My new project! Project 365!

Right after posting my last blog, I got on FB only to have a post from Natalie's next door neighbor and dear friend, Amanda, write me about a project that lots of folks (and photographers, not that photographers aren't people, but you know! haha) are doing called: PROJECT 365.  Simply stated, you make a photo(s) of you/your family every day for a  year to document that year in pictures. You can go a step more and journal/blog about it as well. Well, I did my pictureS (come on now, you know I'm not just making ONE!) yesterday but for whatever reason I could not get BLOGGER to work last night (maybe everyone in the WORLD is doing Project 365 and Blogger crashed! LOL!). Well, Amanda might have just gotten to know me in the last few months but this we know about each other---we both love to make pictures AND blog! Amanda was  thrown into blogging when she found out her oldest, precious child, Emily (not sure of her age, I think 7), had cancer. Let me state right now, she is doing great now and all her stats are CLEAR (PRAISE GOD!), but her last year was , well, a nightmare. Also Amanda is an incredible photographer (if you need one, call her!), she made the gorgeous picture of Kemp/Daisy for Nat's Christmas card this year when she was just snapping the children playing. Anyway, I have read Amanda's blog and Natalie wanted me and Katie to read it one day when we were at her at Natalie's computer and Katie and I both were sobbing  as Natalie  read aloud the story of courageous Emily written by her precious mom. Amanda and Natalie have gotten to be BFF's (wow, how about having a best friend next door? *I know all about that, KONIE!!!!!!). Amanda has 3 girls (oh yeah, and a precious hubby---!) and her youngest little girl is Daisy's BFF! Anyway, Amanda mentioned about "Project 365" but I had heard others mention it but when Amanda posted on my FB page about me joining her doing it,AFTER my blog yesterday, I knew I was supposed to jump on that train!!!!{ I tell you, I got so excited about it that I had another brainstorm in that same realm (Photos,journaling ) and so I'm doing "Project 365" AND "Jan's Secret Project" as well. But, that's a secret. For now}!

Anyway, I feel like I'm behind now b/c I had my pix from YESTERDAY to post and now I have to do today's. GEEZ. So, come back tonight (IF Blogger is working right!) and maybe I'll have today's on as well!

     Before I start talking about YESTERDAY'S pix/blog, let me tell you I had a huge amount of comments via email on my blog entry from day before yesterday. THANK YOU ALL.  You are so kind but as those who know me, know I'm pretty transparent, "it is what it is". I'm not a big "secret keeper", I don't tell EVERYTHING, well. maybe. LOL!!! Anyway, I loved my emails, my inbox messages on  FB and each word means so much to me. In fact, I am going to post some of those comments , in a post soon. So thank you.Your words mean a lot more than mine do. I tend to rattle on endlessly. Who, ME?! HAHAHAHAHA... haha , well, sometimes, but when it comes to me, just take me as I am. Jesus does, so I hope you will , too. I  just felt overwhelmed that any words that come out of me, might help someone else. And if they did, I'm glad but hey! They're not my words. Those were from God. Today's entry? From ME. OBVIOUSLY. haha

    OK, so here are my pictures from yesterday. When I sat down to do my morning devotion (GET THAT---I should have it in CAPS!! MY MORNING DEVOTIONAL (b/c I'm sure, just like exercise, I will start slip sliding!), anyway(!), I remembered when I wrote down  Jan. 5th that was my maternal grandmother's birthday (and when I got on FB, saw it was my cousin Jimmy's b'day as well!). Soooo, that made me think about the pix I wanted to make in addition to the one of my "day" that I was going to document. SO, I made some "pictures of pictures" from one of my family scrapbooks. Big Mama, aka Flora, was as before mentioned, my mother's mother. Big Mama as all us grand-chillens called her. She wasn't that big, (well, sort of fluffy) but wow, could that woman COOK (which is why she was probably fluffy). I remember eating lunch over there (dinner) and they had that little black radio on their modest kitchen table with some evangel preacher screaming about hell and damnation going in the background as she fluffed around the kitchen with that little apron a flyin. That and that jar of home made sweet pickles and how she'd open that jar with that missing pointer finger (always fascinated me) and that butter knife ,that I wish I had, she would spread home made mayo (my mom ALSO only made home made mayo, I didn't even know you could BUY it till I was practically married!)on the best ham sandwiches you've ever tasted or BUTTER, on those piping hot biscuits. Then we'd have ham and biscuits while listening to that radio blaring (she was deaf as a post). She  wasn't too swift on her feet but she could move in that kitchen, let me tell you!!!! That little storage room to the side had this tall , what did they call them, pie savers?, cabinet filled with all those jars of jellies and stuff. If I try real hard, I can still smell that kind of musty smell from that pie saver. Door didn't close real well, it kind of would stick. To me, it was a great smell (like Grand-daddy's cigars!). Maybe that's where I got my desire to make all those pepper jellies this past year! Anyway, I'm veering off, sorry! Just a moment in history I was re -living. ANYWAY, my memories of her are in that vein b/c she went to Jesus when I was 16 years old so my memories of her are on the dim side. Mostly of her in the kitchen, doing her thing---reading her calendar (another thing I do!!!!) and seeing her sitting in their sitting room with that box of stationary around her and her , YES! YOU GUESSED IT! Her LISTS!!!! (see, some things ARE hereditary!). So, I wanted some of my pictures to honor her. I wish I had known her better. I wish I could go and sit at their kitchen table with the vinyl tablecloth and ask her questions. I even wish I could see her smooth her apron with those 4 fingers (remember, one was missing). I wish I could eat one of her biscuits and ask her to show me exactly how she made it. I wish I could go back. Just. One. Day...........So, Big Mama, in part, my first day on PROJECT 365 belongs to YOU. Kisses to heaven. I wish, oh how I wish, I had known more about you.

To my future great grandchildren: THIS IS WHY I want you to know about me. Which is why I leave dishes in the sink sometimes and let the closet get unruly. This is why I sit up late at night  typing and writing , so you will know me. In all my goofiness and weirdness and joyfulness and , even in times of sorrow. I want you to one day say, "OH MY GOSH! I do lists like she did!" and "HAHA! Great GranJan was FUNNY!" or "Great GranJan had some weird ideas, but at least she was real!" . Or "She was truly a cock-eyed optimist!" But MOST of all, I want you, future great-grandchildren to say, "She loved God and she tried her hardest to walk her talk even if she failed many times. But, I think she did get it". That would be the best epitaph ever!

*The other pix, the ones that documented my day yesterday? Well, they are pretty self explanatory. Now I've got to think about today . Geez, this Project 365 is gonna take some work! (but, oh how it's right up my alley!).

Have a great day! Come back tomorrow (or maybe even tonight if I can swing it!)! LOL!
P.S. for those of you who give up reading my blog b/c I skip around so much, I apologize. For those who CAN keep up with my thoughts? CONGRATULATIONS. You have A.D.D., too! HAHAHAHAHAHA