Last week was Veteran’s Day here in the States.  Anyone serving in the armed forces is honored, one restaurant chain even giving free meals to vets.  While it is hard for me to get my head around what it must be like to, at a young age, go to a foreign country and shoot people, I can’t dismiss what these folks have done.  “Thank You”, Veterans!  Thank you for this day.

Now, on the granny end of it, it meant a day for the children to stay home from school.  Day care was closed, as well.  The banks and the post office were also closed.  With the day being a busy day for my daughter at her work, though, I got to keep the little darlings.  Heh-heh.  Overall, the day was okay.  We started the day with “dress-up”.  The grandchildren love to come into my room and explore.  I not only save anything and everything, but, I collect stuff, too.  My jewelry ‘collection’ is massive.  None of it is really worth anything.  It’s just pretties I’ve bought or been given through the years.  I also collect little purses, long skirts, scarves and accessories.  Among my goodies are hand-woven belts, gloves, a few hats and a hand fan, many of them antiques.  The little ones’ curiosity is always piqued by my purse collection hanging on the wall by my old dresser.  The jewels, beads and embroidery, tinsel and buttons, scream for their attention.  I would be intrigued, but, then, that is what drew me to them in the first place.  We got down some of the purses and got out a few long skirts and had fun.  Jaela was in her element!  She loves dress-up and spends a lot of time trying on her own clothes.  She is particularly fond of skirts.  Mine were just a wee bit too long.  LOL  Jewelry, a scarf and the very tattered hand fan and we had an ensemble.  LOL 

While the children were playing and trying on different items, I couldn’t help but think about what memories these little ones would keep of times like this.  My own grandmother and my memories of her, ironically, are of her perfume, her big, gaudy costume-piece brooches and her hats.  I realize, then, that my cherished treasures were some of the same type things my grandma held special.  She loved to fancy herself up.  She never left the house without her make-up or a hat.  Though she lived in another town with my aunt, we saw her often and she came to visit.  Even at our house, when she got herself ready for the day, she had on stockings and was dressed nice.  Grandma passed on this love of ‘accessorizing’ to me, evidently, and, now, it appears that I am passing this along to my own grandchildren.  I never really thought about it before, but, my granny had her own influences on me.  Thanks, grandma!

We all have certain memories we keep with us from our childhood.  I only knew this one grandparent – the others had passed long before my birth, but, I was born late in my mother’s life.  Grandmas, as far as storybooks and tales go, are shown to wear aprons and bake cookies.  That just wasn’t my grandma!  Granny made some mean salt-water taffy!  And, she healed my hands of warts in one fell swoop!  But, for the most part, I remember my grandmother as pretty and very much a lady.  I recall her eyes, closing demurely, whenever she would meet an older gentleman.  She was such a flirt!  She even held a lace hanky, or had one tucked in her bosom, most of the time.  Most of all, though, I remember my brother and I playing with Grandma’s brooches while we were going someplace, or another, in the family car.  She always sat it the back seat with us kids, so, we would take turns, turning the brooch this way and that in our hands, marveling over the beautiful spray of ‘rainbows’ on the ceiling of the car, which resulted from the sun hitting the cut-glass gemstones like a prism.  I was mesmerized, myself, I don’t know about my brother.  Now, seeing the grandchildren feeling so privileged to rummage through my own pretty things, I recall how special our time together was and how it affected my life.  She cherished her pretties.  Now, I know where I got it.  And, now, I hope, I am making those special memories for my own grandchildren.  Awesome!

So, anyone want to make a wager?  LOL  I’ll bet ya all that I am the only one around here who has a steamroller in her driveway!  And, it’s ‘steaming’ and ‘rolling’.  LOL  I showed you some photos in this post where the city is doing road work and are using a field across from my house as their center of operations.  It’s wall-to-wall Caterpillars over there!  LOL  There are advantages, however.  You know?  Construction workers?  Flirty!  They are repairing the humongous hole at the end of my driveway.  This morning they put more limestone on it lo fill it in and to smooth it out.  They just finished ‘steam-rolling’ it.  There was a big ol’ mud-puddle at the end that was so deep you could mess up your car’s alignment just pulling in.  Not any more!  Yay!

I have been meaning to tell you all, if you don’t already know, that Gunhild Storeide is retiring from blogging.  If you aren’t familiar with the name, she is a wonderful lady who works in and experiments with PSP and gives away her goodies.  She also gives a ton of tips and tools to use in digital scrapping.  When you click on the link to her blog, scroll to the bottom of the most recent ‘freebie’ page, page 11, for the post about retiring to spend more time with family.  She deserves it.  She will leave her links up for a while, but, says that eventually they will come down, so, go get them  ASAP!  There is not much she hasn’t posted in the way of scrapping stuff.  She offers templates galore, a gazillion element packs of all kinds, links to free places and stuff, ribbons, beautiful antique plates – goodness, all kinds of things!  She is always giving out directions to get a desired effect for yourself.  Or, you can download her ‘experimental freebies’.  She uses PSP, but, by following her tips you can figure it out for most any program and her downloads are standard for all.  LOL  Go see Gunhild!  You will not regret it!

Also, there is a new “freebie site”!  Jodiann, from Get Your Pixel On Blog and several stores, along with a couple of ‘secret friends’ started their own freebie site, Freebie Scrap Garden.  You submit your freebies and get great exposure.  Or, you can go peruse each day’s freebies, all in one place.  Give it a whirl!  You might just find something special!

If you’ve been keeping up, today is the release of the second part of my three(3)-part collaboration with Miss Edna.  This kit, “All Aboard”, is train-themed, with some playful elements as well as some elegant papers and elements.  It’s real nice!  It would be great for travel pics!  The links to my two(2) parts follow the preview.  Below that, Miss Edna’s preview is linkable to her blog so you can go there and collect her two parts.  Next week will be the third and final part and you’ll have the entire kit.  Don’t fret if you’ve come in in the middle of things, both Miss Edna and I keep our links up for a while.  The first of December we will both be doing the Gothic Inspirations Christmas Blog Train.  You don’t want to miss that.  Then, the second week of December, we’ll start giving away our Christmas special kit.  We’ll do something different with the parts we give away, though, since this will only leave us a couple of weeks before the big day.  Maybe, we’ll do the “12 Days of Christmas”, or something.  You’ll get all of, do not worry.  It will be fun and very pretty, from what I’ve seen so far.

“All Aboard!”

My Preview
(Compliments of Miss Edna!)

LINKS:

Part 3

Part 4

Miss Edna’s Parts
(Click on image)

Have fun and enjoy!  Thank you, too, for all the sweet comments!

Hugs,

Su