Remember When | FabGrandma

Remember Whensday

September 9, 2009 By Fab Grandma 7 Comments

That’s Becky, my step-daughter, in the middle.

When FabGrandpa and I got married, we had three teenaged girls between us. My two daughters, and his daughter, Becky. Since he had custody of Becky, she lived with us, too. I have to admit, it was not all rosy and fun–Becky and I clashed a lot as we learned how to live together as a family. Now, though, we get along just fine.

I remember one very trying weekend, a couple of years after we were married, that I had baked a ham, and then all hell broke loose in the household before we could eat dinner. It involved taking one of my children to the hospital emergency room. While I was away taking care of business, Becky cleaned up the kitchen and threw the ham away. When I got home, I was very stressed due the happenings of the weekend, and all I could think about was having a ham sandwich. I had held myself together pretty well, up until I found out that Becky had thrown the ham away–the whole thing. That is when I started crying and couldn’t stop.

All these years later, it sounds pretty silly, but at the time it was tragic for me. We laugh about it now, but that day was awful. I have not ever cooked a ham since then that I haven’t thought about the one that was tossed in the trash.

Becky is here to visit us this week. We are going to see the sights–Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Glen Canyon Dam, Lake Powell, and Antelope Canyon. We’ll go out to eat, do some shopping, and just hang out together. I doubt I’ll be baking a ham, though!

For more Remember Whensday photos, click here.

Filed Under: Remember When

Remember Whensday

August 19, 2009 By Fab Grandma 10 Comments

This is a picture of me, around Thanksgiving, 1971 at my home in Neunkirken, Germany with a vase our neighbors gave me for Christmas. My first husband was in the Army, and I had gone over to Germany to live with him and await the birth of our first child. My son was born in Wuerzburg on November 14, 1971. Shortly after his birth, we found out that my husband was going to get an early release from the Army. So, we opened our Christmas presents early, then immediately packed them up for shipping home. I flew out of Frankfurt, on my way to Atlanta, the day before Christmas Eve. My son was one day short of being six weeks old.

After my husband dropped me off at the airport in Frankfurt, there was a flight delay that lasted about six hours. The delay caused me to miss my connecting flight from JFK in New York, so I sat in the airport in New York for another 12 hours, waiting for a standby flight. I finally got on a flight to Atlanta because my son was the youngest baby waiting, and I was running out of supplies of formula for him. I was so happy to finally arrive in Atlanta at Hartsfield Airport, way beyond exhausted. And when my mother picked me up? The first words out of her mouth were “Be careful with the baby.”

For more Remember Whensday photos, click here.

Filed Under: Remember When, Son

Remember Whensday

August 11, 2009 By Fab Grandma 8 Comments

This week’s rememberance is not from long ago–it is a memory made just yesterday. My cousin Susan and her husband came to visit me. It was the first time we met, I think, but she says she remembers me and my family coming to Detroit when I was seven, and going to the Detroit Zoo with her family. I don’t remember much about that trip, and certainly don’t remember Susan or the zoo. I wish I did, because she told me a funny story about my Mom and Dad wearing straw hats that looked like Chinese coolie hats. That would be a funny site to me, for sure.

Before they got here, I was worried that we wouldn’t have anything to talk about, or that it would be awkard, since we are both, ahem, in our late 50′s. But, I have to say, it was like I had known her all my life, and had just seen her a week or so ago. We talked all afternoon! We have a lot in common, and enjoy a lot of the same things. I was showing her my quilting project, and she showed me her rug hooking project, which was gorgeous! And as you can see from the photo above, we have the same idea of F-U-N! I think we could have been close like sisters if we had grown up together.

And because I want to remember yesterday for a very long time, I am sharing two pictures instead of one. I hope we can get together again soon!

For more Remember Whensday photos, click here.

Filed Under: Life on the road, Remember When

Remember Whensday

August 4, 2009 By Fab Grandma 7 Comments

In the summer of 1985, I had major surgery and was out of work on sick leave for 10 and a half weeks. While I was recuperating, I went on a short trip to visit my brother and his family. I lived west of Atlanta, and he lived in south Georgia, out in the country.

I had a wonderful visit with them, just hanging around the house, doing nothing special at all, but it was one of my favorite trips I ever took. One day while we were there, we visited Okeefeenoke Swamp, and took a boat ride along the murky water, with alligators swimming by. That is my sister-in-law, Jean on the left, my daughter Becca in the back, and me on the right, sitting in Jean’s kitchen.

For more Remember Whensday photos, click here.

Filed Under: Remember When, Vacation

Remember Whensday

July 28, 2009 By Fab Grandma 7 Comments

Back in 1992, when FabGrandpa and I were newly married, we decided to take a weekend trip to the mountains of Tennessee. We reserved a cabin in Sevierville, left the three teenaged girls at home, and took off for some much needed R&R.

We got to the cabin, unloaded the car, then took a drive over to Cherokee, North Carolina. On the way back it started snowing. We pulled over on a scenic overlook and watched the snow falling for a while.

When we got in bed that night, and looked up, we discovered that there were mirrors on the ceiling over the bed. I don’t think we have laughed so long and hard as we did that night. Every time we looked up, there we were! It was far from romantic, but it was just what we needed that night.

For more Remember Whensday posts, click here.

Filed Under: Remember When

Remember Whensday

July 22, 2009 By Fab Grandma 7 Comments

The last year that we owned our house, a pair of flickers chose a dead tree near the deck to build a nest and raise their young. We got a “bird’s eye view” of it all. The couple began by coming to the tree for several days in a row to check it out. Next, they pecked an almost perfectly round hole into the tree.

They flew in and out of the hole for several days, bringing nesting material with them. One day when I was home in the middle of the day, I saw a starling go in the hole while the flickers were away. The male flicker came home to find the intruder. As I watched, I heard a lot of squawking and saw black feathers flying out of the hole. The starling managed to escape, and he never tried that again!

Soon, there were baby bird noises coming out of the hole in the tree. I borrowed a 35 mm camera with an extended lens and a tripod, and sat out on the deck for hours, waiting for a good shot. I was rewarded with several photos of the flickers feeding their babies. All too soon, the babies grew and fledged, and it was over. What an awesome summer that was!

Filed Under: Remember When