dandelion toes and a few of my favorite things...

I will always have the best of memories of my Grandparent's house. 

I spent many a summer helping them pick vegetables from their little valley garden.  Snapping beans and shelling peas with my Grandpa to the tune of the backyard swing.  Shucking enough corn to feed half the town of Locust Grove.  (And feed the town they always did!)  I remember my Grandma trying to teach me how to can the cucumbers, okra, green beans, and tomatoes.  It was hot, sweaty work bending over steaming pots and scalding jars.  I wasn't the greatest student, I might add, and now I'm bemoaning my silliness.  Mmmm, what I wouldn't give now to learn the secret to my Grandmas famous dill pickles.  She canned her very last jar a year ago and it's in my fridge, making me drool.

I wanted to cherish every memory.

Laying in the cool clover, picking dandelions and whirling them between my toes, listening to the shrill serenade of a million locusts in the formosa trees.

I felt like a little girl all over again.  And some things never change.  My favorite things haven't.

I will always love the worn blue leather of my Grandpa's favorite Bible.

My Grandma's vintage linens with delicate roses  (which it seems my little girl loves, too!)

My Grandma's pearls and her beef brisket.

The fabric in the quilt my Great Grandmother Dovey Palestine Mckenzie made my Grandfather in 1929.

The irises my Grandpa planted along the blackberry fence.

Cool crisp cucumber pickles and the best tomato juice this side of heaven.

I always wondered what God's favorite color was.  I even asked him one time, but I guess he thought it was more than obvious.  It's a toss up, I suppose.  The colors he used the most to paint our world are the blue of the sky and the green of the grass.  I'm glad he chose the colors he did...

because they're my favorite.

And they're the color of my favorite memories.