Christmas already, dear??

Now, I am starting to think about putting out our Christmas decorations. Why so early you ask: my grandma Turner is having a hip replacement surgery this Thursday. My dad and two of his sisters are taking off Thursday to take her and the rest of the days before Thanksgiving to be with her and bring her home. However, it is I that will be staying with her the two weeks following Thanksgiving. Which is good, because I don't get to spend enough time with that set of grandparents regularly, but scary... because I left Amber for a reason: not to be like them.

They are the hard-working, farmers. The grandmother that never had a job except taking care of her children, tending the garden, waking up at 5:30 to press out homemade biscuits, sweeping and moping the floors everyday because it was not her place to ask the menfolk to take off their muddy shoes before entering her house.

I remember spending summers out of school there. She watched all eight of us grandkids. And each day we would have buscuits, sausage or bacon, eggs or gravy for breakfast. An elaborate meal for lunch: chicken fried steak, fried okra, corn (off the cob cuz grandpa had no teeth!!). And just because she knew she could: a huge dinner for all of us... keeping us all there even the parents after their long day at work. If grandma had made dinner, we were all going to stay together. I never understood how someone who didn't have a dishwasher would cook so much!! Especially the way grandma served. She cooked in pots and pans, but then would transfer the food into a serving dish. Now, these weren't fancy serving dishes. Just big Correl bowls, large enough for the mashed potatoes and green beans. But, she would do it. In my mind: no dishwasher = using less dishes. But she did have dishwashers, now didn't she???? ME and the only other girl cousin: Ashley.

The boys were never EVER asked to do dishes. They would leave right after lunch with Pa and go check cattle or feed a bale of hay. He taught them the farmers life, grandma taught Ashley and I the farmer's wife's life.

I learned some of life's greatest lessons from them. You have to work for what you've got. But, I don't know that I ever heard the word's: I'm proud of you... or I love you from them. Well, I still haven't ever heard them from my grandpa, but I know he does. But, excitingly I have heard them from my grandma once or twice. But, never while I was there. It was when I decided I didn't want to be stuck in the house serving my husband and kids, but I wanted a career of my own. I decided to go to college and get a degree, then get a career and be my own person.

So, I did. I went to college: the best in the state, Oklahoma State University!! But somewhere along the lines things got smudged. I found the love of my life: Perry, A.K.A. The Husband. Falling in love and getting married wasn't on my list of things to do in college.... but it happened, and I did. Which is wonderful. So, I graduated with an agricultural communications degree. Got a job at a great magazine as an assistant editor... seemed like my life was going just the way I planned. But the drive was too far from our home. No problem, says the Husband, just quit and stay home.

Of course the roadmap of mine says, NEED CAREER. So I plunged forth with a hush, hushed dream of mine: photography. I love capturing a moment between people or a person... cause when you capture that moment on film you can actually re-live it, if even for a moment. As much as I am trying to get my photography career started, I've realized something along the way.

It's been a year now that I have not been working out of an office. And for that year I have made lunch everyday for my husband, and dinner (most days). I plan meals for friends and invite people over to entertain. I am a stay-at-home-wife... I've become her. I've become the woman I was so afraid of becoming. But, I LOVE IT!!! I love being here with my husband. I love the idea of having children and being able to stay home with them and care for them each day without the worry of a job or career to run off to. I love the fact that I learned from the best. And, then I become saddened that I didn't show her more appreciation. I didn't show her enough love or tell her Thank You for all the work she did helping to raise me, my brother & cousins.

I am honored to be going home for two weeks after Thanksgiving. I am honored to be staying with her and finally being able to show some reciprocal care for her, the way she once cared for me daily. It will be hard to do. Although we have the similarity of being stay-at-home-wifes, we still are VERY different. But, I'm looking forward to it now, more than dreading it.