Thank you. Thank you very much.

Ladies and Gentlemen (that is if there are actually any gentlemen who read this here blog) it appears that yours truly is the recipient of an award.

A very prestigious blog award, I'm sure.
No?
Okay then, just humor me. Unlike my Emmy winning hubby, not many awards are handed in my general direction, so I'm going to label any award given to me as prestigious.
Thanks.
My friend Jamie over at Snips and Snails felt I was worthy enough to receive this. Do you want to know something fun about my friend Jamie? We were friends before we ever met. I think she was my first cyber-friend. She's one of the most amazing women I know, too. I'd like to think that if we lived a little bit closer we'd see each other a little bit more. But I guess for now we'll have to stick with our ever-so-spread-out occasional encounters.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, there are strings attached with this award. If I am to accept this award I have to list 7 random things about me.

And since I'm accepting the award, you'll be discovering 7 random things about me.
Except right now I can only come up with 1 interesting thing about myself. So the other 6 will have to wait.

You can hardly stand the anticipation. I can feel it.

Drumroll please......

#1 I have some very vivid memories from when I was 2 years old. And every single one of those memories include her:


She is my Grandma Jackson.
And she went to be with Jesus when I was only 3 1/2 years old.

And I'm not talking about those photographically documented memories.
You know what I mean?
The ones that are only memories because you remember seeing the picture that was taken during that specific event.

These are genuine memories that were never photographed. But memories that my mom can verify actually happened.
Most of the memories are of events that were just ordinary, commonplace, everyday happenings. But apparently they scored very high on the importance scale of a 2-3 year old girl.

• Standing on a chair at her kitchen table mixing potato salad in a big yellow bowl. My mom actually still has that exact yellow bowl. I'm thinking about asking her to include it in my inheritance. I'm sure my brother won't mind.
• Spending the night with her in her trailer. We slept on a metal cot that folded down. She put it in the living room and let my brother and I watch TV until we fell asleep.
• She had evidently lost some weight at some point so she had some "extra" skin under her arm. Sometimes when she had her arm up I would mess around with that flabby skin. She would tell me "Cut that out!" so I would pretend that my fingers were scissors and cut her flabby skin. It always made her laugh.
• Coloring. She was an amazing colorer. I usually spent more time watching her color than I did working on my own page.
• Running around in her back yard trying to catch butterflies with nets that weren't quite big enough.
• She stored her jars of canned tomato juice in my bedroom closet. Right before she was to have her open-heart surgery she moved in with us so that we could take care of her afterwards. For some reason, her tomato juice was stored in my closet on metal shelves.

I also remember when she died. I was only 3 years old, but I could take you to the very place I was standing the minute my mom told me she was gone. My brother and I were staying with some of my parent's friends while they were at the hospital with Grandma for a very "routine" no-complications-expected surgery. They came back to get us and I remember my mom kneeling down to my eye level and telling me that the angels came and took Grandma to heaven. I don't know if I said it, but I remember thinking:

"Tell them to bring her back. They can't have her."

I have more memories of her funeral and of the auction that took place later at her house.
I still think about her a lot and cherish all these memories.
And my little girl, Anna Irene, carries her name as a daily reminder of the wonderful great-grandma that she never got a chance to know.
I marvel at the strength of my mom and all that she must have gone through to lose her mom at such a young age. I can't even imagine...


p.s. I promise #2 will be more lighthearted. Stay tuned.