Note: I’m going to close down the Simple Katie blog that I kept for several years before this blog, but before I do I’m going to bring my favorite posts here.  The following was originally posted on May 1, 2007.

I’ve written before about how much I adored my grandmothers, my grandparents in general. Months ago, my dad sent me a box of old photos. Some of my grandparents when they were first married, some of my aunts and uncles growing up, etc. as well as ones of my sister and I as children. I just started scanning some of them, however. These two photos particularly reminded me so much of the impact my grandparents had on me.

According to my grandmother’s handwriting this photo was taken in 1979, I would have been about 5. I’m a little taller now, I can do dishes without standing on a chair, otherwise not a lot has changed. I still wear an apron when working in the kitchen, though now it’s a real apron not a dish towel. My grandma eventually taught me how to sew my own aprons. I still wear slippers around the house constantly (I have no doubt that the slippers in the photo were very similar to the ones my grandpa wore and I wanted to do everything like he did). Notice the canning jar on the counter to my right, I was being indoctrinated at that young age about the virtues of home canning. Houseplants on the windowsill as well, just this past weekend, I potted up a ton of houseplant starts that had come from cuttings from other houseplants we have. Our home is full of houseplants, again something that was part of my life from a very young age.

This photo was snapped in 1978, I loved playing with my grandma’s fabric scraps and imitating my grandmother in everything. She hung her laundry on a line outside in the summer and had lines strung up in the basement for winter drying. At the ripe old age of 4 I was learning how to do laundry and line dry. Something I do to this day. I still play with fabric scraps too, thanks to my grandma I’ve learned how to turn them into beautiful and warm quilts.

I feel incredibly blessed to have had has this exposure to old-fashioned home keeping, truly what a wonderful thing it’s been for me. I feel blessed that my grandmother’s shared this wisdom and knowledge with me, that they had enough foresight to know this was important stuff and didn’t let modern notions of what is and isn’t necessary color their worlds. How lucky was I that I had these amazing women in my life? I miss them everyday, but I feel their spirits around me when I use the many lessons they taught me as I was growing up.