Our Greenie - All Wool and a Yard Wide

My grandmother (Greenie) passed away today, after a long, interesting, beautiful, loving and love-filled life. One of the best words I can think of to describe Greenie is true. There was no pretense with her, nothing false, and truly - deep down to her core - nothing but goodness. I don't think she considered herself a storyteller, but that's probably because she lived for so long with my larger-than-life grandfather, the king of stories and jokes. But she was a storyteller, and to the end she could recall the most interesting details from her life. One of my favorite stories she told went back to her years as a teacher at the Lincoln School. She was complimenting one of the cooks there about how her bacon was always perfectly crispy and delicious, and recalled the response she got, with a southern drawl - "Ah, Missus G., the bacon way is the slow way."

Greenie had wonderful ways of saying things, too; I remember once she referred to a friend of hers as "all wool and a yard wide." I've never forgotten that -- it meant that she thought her friend was solid, dependable, honest, and true. I love the expression, and I've never heard it anywhere but from Greenie. I also love how she combined old-world and modern sensibilities; one time after I declared "Isn't that so cool?" she replied, "'Tis cool!" Greenie was cool. We're all full of stories of Greenie, wonderful memories - anyone who met her would recall her kindness, her genuine curiosity, her open conversational style, her warmth of spirit. May the best of Greenie - and there was only the best in Greenie - live on in each of us.

Read my brother's recollections as well, in his entry on February 21.

What's Missing Here?

That's right -- Daddy! We miss you soooo much... especially Mommy. Had a surprise visit today from my good friend Gretchen, and her husband, Jonathan, so that was the highlight of my day! Along with my purple sparkley chocolate kitty, but that's another story. Love to all on Valentine's Day!

Sunny Morning

Friday already... we're maybe halfway through our days of missing Daddy. Poor Ollie has had a fever on and off for a couple of days, and isn't himself, but he's in fairly good spirits most of the time. I'm not getting as much sleep as I had hoped I might, and I'll miss sleeping in a bit on the weekend without Andy here to step in. Mostly I'm a bit bored -- we were really looking forward to a fun valentine playdate with some of Ollie's best friends today, but he's not feeling well enough to go, so both he and I are really disappointed!! Here are today's photos, big sunny morning smiles for Daddy.

Love You, Daddy

A special video message for Daddy in Germany... xoxooxxo from your lambs

and here's another from this morning - Ollie missing his dad!!

Snow Boy

Ollie was so excited this morning to wake up to snow... for a while there, we thought that the last snow we'd see all season was Christmas in Maine! But it's back with a vengeance, and Ollie was eager to get out there for his two favorite snowy pastimes - making footprints, and making snowmen. He started getting ready right away, found his shovel in the garage, and pretty soon declared himself "ready" - see first photo. Later on, and a few layers later, he was good to go!

Snow Birds

Big snowstorm here today, and we filled up the birdfeeder just in time -- the birds have been feasting all day! The cardinals are so gorgeous; at one point I saw five female cardinals at the same time. And the big surprise of the day was a red-bellied woodpecker - beautiful. Snow is still falling hard, they say we might get as much as 18" total... we'll see!

Liberty Science Center

I wanted to post a few photos from our trip last weekend to the Liberty Science Center -- we had such a good time there!! Thanks to our friend Carol for telling us about the place; it's only about 45 minutes from here, in Jersey City. It's also pretty much as close as anything can be to the Statue of Liberty - great views! And awesome views of NYC as well. Anyway, we spent about four hours there, including nearly an hour at the end watching a 3-D movie called "Dinosaurs!" which was pretty cool. Ollie was very brave. He didn't seem too fascinated with "Sue," the T-Rex skeleton... I think if she was moving around and roaring, he would have been more interested!! He loved all the animals - really cool fish, great turtles, lizards, and a lot more. His favorite activity of all was getting to control a small-sized "big dig" truck, moving dirt around with it, scooping, etc. He can't wait to go back. There was so much to see and do there - it really is a fantastic science museum, highly recommended!

Morning Smiles

When do you ever get a photo of both your kids smiling at the same time?!! At least not when one of them is still a baby... I just got lucky this morning. The plan is that I'll post a new photo on here each day that Andy is gone, so here is Day 1, which I'm calling "Morning Smiles." I told Oliver the photo was for Daddy, so I think that made his smile extra nice. We miss you, sweetie!

And He's Off

Andy's off to Germany again - we all waved goodbye an hour or so ago, sad to see him go. The time usually goes really quickly when he's gone, generally. I guess. I try to make the best of it, and especially enjoy my free reigns to make "breakfast for dinner" a regular thing. Sad that I might miss choir tonight, as I haven't heard back from our babysitter... not too hopeful that I will.
I've promised to try to post at least one new photo of the kiddies each day for him, and I thought it would make sense to do it here, where he can visit often and easily to see new and old photos. But today I'm going to post our two new top videos; one of Andy and Ollie enjoying their very favorite pastime, and the other of our sweet Maddie and her fabulous giggles. Enjoy!