The Weather is Changing.

After spending a really good day with the family , I felt exhausted and went to bed. Before I went to bed I did the usual things. Locked the doors and turned the temperature in the house to it's usual cool for  good nights sleep. Surprise, It turned colder through the night and I awake cold and miserable. I got out of bed and reset the thermostat and went back to bed. At this point I couldn't go back to sleep. I got out of bed, made a pot of coffee and watched the sun come up.

Last night when it was bed time, I made sure I wouldn't have a repeat of the night before. I set the temperature the same as usual. I pulled out my cozy long sleeved warm gown, and then pulled out a warm blanket to put on my bed if I felt cold during the night. What a surprise? I didn't need the long sleeved gown nor the blanket. I slept with my arms over the covers. I used only the sheet to keep me comfy. That's the kind of weather we have in the southwestern part of my state.

You never know if the few drops of moisture that is on the door steps are from a shower we had before dawn. or if it moisture from the humidity. It was a little wet around here this morning. Now we can enjoy the sunshine.

Thanksgiving Is Over, But Still Feasting.

Two days after Thanksgiving Day and we are still eating. I've got to stop this. Today I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Nothing different from usual. Then lunch time came and I snacked on crackers and peanut butter and waited to eat with the family. Well, it was a big meal again. I had promised myself to eat lightly, but I didn't. We had the best macaroni  and cheese, creamed spinach and pork roast. Just couldn't say no, and the apple dumplings with ice cream were out of this world. I'll diet another time.

It has been a good holiday. I've enjoy the days with the family. It's always fun when there is a little one learning to grow up. They are learning so fast. I dropped a bowl on the tile floor and it broke in tiny pieces. The little one said very quickly "Memaw made a big mess".

We've been blessed with a beautiful day today. This was a cool cloudless day. So pretty. So much to be thankful for.

Back Yonder

Did you ever realize you didn't have hot water when you needed it most? Last night I had to clean up a big mess and realized I had no hot water. I just knew that I would have to get up this morning and go shopping for a new water heater. Mine is getting a little old and I thought it was giving out on me. I tried all the taps and still came out with cold water. I was beginning to look for my old kettle that I use to heat water on top of my stove. Thank goodness I didn't have to get down on my knees and dig it out of the cabinet where I put it many years ago. I'm not sure I even have one anymore.

My neighbor came over and we discussed what we would do, and then she discovered the switch to the water heater had been turned off. She turned the switch back on, we were'nt sure it would work. Bingo, I turned the hot water tap on and it worked. Who turned that switch off? Did I do it? And then I remember my sweet little granddaughters playing when they were here visiting. The little one was so proud that she had gotten tall enough to reach the light switches. They went all over turning switches on and off. This one didn't turned back on, but it is now, and I have hot water again.

When I was a little girl that age I didn't know what a light switch was. We didn't have electricity in our house. The water was pumped from the ground with a pump with a handle on it, and pumped the handle up and down to get water. We brought the water into the kitchen and heated it on the cook stove to have hot water.  Imagine what it was like at bath time.

Saturday Night.

I've read all the newspaper all over again. I've watched the LSU football team win their game, barely, and I''ve even taken a little nap. It's not bedtime yet, and I've watched enough TV for one day. If I was like our dog Buzz I'd find a stick and chew on it. That's what he does when he gets bored. He is a lot of fun to watch when he does that.

I don't like long winter days. It is dark when you wake up, and it has been dark hours before it is time to go to bed. I do like to cuddle up in my warm bed and sleep under a warm comforter when it is cold. Guess you can't have everything you like all the time. You have to take the bad and hope for the good.

I hope these cold nights don't kill my plants. My little porch is full of hanging plants. I pray that they are sheltered enough

A Visit From The Girls

Sunday morning when the phone rang at 8:00 AM I wondered "What's Up?" I was my granddaughter with her usual "What are you doing Memaw?' I told her I was eating my breakfast. I was hungry and made some muffins and bacon and egg. She said she was coming to visit, so I said I'll save you a muffin.

I hung up the phone, finished my breakfast and then started to plan what I could fix for an easy fast lunch. She was bringing my two beautiful little blonde haired great-granddaughters and their mother with her. I made a salad for us big girls, and had hotdogs and chocolate pudding for the little cuties. We had a really good visit . The girls played and we enjoyed a long visit. To me it was an early Thanksgiving Day. Thank you girls for making a good day for me.

