Snowing in Georgia!

At about 10:30 this morning I looked up from my desk as that precipation moved from drizzle to a thicker stuff called SNOW.  What a surprise and how captivating.  I honestly could not take my eyes off it.  The flakes were large and thick.  Now almost 6 hours –and it is still snowing!  The ground isn’t cold enough for there to be inches of snow, but in the hill surrounding my cottage, the snow is accumulating under the trees and also on my car and steps.  If the temperature drops below freezing, we will definitely have ice to deal with.  The sky and limbs and branches of trees and flowering bushes are a winter wonder land.  And I am enjoying every moment of it.  Snow is actually rare in the deep South, but I have some memories of beautiful snow.

When I was about 10 years old, I remember skating to the local theatre with my brothers on a Saturday a.m., seeing the serial western and cartoons and coming out of the theatre finding the ground covered with snow.  What fun we had playing in that snow!

My next memory of snow was in 1956.  I was in college in Birmingham, Alabama.  It was Valentine’s day and all the student body (it was a small college) was enjoying a Valentine dinner and program, when someone came in to announce a “huge” snow fall.  We had many students from Pennsylvania, Illinois, etc. and they were reluctant to call it snow, but they did surely enjoying sliding down the hill on makeshift sledes and coming inside for hot chocolate with the rest of us southerns who thought 4 inches of snow was, indeed, a snow storm.

The next real memory of snow was in Brooklyn, New York.  I don’t know how many inches we had, but it was a lot.  My previous memories were of a white, beautiful snow for playing in and making snow ice cream.  This snow was grey and dirty as it was on the streets of New York and all piled up at the subway entrances.  It was not an inviting “thing” to play in, but something to get inside from as quickly as possible.  And it was bitter cold.  I wore my first real winter coat that year I spent in Brooklyn, New York.  I was a candidate with the Africa Inland Mission and I was “on trial” for a year before they deemed me worthy of being a missionary!

The next snow memory is from Brussels, Belgium.  This was, of course, in the city as well, but oh so different.  We discovered the snow about midnight.  The Pension (boarding house) where I lived with about 13 other French students, was right off Louise Boulevard.  The snow had blanketed the streets and sidewalks.  Not a print, machine or human, was in the snow.  It was the quietest, most beautiful picture I have ever seen.  Of course when  we shoed up and went outside to walk we disturbed the scene with our foot prints and places where we scooped out snowballs!  But it quickly filled back up again.  It was breathtaking!

Next memory was Tallahassee, Florida, where my two children were born (not in a cottonfield, but at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital!)  All snow that goes beyond what is called a “flurrie” is a major occurrence in the South.  This one was a surprise, as well.  It seems that if you expect snow, it doesn’t materialize, but if you are not looking for it, it comes.

Snow is wonderful!  Does anyone remember the unexpected blizzard in the mid 80’s?  We were living in Toco Hills area of Atlanta (I now know that I was living in Buckhead, just unaware of it.)  It occurred in the early afternoon.  My gas tank was practically on empty so I decided that I had better hot medal it to a gas station to fill up, just in case we had an emergency.  By the time I drove 1 mile to the station and started back the mile to get to my home, there were stranded cars on all the streets.  I barely made it home, which was across from the private school that my children attended.  They could walk home, but many of their classmates were stranded because their parents were stuck somewhere in Atlanta and could not get to them.  On the stove went the hot chocolate pot and popcorn.  I don’t know how many young people and children were holed up at my house that afternoon and evening.  For some of them it was the next day before their parents could get to them.  Many people were stranded in the hotels and restaurants in Atlanta.  Some walked home.  All played in the wonderful snow.

And now today, snow in Georgia!

Take up where I left off–or begin again?

That is indeed the question.  To tell  you the truth, I just had to go back to the first post to see when I begin this.  It has been a year and almost 3 months.  I will have to digress a bit before taking up where I left off.

When I entered my first post,  my daughter was in the middle of I think the most difficult year of her life.  The last year and a half  have been occupied with the  adventure of her becoming a mother.  All this adventure is very beautifully related on her blog, so I will only share my part–that of becoming a grandmother again after 15 years.  Martin and Deirdre’s daughter, Ginny entered our lives on August 29, 2008 and our lives have been upside down ever since!

She was born in Kansas.  She is the most beautiful blue eyed, blond haired little girl you will ever have seen.  She has so wrapped herself around this grandmother’s heart that I actually awaken many times dreaming  her face right in mine and carressing me with her little long fingers!

So, I guess this entry into my blog just has to be a praise to my wonderful God who has blessed me with another granddaughter.

God’s goodness will be the thread through my life’s  “story” as find time record it on this blog!

Coffee First and then the following!

Ever since my mother let me drink coffe at age 14, I have been an addict.  She kept me from “drinking” for about 4 years by refusing to let me add sugar or cream. If I wanted coffee , it had to be black!  At first, it was tasty, but then the taste buds and the effect took over.  So for all those years it has been “Ann without coffee, is like Florida without sunshine.”  I had a prenuptal agreement with my husband which clearly stated thathe would bring me coffee in bed before I would get out of bed.  That lasted until some three or four years ago.  After all those years he has forgotten how to make coffee, so I struggle to the kitchen, the coffeepot, and wait in front of it til it is brewed; then go back to bed with coffee in my hand.  My coffee has to be real!  No instant, and certainly no preground.  I have to do the real thing.  And yes, it is still black and strong!

Hello world!

Hi, I’m Ann. 

 

And what a looong way I’ve come from the cotton patch.

Daddy was a sharecropper……He was taken out of school in the first grade to help his father mind the fields.  Mother met him in the summer before her junior year in Columbiana High School.  They were at a dance.  Mother’s nick name was Bobbie and she was the best dancer in  Shelby County.  From all I hear, it was love at first sight.  Mother had to stand on tippy-toe to reach 5′ tall.  Daddy was six feet, one.  They cut quite a figure.  He was handsome and she was a darling.  He was uneducated but extremely gifted in many ways; she was educated, beautiful, and practical.  Their union produced 8 children–six boys and two girls.  I was the middle living child–three brothers older and 2 brothers and 1 sister younger.

I’m writing a book that begins with that part of my life. I learned survival at an early age, since I was born only six years before we entered World War II.  Poverty in the 40’s was not very pretty.  We had little in material goods, but we learned that there were more important things in life.

Growing up in and around Birmingham, Al in the 18 years that included, the cotton fields, mining towns, the steel mills, the farm and city life in the period of desegregation  prepared me for the life of College, New York, Belgium, Africa, back to Alabama, Georgia, Florida and then back to Georgia.

It has been, and is, a very exciting life.  I am looking forward to sharing it with those who are interested.

I am currently living in my dream home.  It is a little cottage tucked away in a mountain setting (but definitely not in the mountains).  The cottage comes at the end of an absolutely charming drive, lined with azaleas, hydranga, and flowering bushes.  Truly, “my lines have fallen into pleasant places.” I am a baker and cook; I renovate homes–mostly mine at this point in my life; I read a lot–mostly science fiction, historical novels and the Bible; I am a realtor.  And in my spare time, I sit by my fire and watch Fox News and the Food Network.

Life is good!