Grandma's Gleanings
Words and Thoughts from Grandma
It was bound to happen eventually. Anytime I dare to venture down to my clothes line to hang some laundry out to dry, I am accompanied by an assemblage of stray cats…stray cats that were adopted by me a decade ago, or should I say that THEY adopted me. This little brood of kitties is …
Does the possibility even exist in our present day, high-tech world? Can someone actually place a phone call and get a real-live, human operator on the first try? I seriously have my doubts, and those doubts were reinforced recently as I found myself desperately attempting to get through on a health information line at our …
Ah, how wonderful! After enduring a long, snowy winter, God saw fit to grant us a somewhat warm preview of spring this week. With the sky so blue and the breeze so warm, my thoughts immediately turned to a bag of bulbs that I had purchased in anticipation of the upcoming planting season. It was …
I stand guilty as charged. I am that person who cannot scroll past an animal video that was randomly posted on social media. Talk about cuteness overload! And if that video happens to involve anything feline-related, they got me; I am in, hook, line, and sinker. Today’s furry-friend feature was so adorable that I mustered …
Ever wonder how much you spend in order to look pretty? How much of the family budget is siphoned off for make-up, hair cuts and styling, skin care, shampoos, conditioners, and my all-time favorite, anti-aging products? You might be surprised to know that the average spent by women annually on appearances in our country is …
Oh boy, this puzzle is going to be a doozy. Upon opening the box, I was immediately overwhelmed by the overabundance of yellow pieces. My goodness, how is one supposed to know which piece belongs to which flower? But after a few days into the project, I gradually took note of one important detail. Every …
I could blame the phobia on a number of things: way too many scary movies when I was a child, an older sister who took great pride in scaring the bejeebers out of her little sister, or the fact that I have a terribly vivid imagination. Regardless of the origin, this ole lady can whip …
We have all heard the familiar idiom repeated time and again. Well, she did what she could…used in almost an apologetic sense, as if the person was not capable of much, so we didn’t expect much from them, they simply did what they could. Little could we imagine that this one simple phrase would be …
I blush as I look back on how young and naïve we once were! Although we had only been married a few years and our financial stability was, at best, precarious, we were weary of rental homes and desired to set down permanent roots…in a home of our own. We quickly discovered that staying within …
It seems only fitting to me that this particular musical device was invented by someone who shares my husband’s family name, albeit with a a bit of a spelling variation. Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel is credited with designing the first metronome, a device that produces an audible, yet somewhat annoying click at regular intervals at a …
We have experienced quite an unusual Christmas here at the Winkle abode. Much to our dismay, this year would be void of sharing a Christmas feast together as a family, watching hyperactive grandkids bounce off of the walls, opening brightly wrapped presents in an overcrowded room that is jammed with shredded giftwrap, and catching up …
Life was incredibly grand for this young couple. They were renting their dream home, a gorgeous, old farmhouse nestled on acres and acres of rural bliss, complete with a lake, grape arbor, and more room than three and a half people could possibly use. Three and a half? Yes, this young couple had a child, …
It was a simple, “little chamber,” a small guest room furnished with “a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick,” certainly nothing considered fancy or extravagant. This “great woman” of Shunem constrained her husband to prepare this oasis, this prophet’s chamber of sorts, for the prophet Elisha, that he might have a …
Here we sat, stuck in the house, marooned on Winkle Island, both sorely lacking any measurable amount of energy, recovering from a wicked virus that put one of us in the hospital and knocked the other off her feet for days. What to do to pass the time and break the boredom? Hey, didn’t we …
They are small words, but very important words, words that we use routinely without much thought. Conjunctions are connecting words. We have all served our time in English class memorizing those lists of conjunctions and determining their function in a sentence. The particular conjunction that convicted my soul today is a word used to express …