Turning into Grandma

I figured if I waited long enough to post, the fall background on my blog would once again be in season. And so it is, almost fall...and I haven't posted since, ugh...March? What is wrong with me? Oh, I know. For the last five months or so I've been totally void of inspiration and since I'm really weird about my writing, I just didn't want to post a useless, "this is what's going on in Sarah's mundanley busy life." But, the guilt is crushing. I just hear the word "blog" and a choir of accusing voices assemble in my head, crying out in one shrill voice, "why haven't you blogge d lately? What's the matter with you? Don't you have anything to say to the world?

Well, yes. I have lots to say and that's the lion share of the problem. So much to say, so little time to make sure what I say is actually backed up by facts and is semi-coherent.

But the voices must be silenced so I can go to bed. And if I have to write out my schedule for tomorrow, by golly that's what's going to end up in the blogosphere.

Maybe a little update on my life wouldn't be so awful? Everyday, I feel as though I becoming more and more like my Grandmother. All-in-all that's a good thing. My Grandma Virginia was my favorite person in the whole world while I was growing up. She wasn't like today's Grandma's with their trendy haircuts and boot cut jeans. No, my Grandma was of the blue-haired breed. She didn't really have blue hair, but she did have it set every week at the local beauty shop and never washed it on her own. At night, she protected her unchanging, perfectly rounded curls with a silky-pinky cap she called a Babushka. Like her hair, the cap never changed. That was probably why I loved her so much. She was imovable, predictable--the exact opposite of life with my mom. But, that's another story. Let's stick with grandmothers. Polyester was miracle material according to my grandmother, an expert washer-woman who favored anything you could spray down with Stain Guard. Virtually indestructable and completely unbreathable, designed in the zootiest patterns imaginable, my grandmother's entire wardrobe contained a hefty dose of the stuff. And I promise you that the same pair of pants she wore to my Baptism, she was still wearing the year I graduated from high school. Unchanging, I tell you. And we loved her for it.

Grandma was also really frugal. I say frugal and not cheap because she was generous with her church and family, which tells me that she wasn't at all cheap, she just knew the value of a dollar. Something that I'm sure was forged in her as a young girl growing up in the Great Depression and a quality completely missing in today's generation. She could find 101 uses for a used cottage cheese containter and heaven forbid you ever throw out a pair of snagged panty hose in her presence. You might as well be throwing away a rosary! She was also a voracious coupon clipper. And heaven help the clerk who argued with Grandma over an expiration date or product description. They might as well get out the white flag, because she wasn't backing down. Which, finally brings me back to this feeling that I am turning into my Grandmother. No, I haven't quit washing my hair or started dumpster diving for used panty hose, but I have been clipping coupons. I know, my "dork factor" just increaded a thousand percent. But, it's actually theraputic. Just knowing that I'm doing something tangible to help save our family money makes me feel a little more like that impossibly perfect chick in the Proverbs. Afterall, I have no idea how to make coverings for my family and I wouldn't know the first place to look for wool and flax.