Grandma's Gleanings
Words and Thoughts from Grandma
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, …
The whole saga began on a very windy, chilly, Wednesday morning. An outdoor project was in desperate need of completion, and in spite of the hurricane force winds (bit of an exaggeration), this was the day to knock this chore off of the ‘TO DO’ list. What a sense of accomplishment filled our home that …
Silence is golden, but my eyes still see… Ah yes, it’s golden oldie time, and with those lyrics I am once again a spry, slightly crazy, teenager, traveling in my time machine back to the sixties. The wild musical sounds that dominated those raucous years didn’t impress me much, I was more a fan of …
What a wonderful visit we enjoyed with our young grandchildren recently! As is the tradition with most grandparents, we prepared well in advance of the visit, stretching the grocery budget to include ice cream, cookies, and kid-friendly munchies, most of which were sadly lacking in nutritional value, but all ranked high on the hyper-out sugar …
Take a moment and make a mental list. In your opinion, who are the three most popular, well-known, wealthiest, possibly even notorious, cultural icons in our world today? How did they reach that pinnacle of success? By righteous, godly living? Faithful preaching of the gospel? Do they live a life that glorifies God and …
Is there any greater joy for a woman than to receive a fragrant bouquet of roses to mark an anniversary, a birthday, or simply to express love and appreciation? Roses-deep in color and texture, exquisitely aromatic, perfect in form and beauty. When my sweetheart gifts me with roses, I treat them with such gentle …
The nocturnal serenade persisted for months, interrupting the solitude of those quiet, country nightscapes. We looked forward to that sweet lullaby every evening, cracking open the bedroom windows, anticipating the arrival of Hoots, the affectionate (yet not terribly original) name I had given to the owl who had taken up temporary residence in our aging, maple tree. Owls are …
I’m certainly not an expert in metallurgy, but I can appreciate the basics involved in the refining of gold. Here it is, in easy-to-understand-non-scientific terms. The raw gold is placed in a crucible and subjected to intense heat, which causes the gold to melt. As it liquefies, the impurities in the gold separate and …
She wrote to me for weeks, not short text messages or emails, but lengthy, hand-written letters that I found tucked in my mailbox every day. I was young in my Christian faith, a newborn in my walk with Christ, facing the devastating and unexpected loss of our young daughter. My heart was broken, my …
Nothing jolts a memory quite like a familiar smell, taste, or flavor. I was transported back in time today while adding eggs to a recipe. Yes, eggs! My favorite childhood breakfast was my mom’s eggs-over-easy. I can still hear the butter sizzling on the hot skillet, the crack of the eggs, Mom’s sweet voice …
It’s a common scene replayed daily in any typical elementary school hallway. Allow me to set the stage: two students have had a conflict, maybe in the lunchroom, or out on the playground, and each has a story to tell, their own slant on the truth. Between the battling parties stands their teacher, listening …
Our small, backwoods high school was finally joining the big city schools, we had formed our first-ever football team! We were thrilled with our bumpy field, small-scale bleachers, inexperienced marching band; our students were more than tolerant to the fact that those chilly fall games would be held on Saturday mornings due to our lack of stadium …
Summers of my youth stand in stark contrast to what summer entails for today’s young ones. We had no video games, cell phones, computers, tablets, or even color televisions. When we popped out of bed early on those long days of summer, we were left to our own devices and creativity, and on most days, that involved …