another month has gone by...

time for another 5 on 5....

this post will contain way more than 5 photos....

typical of me...i know...

but, these photos mean so much more...

you see...this past january...

my family suffered a great loss...

someone very near and dear to us.... to me...

my dear sweet grandmother went to her heavenly woods above after a swift, brief battle with cancer....

she was my "little gramma in the woods"....

her lovely little home..tucked away in the north woods...

unique but home to me...to us....

a house full....

of her...

i wish you all could know her....

i never really felt compelled to share this all before...

but, i feel now it is only appropriate...

you see, tomorrow would have been her birthday...

oh how i wish she were here so i could tell her happy birthday...

to tell her how much she truly does mean to me...

she said to me shortly before she was diagnosed..."naomi, you promise you'll remember me when i wasn't so old and stupid?"

and i just shrugged it off and said, oh stop. don't be so silly grandma...you aren't stupid...

who knew it would be the last time I'd see her...

i would love...

to hear her voice...to listen to her funny stories...

to hear her laugh... i can still hear that laugh...

how does one describe someone accurately to show how amazing they were?

from the day I was born she was an integral part of my life...

she and my mom were best friends...

many memories of my childhood involve her....

she was an amazing storyteller... she always had a story...

she did not like technology....did things the old fashioned way... she refused to use a microwave...

she never learned to drive...

she had chickens...i use to go join the chickens in the coop... not sure why!

she was tidy....mondays were always cleaning days...steer clear of the house on monday!

she was always in the kitchen and that is where i will always remember her...me sitting at the counter with my boiled hot dog or my PB & J on white bread...looking in at her...

if I didn't eat my crust she would tell me a story...about a boy who hid all of his crust under the counter--and one day his mom found all of those crusts and made him eat every single rotten, moldy crust...

i think i always ended up eating my crust.. :)

we went to the shores of lake superior many a time...collecting agates, sea glass, and driftwood on the beach....

we picked strawberries on the railroad tracks...

there were always chocolate chip cookies in the cookie jar and chocolate licorice and oatmeal creme pies in the cupboard...

she made some mean garlic bread and crab pasta salad....

she always created a feast at holidays...

she was crafty--always crafting something...stained glass...little things out of driftwood...little people with acorn hats...

she loved chickadees...

she taught us a song when we were little...she actually continued on the tradition and taught it to owen.... owen thought it was hilarious:

dirty bill, dirty bill,

lives on top of garbage hill

never washes, never will

-insert spitting sound here-

dirty bill!

she was an amazing gardener.... her yard was FULL of beautiful gardens....

and with gardens, she had a greenhouse...i distinctly remember the way it smelled...the warmth....

some of her flowers are now planted in our yard....something to always remember her by...

*********

A couple of stories from my mom to show my grandma's personality:

when I was in junior high school I tended not to pick up my clothing. Everything was heaped on the floor, which, of course, is unacceptable to mother. I returned from school one afternoon and found this lovely printed story placed neatly on my floor pillow.

"The story is about a little princess who was VERY untidy and not at all proper.

Her wicked stepmother was very angry about the mess that the princess would surround herself in day after day.

so one day she overheard her wicked stepmother in the kitchen yelling, "if that princess does not pick up her clothes I will hang her. Thus the origin of the HANGAR- USE IT!"

The kool-aid story:

trying to keep the pack of children from raiding the fridge when mom wasn't looking was a perpetual task.

boys are always either hungry or thirsty, and we girls would just go out foraging for nuts and berries in the forest

In the olden days you could get a packet of kool-aid mix for less than 10 cents. But you had to add two cups of sugar and your water.

So this would make Kool-aid basically a packet of colored powder, I guess. This pitcher of kool-aid was always in the fridge. Orange, green, purple, and red. flavors coincided with the colors. Rob was forever guzzling down almost the entire pitcher of kool-aid in an afternoon. So one day Mom had enough and decided to just throw some green food coloring in a pitcher of ice water. Rob came in, swilled down the mixture and said, "hey, this kool-aid tastes different" she explained to him it was WATER.... and that he should try drinking some of that instead. "There is a faucet right over THERE!"

she was spunky...a spitfire...

she was silly...

she was kind...

she was our little gramma in the woods...