We have another lovely fall day today. Cold nights and mild sunny days. Who could ask for anything more? I was told that I need some vitamin D, so I should go outside and soak up some sun. I plan to do just that this afternoon.

Frost on the Rooftop.

There is a nip in the air today. What a lovely sight to see frost on the rooftops this morning? It looked like fresh fallen snow. We know better because this is just November, and snow in the south is very rare. It does mean that there is frost on the pumpkins and it's nearly Thanksgiving. It is just a week away.

I can always remember the joy we had of being out of school for the holiday, and all the good food we would have on that day. My aunts and their families would come for the day. The house would be overflowing, and the smells from the little kitchen would make you wish dinner time would get there soon. My aunt always brought the right seasonings to make the dressing and baked chicken taste so good. We didn't have turkey, because we didn't raise turkeys. We raise chickens. The ladies must have been baking all week, we had all kinds of desserts. My aunt made a cake she called log cabin. It was baked in cornstick pans and iced with chocolate fudge icing. Boy, was it good. I've never been able to make one like that.

I can also remember the Thanksgiving when we were out of school. This year we still had cotton left in the fields that need to be picked. We had to help my dad pick the cotton that Thanksgiving morning. I can remember all the crying we did because we had to work on that day. But when we went home to lunch we had a big surprise. Mama had caught a couple of guinea hens and cooked them and made a big feast for all of us. We were so excited because we didn't expect a big Thanksgiving meal on that day. We grew pumpkins, so there must have been a couple of pies on the table,too. We were finish picking cotton for that year. 

Sweet Potato.

This morning as I was thinking of making myself lunch, I noticed two large sweet potatoes or yams in my vegetable basket. They are one of my favorite things to eat. I got to thinking about when we were in grade school and had to go outside the building to eat our lunches. One of my little friends always brought baked sweet potatoes in her lunch. I always wished for that potato. Of coarse I didn't asked her for her lunch, but I did want it.

In the fall when we were all in the fields picking cotton, Mama would stay at home and prepare us a picnic lunch. I don't know how she could manage this, but she would bring a full cooked meal to the field. The thing I liked most was the baked sweet potatoes. That's why this morning I baked two nice big potatoes, and when they nice soft and juicy, I doused them with butter and ate one of them. So good!

The last time we were to see the Doctor,we ate lunch at a place where french fried sweet potatoes were on the menu as a side order. They were delicious. Mama use to make those, but not in strings like those were. There are so many ways to make sweet potatoes. I especially like the pies and candied potatoes.

Thanksgiving is just a couple of weeks away and I know there will be some kind of dish on the table that will contain this root crop.

Country School House.

In 1932 when I started to school, this was a whole new world to me. I had never been too far from home. We were sent to Sunday School and Church at the little Methodist Church on the corner of the street across from the Baptist Church My parents didn't go with us, I guess Mama was too busy with the little babies and trying to find food for all of us. We did go into the little town on Saturdays, as that was the day everybody gathered to visit and do their shopping, if they had the money to shop.

You have to remember the country was still in the depression, and there was the drowth, so times were hard. I don't know how the public schools got the money to open to the public again, but we were all happy to get to go to school.

Our school had two buildings, one for grades one through fourth grades. The other building was a two story building for grades five through twelve. On the first day of school all grades met for assembly in the auditorium in the big building. I can remember how scary that was to be in that big room with all those kids. We were told to follow our teachers back to our home rooms. This was a big day for me, I finally got to go to school.

Our school didn't have running water into the school. We didn't toilets inside the building. Our toilets were in outhouses. One for girls and one for boys. Each were on opposite sides of the yard. These little houses were not real close to our class rooms, so I,m sure there must have been a lot of wet panties before the day was over. Thankfully mine stayed dry. Imagine having to run to outhouse today. How lucky our children are today.

When we had recess we had to go outside to play. We had a slide and seesaws and a place to play ball, but on rainy days there was no place to play.

We had no lunch room, so we would take our lunch pail, paper bag or newpaper wrapped lunch and go outside to eat our lunch.  My lunch usually consisted of whatever we could find to put between a biscuit. Mom would make a special pan of biscuits just for lunch every day. If we were able to have meat at the time, we would have meat between the biscuit. If there was an egg, we had egg. Then were times when we had mashed beans in our biscuit. My brother said he would never tell what he had for lunch. If someone asked, he'd say this is so good. He would be too imbarassed to tell them what was in his biscuit.

At least we didn't go hungry.

Good and Bad Times.

For those of us who have survived all the ups and downs and good and bad times, we have a lot of stories. Let me share one of mine.

