The Scoop on Granny

Name:
Cathi

Status:
Dreaming of the mountains...


Who is Granny?

I'm the incredibly blessed mother of 9, "Granny" to 16, and wife of "The Papa," the knight-in-shining-armor whose loving support has made it possible for me to stay home and give my life to mothering, homemaking, and 26 years of homeschooling. Life at Granny's House is full of laughter, friendship, books, music, lively debate, writing, and good things to eat. My days are made even more meaningful by coming alongside other moms, giving them the support and encouragement that I lacked as a young mother and helping them to network with each other in ways that strengthen homes and families. A few times a year I board a plane to visit my "away" kids, to attend the birth of a grandchild, or to enjoy some lazy days with my best friend, but I always love coming back to...Granny's House.

My Complete Profile

On Granny's Calendar
  • August 15 - SAC Day begins
  • August 16 - Sam is 7!
  • August 20 - Kristen's birthday
  • August 30 - THE WELTYS ARRIVE!
  • Sept 3 - FAMILY PICTURES
  • Sept 3 - Chris' birthday
  • Sept 5 - Henry is 9!
  • Sept 7 - Isaac is 10!
  • Sept 17 - The Papa's birthday
  • Sept 23-30 - Granny and Papa go to Hawaii
  • Sept 26 - PawPop is 88!
  • Sept 29 - Tim is 15!
  • Oct 2 - Cheyenne's birthday
  • Oct 4 - Liam is 5!
  • Oct 7 - John Caleb is 17!
  • Oct 18 - Tony's birthday



  • Email Granny!


    Get your own calendar



    Granny Cares
  • Care Calendar
  • Agape Pregnancy Help Center San Antonio
  • World Vision

  • Granny Cooks (and Eats)!

  • The Pioneer Woman Cooks
  • Once a Month Mom
  • $5 Dinners
  • Full Bellies, Happy Kids
  • A Year of Crockpotting


  • Granny's House (and yours!)

  • Simple Mom
  • The Nesting Place
  • Between Naps on the Porch
  • The Inspired Room



  • Granny gets around...
  • A Holy Experience
  • MommyLife
  • Confessions of a Pioneer Woman
  • Preschoolers and Peace
  • Breathing Grace
  • theMangoTimes



  • Granny stays informed...
  • Real Clear Politics
  • Fox News
  • Drudge Report

  • Granny Thinks...
  • Al Mohler
  • Between Two Worlds
  • Blog and Mablog
  • First Importance
  • Equipping the Saints
  • Desiring God

  • Granny says you may go to...
  • PowerLine Blog
  • Michelle Malkin
  • SteynOnline
  • WSJ Opinion Journal Best of the Web
  • GetHuman
  • Home School Legal Defense Association

  • Granny goes to the movies...
  • Netflix
  • Rotten Tomatoes
  • ScreenIt.com

  • Granny is watching!
  • Blue Pencil Editing
  • SPOGG
  • Mighty Red Pen
  • Conjugate Visits

  • Granny smiles at...
  • Purgatorio
  • ScrappleFace
  • LarkNews
  • Sacred Sandwich


  • Wednesday, December 28, 2005
    I had a request on my other blog for our sugar cookie recipe, so here it is. Believe me, if you can manage to wait, these really are better the day after they're made!

    Granny's Sugar Cookies

    3/4 cup butter
    1 cup sugar
    2 eggs
    1/2 teaspoon vanilla
    2 1/2 cups flour
    1 teaspoon baking powder
    1 teaspoon salt

    Cream butter, sugar, and eggs. Add vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients.

    Chill for one hour.

    Roll out approx 3/8 in thick and cut into desired shapes. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 400 for 6-8 min. Do not brown. If they're browning, reduce oven to 375 and add a couple of minutes. Cool thoroughly on rack.

    Frosting:
    1 lb. confectioners sugar
    1/4 c. butter,softened
    pinch salt
    enough milk to make a nice consistency
    food coloring (Wilton's is best)
    Cream butter, sugar, and salt together. Slowly add enough milk to make a frosting that is easy to spread. Using a mixer will give a fluffier consistency.

    Divide into small portions and add food coloring. Spread on cooled cookies and add sprinkles, red hots, raisins, etc. If you don't end up with a lot of sprinkles on the floor you haven't used enough.


    Best eaten the next day, if you can wait!


    has spoken at 9:32 PM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    Tuesday, December 27, 2005
    Granny and Molly at a special goodbye breakfast this morning at La Madeleine. We sat by the fire and enjoyed the scrumptious food and talked about tomorrow's move. Molly says she is "a little bit okay" about it :-)

    has spoken at 10:58 PM
    0 Backtalks to Granny



    Monday, December 19, 2005









    It's Cookie Day! Granny and Papa, all nine of our children, one son-in-law, and all eleven of our grandchildren piled in the kitchen for our traditional day of decorating Granny's Sugar Cookies. I mixed up the dough on Saturday, CJ and Bethany got up early this morning and rolled and baked for several hours, I mixed up six pounds of confectioner's sugar with butter and food coloring, and EVERYONE joined in the decoration (with some spending as much time licking fingers as spreading!). Yep, white flour, white sugar, a healthy share of chemicals, and a huge dose of fun and laughter...

