay with us. I didn't know how that was going to work... an 85 year old woman with 2 rambunctious boys. I thought we'd drive her crazy. But she loved it. And I LOVED having so much 1 on 1 time with her. (and her not having her hearing aid in in the mornings helped her sleep 'til 9am... lucky.) I hadn't spent that much good, quality time with her since the days I was little and would stay the night out at her house. We stayed up 'til midnight looking through cookbooks & jotting down or bookmarking new recipes. (I turned this photo into a black & white to hide the fact it was a bad hair day {& phase), and I was in mismatched pajamas.) I love this photo, I'm glad I have it.



A love for doing crafts and appreciating things that are handmade. My grandma was a craftaholic. She also loved exchanging & passing on ideas, supplies, whatever. (I'm the SAME WAY) She went to her church bazaar or her garden club & always came away with neat ideas. She would pass on supplies she wasn't using as random as they were! She always told me if I didn't have a need for them, to pass them on to a nursing or retirement home. (she was always thinking!) The photo above is a painting I did of her church, Shiloh Methodist & I gave it to her as a Christmas gift that year.



A sense of humor. Seriously, she was sharp as a tack & could dish it out. This photo is of her opening a gift from my husband. It was an inside joke. During one of our visits, she had had a bowl of peanuts and my husband ate them all. She gave him so much trouble, joking around with him that "Kyle stole her peanuts". So the following year, she gave him a gift with a cute little handwritten note telling him to keep his hands off her peanuts. The next Christmas, Kyle played the joke back giving her her OWN canister of peanuts as a gift & promising he wouldn't touch them. Just looks at my grandma's face & finger shakin'! Ha!!!! I love it.



Lots & lots of wisdom. And giving me a story great enough to get published. Years ago I submitted a story to Chicken Soup, for their book dedicated to military spouses. I had written about my grandma and how she inspired me to think & live more positively based on her advice of not feeling sorry for yourself. I vividly remember that conversation I had with her, February of 2002. Kyle had just deployed, only gone about a week. I had called home to wish my dad a Happy Birthday and my family in St.Louis played the popular game of "pass the phone" [to the poor out of town family member!]. :) It was then that my grandma shared her wisdom with me. She was one smart cookie & always had a way of making you change the way you think or at least appreciate another point of view.



A LOVE for LIFE. I know, seriously. Will you look at this chick? She's 87. This is what she wanted for her 87th Birthday. Never heard of anybody doing anything like this at this age? Neither had the fun, young staff at Glamour Shots. But they loved it & they loved HER. My grandma as she aged, wanted to be inspiring to others. On her 65th Birthday, me, my sisters & my cousins all went with her to the mall so she could get her ears pierced for the first time. We all stood around her while she got her ears punched! On her 75th Birthday, she chose to go up in a hot air balloon. Her 85th she wanted to ride on a Harley. [I'm not making this up] So someone set it up with someone that lived in her neighborhood... and he brought her her own black leather vest & helmet. She wrapped her arms around him & away they went. The pictures are hysterical. Her last Birthday before she died (87th), she wanted to go get photos taken of herself. I believe it was my sister Leah who had found the {above} black & white photos of her in these modeling poses. So they decided to do it again. They got the photos back just in time to do Christmas cards... this is what she was going to send out, but never got around to doing.

These are some of my favorite things I inherited from my Grandma. Some are tangible, some are not. I miss her company dearly, but it's evident that everywhere I look, she is still here. She still makes me smile & want to be a better person.