Category: Grandma’s in the House

Grandma’s in the House – A Reflection

I’ve had a lot of funny stories about my husbands Grandma.  He helped remind me of things to write.  Some things I couldn’t write about, but have told a very few privately.  Oh my…

Today’s post is in honor of her and what she has done in her life.  She is still living and is 96-1/2 years old.  Gma grew up in the 1920’s and 30’s.  She saw the Great Depression.  She was brought up in the mode of children should be seen and not heard.  To speak only when spoken to.  On her family’s farm, she farmed the land with horses.

Her father had a small coal mine that he hand dug and delivered to customers.  When he heard of a struggling family, he would take coal to them for free.  He also had a strawberry farm.

Gma married young and started her family.  Her husband worked at a metal scrap yard.  They leased their first dairy farm and proceeded to raise cattle and sell milk.  Early on, she tended bar and later worked in a nursing home.

Gma found a man, lying in a ditch, that had been beaten up and thrown out of a car.  She took him back to the farm and nursed him to health.  Then offered him a job and he lived and worked on the farm until he was 87 years old and passed away.

She also adopted her brother’s son and he lived on the farm also.  By this time, she had about 100 chickens, milk cattle, pigs and a huge garden.  There were about 10 or more family members living there, in the farmhouse together, at one time.  Lots of hands made the work lighter.  My husband remembers having big meals three times a day.  He said that if you leaned back while eating and your back hit the chair, she asked if you were done eating and if you said, “yes”, she’d say, “if you’re done eating, get out in the field and work.”

If Gma ever heard of anyone in need, she would always take food to them.  She would oversee all of the farm work, pitch in where needed, make sure everyone was fed, sold eggs and milk, canned food from the garden, helped raise grandchildren and always made sure that everyone in the family was taken care of and their needs were met.  She’s one of the toughest women I know, but I sure would have been leery of messing with anyone in her family.

Grandma’s in the House – Supervisor

By late spring, I took a second job.  It was a part-time, afternoon shift job, sorting mail.  The garden suffered, in that the weeds grew pretty good that year.

When I had a day that I wasn’t working, I would head outside.  It’s my favorite place to be.  (My mom said I used to throw myself on the ground and cry and cry when she would bring me inside, when I was a very small child even).  Back to the story…So, I would hear the door squeak open and see Grandma peak her head out and look for me.  I figured she was making sure I was okay.

There was an old corn crib on the property that Tom converted into a chicken coop for me.  I was painting the outside of it.  I heard the door squeaking open and shut frequently, but didn’t think anything about it.  Then, when Tom got home from work, I heard her telling him that I    wasn’t working today (meaning at the house, not the job).  She said I was napping in that building down there.  That’s when I realized I had a      supervisor.

I was working in the garden when I heard the back door squeak open and close, and I knew she would be coming to the front door next.  That was one time in my life I was glad that the doors squeaked.  The weeds along the edge of the garden were about three foot high by then and I dove down behind them.  This was repeated whenever I heard the back door open.  She always went there first and I had time before she got to the front door.  The report that night was that I was goofing off somewhere, that I wasn’t working.

Grandma asked me one day, why I had so many coffee mugs.  She said you need only three.  One for each of us. (There were 4 of us living here, us three, plus our daughter, Andrea who Gma called “that girl that lives with you”.)  I told her that we got mugs when we go on vacation somewhere, and also that I like pottery (LOVE is a better word for it).  The next day, a mug “fell out” of the cupboard and broke.  Hmmm….

On days that my mother and me went grocery shopping, Gma would tell Tom that we were off sitting and drinking in bars all day.  That’s kind of funny, being that my mother is a preacher’s wife and the trunk load of groceries that I brought home.  And I never had alcohol breath.  Did not know where she got that story.

Also, with her being 90 years old, had some “bathroom issues”.  She was always telling me that it was because of my cooking.  I said that was strange, because no one else had that problem.  So, sometimes when my husband is having stomach issues, he’ll look at me and say, “It’s because of your cooking”.  He thinks he’s funny.

Grandma’s in the House – Naps

Grandma likes her naps.  She would go to sleep at 8:30 in the evening and set her alarm to wake up at 5:30 am.  I thought that was a lot of sleep for someone her age, but then she also takes about six naps a day.