    (More musings about Cookie Day here. )

    has spoken at 6:48 PM
    0 Backtalks to Granny



    Saturday, December 10, 2005
    For the record: this was granddaughter Molly's "funnest day ever." Never mind that she'll say that again Tuesday and next Friday and Christmas Eve and again Christmas Day. For now, THIS was the funnest day.

    So what was so much fun? For a seven-year-old princess, a half-day of shopping and lunch out with Granny is right up there with a trip to the beach or a sleepover or the day we got the trampoline. I know this because, as we sat across from each other at Chili's today, my mind wandered back to another restaurant in another city in another century, in what seems now like another world. I was only five, and my funnest day ever was a trip to the elegant Marston Department Store in San Diego. My Grandma got me all dressed up in my best party clothes and drove me downtown for a morning of shopping, capped off by lunch in Marston's tea room. And the MOST FUNNEST thing was that Marston's put on a lovely fashion show during lunch, with live models that walked in between the tables and displayed the finest Chanel suits and evening wear from Givenchy and Yves St. Laurent. (In my barely five-year-old concept of appropriateness, I exclaimed to one of the models, "My, you ladies DO wear clothes!" Grandma reminded me of this until the day she died.) It was a fantasy for a little girl, and wonderful training for all those formal affairs to which we were treated in the mid-20th century. China teacups, starched napkins, tiny finger sandwiches and delicate petits-fours became the ornaments of my memory book, ones I treasure nearly fifty years later. My grandmother gave me the gift of feeling like royalty.

    Well, we do things very differently in 2005, but there are still opportunities for giving the same gifts. My physical condition has not allowed me to recreate some of the experiences for my grandchildren that I would have liked, but I hope that as Molly leaves my home and moves to a place and a life where I am not a constant presence, she'll remember the tea party we had in my bed during my convalescence. . .the three Christmas Cookie Days she's shared while living at Granny's House. . .the candles and the spicy smells and the welcomes. . .and the funnest day ever at Kohl's and Target and Chili's.

    I'll miss you, my dear Molly.

    has spoken at 11:13 PM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    Granny's Mission Statement
    "...Tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done....that the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children."
    ~Psalm 78:4-6

    My Focal Passage for 2011...
    Philippians 2:5-11

    5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

    6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

    7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

    8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

    9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,

    10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

    11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

    ~Philippians 2:5-11 (ESV)


    Oxymoronica...

    "The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it."

    ~Samuel Johnson


    [Oxymoronica, n., A compilation of self-contradictory terms, phrases, or quotations; examples of oxymoronica appear illogical or nonsensical at first, but upon reflection, make a good deal of sense and are often profoundly true.]


    Books on the iPhone, the Kindle, or on the nightstand...


  • The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, Alexander Mccall Smith
  • The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, Arthur G. Bennett, editor



  • Books finished in 2011...

  • Oxymoronica, Mardy Grothe
  • Some Sing, Some Cry, Ntozake Shange, Ifa Bayeza
  • English Society in the Eighteenth Century, Roy Porter
  • One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, Ann Voskamp
  • His Word in My Heart, Janet Pope
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
  • Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
  • Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
  • Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, John Piper
  • Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Joshua Foer
  • Blue Shoes and Happiness, Alexander McCall Smith
  • The Red Queen, Philippa Gregory
  • Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Eric Metaxas
  • The Confessions of Saint Augustine, St. Augustine
  • Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats, John Keats
  • Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell
  • Words That Work, Frank Luntz
  • NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
  • Poke the Box, Seth Godin
  • Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, Gary Taubes
  • A Patriot's History of the United States, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen
  • Song of Saigon: One Woman's Journey to Freedom, Anh Vu Sawyer
  • The Artistic Mother: A Practical Guide for Fitting Creativity into Your Life, Shona Cole
  • The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature, Elizabeth Kantor
  • The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, David McCullough


  • Oh, the thinks you
    can think...
  • Tapestry of Grace
  • Anatomical Charts
  • America's Library
  • George Washington's Mount Vernon - Virtual Mansion Tour
  • Thomas Jefferson's Monticello - Virtual Mansion Tour
  • Hurricane Demo

  • Oh, the places we'll go...
  • The Alamo
  • Majestic Theater
  • The MAiZE
  • Magik Theatre
  • Sheldon Vexler Children's Theatre

  • Granny always says...
    Saying goodbye...
    Sunday snippets...
    Summer.
    Sunday snippets...
    Coming soon to a country near you...
    Making (a) room...
    Just in case this might make an impact on your spe...
    Midweek snippets...
    What's up?
    She said YES!

    Granny used to say...
    October 2005
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    December 2005
    January 2006
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    January 2008
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    August 2011


    Grace Notes

    "Were the whole realm of nature mine
    That were a present far too small...
    Love so amazing, so divine
    Demands my soul, my life,
    my all!"