Remembering Grandma D

Grandma D was a mom of two boys. She was 60 years old when my twin sister and I were born and was 27 or 28 when she got married. She once told me, with sympathy in her voice, "I was old, too, before someone wanted to marry me." Back then, I guess that was considered old! I was 30 when I got married.

Grandma turned 90 on the day before my wedding, and my uncle was able to bring her from the nursing home to attend. She sat in the front row with her older sister, Faye. She died the following March.

Grandma lived only a mile away from us when we were growing up, so I saw her several times a week. She would watch my two sisters and me when Mom had errands to run. She loved to shop and was always buying us dresses. Having two boys of my own, I can now understand how much she enjoyed buying "girly" things.  She also had two sisters, like me, who lived within a five-mile radius of her. I always imagined my sisters and me being like them when we were old--best friends but also fighting at times.

Grandma and Grandpa had a little rental house on their farm, and almost all the grandchildren lived in it at some point. I stayed there for a few years after I moved back from Florida. Looking back, I'm so glad I got to spend the time with Grandma, but oh, it was so smothering. Especially after living on my own for several years in the city. I knew, at the time, that I would look back on those days after she was gone and and wish for that time back. But, it was hard back then. Now, how I would love to spend some time hearing the old stories at her kitchen table that she told over and over again.

Grandma was a very nurturing lady and always thinking of others before herself. I thought of her when my first son was born and knew she would have made me a pot of vegetable soup and sugar cream pie if she were still here. She always had a cake or cookies on the kitchen table when we visited, and sugar cream pie was one of her specialties. Christmas and Thanksgiving were not the same without it.

Grandma would have been 97 this month, and I always fondly remember her this time of year. I would make a sugar cream pie in her honor, but it unfortunately doesn't support my weight loss goals. Here's the recipe if you want to make this Indiana classic:

SUGAR CREAM PIE

1- 9" baked pie shell

1 cup white sugar

1/4 cup corn starch

2 cups milk

Cook until thick, then add 1 stick butter and 1 tsp vanilla. Pour in baked shell and sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

MOPS: A Support Group for Moms

The first meeting of the year for my local MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group was yesterday, and I was reminded again of how much this group means to me.

Three years ago, I gave birth to our first son. My parents and in-laws lived out of state—a good 13-hour drive away—so I desperately needed to make some friends and build a support group locally. That’s when one of my friends invited me to MOPS.
The first thing I thought was, “Cool…free childcare!”. But, it’s been much more than enjoying a cup of coffee and brunch in peace, along with uninterrupted adult conversation. (Although, that’s huge plus.) This group has become my own support group.

We meet twice a week at a local church and have a lesson or speaker, brunch, share prayer requests, and sometimes have a craft or other fun activity, all while our kids are taken care of by volunteers who always plan something fun and creative especially for them. On weeks that we don’t meet, we’ll have a Mom’s Night Out (dinner out, usually, while the hubbies watch the kids) and a Mommy and Me outing—like at a local park or the McDonalds play area.

A lot of us don’t have family in the area (pretty typical, I’ve found, of the Washington DC area), so we call each other with babysitting needs, provide meals for moms with a new baby, and reach out to those who are having a rough time.
MOPS is an international organization for moms with children up to age 5. You can find out more about them at http://www.mops.org/ and even search for a group in your area.

The Stay-at-Home / Work-at-Office Dilemna

After I had my first son, my company let me switch to working part-time and mostly from home. Most of my work (marketing) can be done online, so it worked out well. That was what I considered the best of both worlds. Working provided a break from 24/7 mothering, and I only had to place my son in daycare for 5 hrs a day. Better yet, the in-home daycare is less than a mile down the road and owned by a wonderful lady.

But, things have changed, as all things do. I no longer have the option to work from home, and the commute is an hour each way. And, with another baby coming in November, we'd have double the daycare costs, not to mention the reluctance I have to put them both in daycare.

So, I've been thinking/praying about options for quite a while. 

I WOULD be interested in hearing from stay-at-home moms who've found a way to supplement their family's income from home. We all know there are a lot of schemes out there, but what has worked for you?

Oh, here's an interesting article I came across today on Yahoo! Finance about how to make money online. I'm convinced that some of the best "work-from-home" opportunities come from an employer you already have established a good relationship with. That's how it worked out for me.  But, I'm always open to other possibilities.