I had wrote down television channels that she liked and could punch the number in to go to that channel, instead of trying to operate the remote.  She had it so messed up we had to have a technician straighten it out.  She liked mostly westerns and the Catholic channel.

So, every half hour, she would turn the television on to a show she liked, doze off for a 10 minute nap or so.  Wake up, turn the television back off and say she doesn’t watch it, but she knows what time all of her programs come on…

Sometimes she would watch a show for a whole half hour before turning it off.  And yes, we did have to replace the bulb in the television because all that on and off, blew it out.  That’s what the technician said. (smirk)

Even at night, when we would sit down to watch some television, she would fall asleep through the evening.  She says she never naps.

However, when she would see my husband, Tom, in his easy chair with his feet up, starting to snore, she would bump his feet and say, “Don’t you have some work to do?”  We didn’t nap, that’s for sure.

Tom said when he was little, Grandma would be outside for a while giving orders to the family what to do around their dairy farm.  He said when he would go into the house for something, she was always napping in a chair.  Hmmm…I think Grandma has always liked her naps.

Grandma’s in the House – The Catssss

Grandma had six cats when she was going to move in with us.  She was going to have them put down (to put it nicely), and we told her to bring them here.  They got ahold of 4 of them to put in cat carriers and brought them to our house.  The grandson who lived next door, kept the other two.  After trying to tear the cages apart, they made it down here.  We put butter on their feet so they couldn’t find their way back where they had come from, and they all scattered from the nice warm barn we gave them to sleep and live in.

They were back that evening and still here the next day, which I was glad of at the time.

Gma came with two 20 pound bags of cat food, different kinds, that we were to mix together, because the cats like it that way.  They are too fussy to eat only one kind of food at a time.  However, whenever they get in the garage where my cats are, they woof down my singular kind of cat food, like there’s no tomorrow.  Gma buys the expensive stuff, I buy Dad’s cat food.

Two of those cats do everything they can to get into the garage.  These cats came with enough blankets and rugs to wrap a sheik in comfort.  They are nicely sprawled over soft mounds of straw so they can sleep in softness like a kitty cloud.  Yet, they try to dig under the doors to get into my garage, where there are no such comforts.  They follow me over and wait at the door until I come out, then try to out-maneuver me to get in.

Oh yeah, and when I go down to feed the precious darlings in the morning, Gma hands me two wet PAPER TOWELS to clean out their precious dishes so they can eat, because cats don’t like to eat or drink in a dirty pan.  I think that’s funny, because after I clean and pour fresh water, they always go out and drink out of the mud puddles…

Grandma’s in the House – The Doorbell

Grandma has hearing aids in both ears.  She can hear somewhat good; things like the telephone, conversations when you’re looking at her, etc.  What she has a hard time with is someone knocking on the door and the doorbell.

We’ll be sitting and watching television when I hear the doorbell ring.  I’ll get up and go let whoever in.  They walk in and she will look at me and say, “How did you know they were here?”  Same goes when they knock.  “How did you know they were here?”

One day, we had a guy coming to lay out the forms for some concrete under our back awning.  Gma was watching for him, because we were all working.  My mom brought over some corn on the cob and rang the doorbell.  Gma had been looking outside (another story, another time), and saw them, so she opened the door.  Somehow the doorbell got stuck in the “ring” position and the doorbell was going off every little bit.

Andrea, my daughter, worked afternoon shift and was sleeping.  She heard the doorbell ringing, got up and checked the front and back doors and since no one was there, went back in.  Gma was getting off of the couch and going to the door, looking out.  Then she thought she heard the stove buzzer going off and couldn’t find out how to stop it (my stove didn’t have a buzzer).  Andrea said that this was going on for 20 minutes.  So, she went outside and found that the doorbell had gotten stuck.  She unstuck it, thank goodness!  Gma would have worn herself out going back and forth.  She’s still not convinced it was the doorbell.  She never hears the dryer buzzer either…

Grandma’s in the House – Paper Towels

Grandma was with us for four days and had gone through three jumbo rolls of paper towels.  That may not seem like an unusual amount to you, but we use one jumbo roll in 3 or 4 weeks!  Needless to say, I was stunned at the volume of paper towels she uses.  When she moved in, she brought an economy pack the size of a grocery cart, with her.  I thought she was being thrifty, but now I know that’s her weekly consumption of paper towels.  She probably kills a tree a week.

