thehereandafter

The weather is changing...last night it dipped into the upper thirties out here in the country and tonight it is suppose to be around the same with a chance of frost. So what was a country girl suppose to do yesterday!? Get prepared to have a morning fire to sit by and drink my coffee....what else?!  So, the preparations began... the first thing was to get the fireplace tools out and start cleaning out the fireplace. I swept out all the old soot and ash, wiped down the hearth with a wet rag and then dusted it so it was all nice and shiny black. I opened the flue and then swept out that soot.  Then I headed outside to the wood shed to bring up some logs to put on the front porch. Once I filled my wood holder on the porch I gathered sticks to pile up. I sat for a while and broke them into pieces and then it was time to go inside and set up the fire. It was fun layering the sticks and different sizes of logs into the fireplace...at least this is not television series "Survivor&q

Y'all know I have a new granddaughter...my first sweet little sugar plum ! We all are so in love with her ...she is precious, just precious. She is everything a baby girl should be...warm and soft, and smells like baby powder. She smiles and kicks her tiny feet and makes those little newborn baby sounds...one of God's finest miracles...babies! The other day when Granddaddy and I were over there visiting she started to talk to us (some people might call it fussing or crying but we know it's talking:). Granddaddy handed her over to her Mommy after he discovered that she didn't want to have a conversation with him. By this time she had worked up into a rather loud discussion. Her Mommy took her and within a few seconds and half a soft whispered "shhhhh" she was calm in her Mommy's arms. Cradled in her Mommy's arms she is happy, safe, secure, protected and peaceful. And her Daddy has that special touch with her too. He gets those big arms around that sw

One day last week my sweet honey bun and I were enjoying the fresh air outside when we came upon a little tiny frog in the flower bed. The little guy was not much larger than a dime, a khaki brown color with dark brown spots, and a very fast jumper. Well, we had no choice....it's in the Grammie's book of rules when you come across a frog with your grandchild you must chase around trying to catch it. I believe some of these rules are there to keep us grandparents humble:) It was very fun and my honey bun was so sweet..."Go MeeMee! Me do it too MeeMee"!... followed by laughing and much bobbing in and out of bushes. That little frog was so fast and also so camouflaged. He blended in so well with the bushes and the mulch that it was hard to find him if you took your eyes off of him at all. Later the same evening, as I came to my back door after dark, there were three fat bright green tree frogs stuck to the wall. Those fat, bright colored frogs stuck to the wall were not