I am one of the depression children. Calvin Coolidge was president when I was born. His term was 1923-1929, and then came Herbert Clark Hoover who served from 1929-1933.These were the worst financial times in the history of our nation. It was a bad time for every body, especially for farm families like us. The banks were closed because there was no money and our little school closed because there was no way to pay the teachers. In our family there were five school age children who needed an education.

The school was finally opened, but you had to pay tuition to be able to go there. Our family couldn't afford the tuition, so when I got old enough to go to school I was taught by my older sisters. They taught me to read and write and do first grade work. I missed two years of public schooling. When I did get to start to school, I was put in the second grade. I was still one year behind the other children. I tried so hard every day at school to catch up. We had second and third grades in the same room with the same teacher. I would listen to her teach third grade and hope that she would move me up, but it never happened.

We walked two miles to school every morning and afternoon in the cold and rain  of winter. On some of the worst days our neighbor who had a car would give us a ride. Our road to school was a dirt road and it could be pretty muddy at times. So you can imagine what it was like at the time. Muddy shoes and wet clothes. We'd stand by the coal stove to warm our bodies and dry our clothes. Our clothes were hand made by our mom. She made them all, outer wear, underwear and even made overshoes out of inner tubes for the boys to wear around the feed lots. We never felt ashamed because we wore these things with pride. Our neighbors were in the same boat with us. Everybody was poor. Thinking back, we children didn't know we were poor. We had a nice family and parents who loved us.


Our lunches consisted of whatever food we could put together on that day so we could something to eat. There was no lunch room. We did the best we could.

Election Day.

I haven't gone to the polls yet, but I will go before this day is over. We have made plans to get there because this is an important day. I hope every voter will make the effort regardless which candidate you will be voting for. Just vote the way your heart tells you to do.

I woke to a beautiful day. I think fall is finally here. I don't like the time change. It takes all fall and winter for my body to catch up with the time, and then it changes again. Oh well, that's life. It's a lovely time of the year. Before you know it Thanksgiving will be here, and then the scramble to get everything ready for Christmas. Busy, busy, busy.

We had a Delicious dinner last night. We had fresh fried fish, fries and hushpuppies. The nice bass were caught yesterday morning in a fresh water lake. I had left-over, so I may make a sandwich of the fish for lunch today. I also like to eat the hushpuppies with fresh cooked vegetables. Gee, I'm making myself hungry. Wish I could share my lunch with you'all. Now you know where I live. The good ole' south.

Hope you'all have a good day.

Kyle is Five..

Yesterday was Kyles fifth birthday. How time flies? It seems only yesterday that cute little boy came to visit for the first time. He was one month old and a little sweetie, now he is a big five and still a cute little sweety. Sure wish I could see him so I could give him a big hug. I know he must have had a lot of fun on Halloween, and then the next day on his birthday. I loved the pictures of his costume for Halloween.

Kyle is my youngest great-grandson. I have three of those great-grandsons and five great-granddaughters. It's always a pleasure to have them around, they like to entertain you. Just wish I could see them more often. There is never a dull moment when they are around.

Today I have been busy with a little project I'm working on. Can't say what it is yet, but it's gonna be good. Time goes by quickly when you are busy.

This has been a beautiful day, but a little warm for the second day of November. Had to get out of the sweater and get back into tees. I like the warm weather. We had frost a couple of times this week, but not severe enough to kill the plants in the yard. They are still trying to show their colors. The reds and golds this time of year are so beautiful.

We Got Rain Today.

I forgot to reset my clocks last night, so when I woke up this morning I thought it was later than it really was. That's alright because it was really cloudy and dark and I would have thought it was late any way. Then we got rain, it looked like the sky opened up for us. It only lasted a few minutes and now you would never know it rained here. It is so beautiful out.

Little Kyle had his fifth birthday on the first of November. He reported that he had a good birthday with his friends at his party. He is such a sweetheart, I gave him a big hug on the telephone. Wish I could have seen him score a point at his scoccer game yesterday. I saw a picture, but its not the same. Kyle is my youngest great-grandson. He's a little Texan, cowboy boots and all.

Today I started a new medication, sometimes I feel like I'm a guinea pig, but if it will help me I'll just about try anything. Hopefully this is the right thing to do.

I went to the grocers today and restocked my groceries. Seem all I do is eat, but isn't that an enjoyable thing to do. So hard to keep the pounds off, but I keep trying.

It has been a good day.