Every time I look at her, she has a damp paper towel in one hand or the other.  Sometimes both.  My bag of stuff to burn fills up almost daily and it is extremely easy to light.  Why?  You guessed it, paper towels.  She would dry dishes with them, if I would let her.  She says they dry better.  I’m thinking I need to start a lot of tree seedlings.

I’d like to get it on camera and then fast forward all the paper towel use in one day.  It’s probably some kind of record.  There is even a clean paper towel on top of the placemats I have on our dining room table.  I guess they keep the placemats cleaner.

I’ve also noticed that the Kleenex and toilet tissue disappear with the speed of light.  Maybe it has something to do with that generation.  It was probably a new invention at some point in her life and she fell in love with the convenience and good drying qualities of paper products.  Much better than rags.

Grandma’s in the House – Lard

We’ve gotten to experience a new taste sensation since Gma moved in.  Yes, it’s lard.  She kept a quart sized container in my refrigerator at all times.  My daughter, Andrea, ate some potatoes that Gma had fried in this special substance.  She said it tasted good, but her mouth felt and tasted funny the rest of the night.  She had to gargle before bed to get the taste out of her mouth.  When she laid down to sleep, the lard kept talking to her in her stomach.  It hurt for quite a while.

I could tell she did something different with those potatoes, because my teeth felt furry the rest of the evening.  My tongue felt like it was coated in wax, and I felt like I had a lead ball in my belly.  When asking her the next day how she cooked it, she said “In lard, don’t you cook with lard?”  No, I said.  She tells her daughter that I cook funny.  I spray the pan before I cook and don’t put any lard in it.  Gma also says that the doctor says she has lived this long because of lard.  Maybe it coats the inside of your body and it never ages in there.

She cooked hot dogs for my husband, Tom and his friend, when they were working on our deck one Saturday, while I was working.  Yes, she fried hot dogs in lard.  It’s a wonder they could pick up the buns with the heavy dogs in them.  And that’s where the fried potatoes came in also.  So if I look a little lethargic, it may be the lard.  I wonder what cleans it out of your system.  Hmmm, maybe vinegar…..

Grandma’s in the House – Breakfast

My husbands grandma came to live with us on April 8th, 2011.  She turned 90 the next day.  We’re the only ones in the family with a single story home that she can navigate easily around in.  She didn’t use a cane and could get around pretty good.

I was working part time, at that time, so I am home or thereabouts, most of the time.  From day one, I inherited a five foot shadow.  I hear slippers shuffling about three feet behind me.  They eventually go somewhere else, because I do many things that she does not understand or agree with.  But they come back every 15 minutes to see if I am still doing that thing that she says I don’t have time to do.  When that is the time I am doing it.  Like balancing my checkbook on the computer.  She thinks if I am sitting at the computer, I am taking away from cleaning the house.

My house is basically clean, sometimes a little disorderly.  It’s called Life.  If the floors are clean, furniture is dusted, beds made and the dishes done, I am a very happy camper.  I usually go with the flow.  My husband has always had a different work schedule.  A lot of days have been different work hours for him and different days of the week so we don’t eat at regular times, or have set schedules.  We wing it.  This had worked well for our (almost) 14 years of marriage.  I’ve learned that he doesn’t want any breakfast when it is a day that he works.  But likes breakfast on the days he has off.

This being said, every morning since Grandma moved in, she asks him if he wants something to eat and some coffee.  He kept saying “no”, but after three weeks, started taking some coffee with him in a mug, to stop her asking.  The pot was ready every morning.  I never heard if she stopped asking him if he wanted breakfast or not, but I doubt that she did.

For me, on the other hand, I would get up about 7:30 depending if I slept good or not the night before.  When my foot steps outside the bedroom, I am asked (every morning) if I’m going to sleep all day.  Then I make it to the kitchen to cook breakfast and make my own coffee.  She has long ago thrown out any leftover coffee.  She thinks if it sets more then 10 minutes it goes black and bitter.  She has her breakfast over and the dishes washed.

She checks my progress every few minutes to see if there is a dish that I am done with that she can wash right away.  Every spoon that gets laid in the sink gets a good squirt of dish soap, lots of hot water, scrubbed like there’s no tomorrow and dried and put right away.  No resting for that spoon.