Women make the world go 'round

Yes. yes they do. I'm fortunate to be surrounded with strong intelligent women. I have been all my life. I know I've spoken a lot about my Grampa Shorty, but really, he and I couldn't have had all our shinanigans without my Gramma Bernie. My sister and my gramma were always together shopping and what not, whereas I would choose to get muddy and cause chaos with Grampa.

Even so, Gramma did take us girls on "dates". We'd go to movies... Gramma would bring the largest purse ever and fill it with candy bars and sodas... :) sorry movie theatres! She'd take us shopping. We'd get a set amount of money and get to pick out whatever we wanted for Christmas, but then Gramma would take the gifts and wrap them... by the time Christmas rolled around, we'd have mostly forgotten what we purchased. We'd go to the local pizza parlor and Gramma would bring lots of quarters so we could play Ms. Packman and Gallaga!!! ah yeah. We'd go to Circus Circus (a large arcade). Again with lots of quarters, but we also happened to have a close family friend that worked there and he'd bring us buckets of tokens and tickets to play and win all kinds of crazy toys. We'd be there for hours. Gramma would just sit and drink coffee in the dining area and us girls would just go until we got bored.

When Gramma wasn't entertaining us kids or shopping with Angie, she was working - or cleaning - or roofing the house - or cleaning the cars - or sweeping the porch. Seriously, if I had a fraction of the energy of that woman, I'd.... probably drive Brandon more nutz. :) And she still does all of that. She still works; full time. She loves to work and stay busy. Gramma did take several years off of work to care for Grampa when his health deteriorated. Amazing the stuff she put up with to care for him - and apparently he wasn't the easiest patient - imagine that!? :)

Gramma always has worked later hours - getting home several hours after most kids should be sound asleep. Grampa and I would wait in the front window to see Gramma's headlights turn into the drive so we could turn on the yard light for her and greet her. She'd come in and promptly proceed to make us dinner. Yes, that's right. She just worked a full day and got home late at night, only to make us dinner - we had a long day too of... playing, afterall. We'd eat things like fried egg sandwiches, mashed potatoes with creamed corn, braunschweger sandwiches with butter... just really yummy, nutritious, late night food. :)

What's with Gramma's and food? :) Gramma Bernie always stocked the house for us with all sorts of goodies. Angie and I each had our own cupboard fully stocked with all our favorite snacks. Slim Jims were always a hot commodity.

Gramma managed to keep us well fed, and entertained and with the house kept, working full time, all while putting up with Grampa Shorty and maintianing her class. She's truly a classy lady.