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


  • Sunday, March 19, 2006
    Update on the event below: When 3yr old Abigail came the next day to see the new floor, she was rather deflated. She took one look and said "WHERE'S MY PAINTING?"

    Oh, and by the way, the floor installers who arrived on Friday morning were very amused and entertained by the artwork even though they did end up with marker stains all over their knees!

    has spoken at 12:51 PM
    0 Backtalks to Granny



    Thursday, March 16, 2006
    At Granny's House, kids can draw wherever they want! Well, not really...but tonight we pulled out the markers and let them draw all over the kitchen floor, which by tomorrow will be covered with a shiny NEW floor! (I think I made some points with this one :-) )


    Jonathan made a bed and lay down "in" it.


    Abby and Sam could hardly believe their good fortune!


    Shelley's Texas roots go deep.


    Yes, it's a drum set!


    TicTacToe ruled the night :-)


    has spoken at 7:53 PM
    3 Backtalks to Granny



    Wednesday, March 15, 2006
    For all of you who are interested in the demographics of large families, check this out: USATODAY.com - The liberal baby bust

    Hat tip: The Papa

    has spoken at 9:55 PM
    0 Backtalks to Granny



    Wednesday, March 08, 2006
    I was unloading the dishwasher the other day and I smiled as I looked into the silverware drawer and saw the forks. Lots of them. No, I'm not counting--that's the point of my smile. It reminded me of one of the most interesting lessons I've learned by being the COO (Chief Obsessing Officer) of a large family.

    I think it started with scissors. Or maybe it was scotch tape...or was it the stapler? A normal family has a pair of household scissors and a roll of tape, right? And occasionally they go missing and require a search of nooks and crannies, and eventually they're replaced in the "everything" drawer, safe and sound. Ah, but with each successive addition to the family, the possibilities for answers to "WHERE ARE THOSE SCISSORS THIS TIME?" just increase and become more challenging! And for a few years, that kind of challenge threatened to drive me to the insane asylum, or at least into anger management support groups.

    First, I tried having the kids actually check out the scissors or the stapler, signing their names and requiring them to notify me when the item was returned. Not wanting to subject the Papa to this routine, however, gave the kids a convenient answer for the missing item: "Well, maybe Dad took it!" Suffice to say that the number of days a year that the scissors, tape, and stapler were all in their assigned places roughly corresponded to the number of appearances of Halley's Comet in my lifetime.

    Next I tried just buying an extra pair of scissors. Surely, then, there'd always be one pair in the drawer even if one was "wandering," right? Those of you who are raising more than two children are already laughing, so I'll skip to my next idea.

    How about if I keep the scissors in my room, and require that the user of the scissors come to me, use them in front of me, and hand them back to me before leaving my room! That's it! It's foolproof! Until the day that I came face to face with how long it takes to cut those 56 little half-inch wide strips that it takes to weave one of those great construction paper placemats. And she wanted to know if I wanted a matching set! For the whole family!

    In one last, desperate attempt to avoid anti-psychotic medication, I finally hit on the answer that has saved my sanity in many areas: stock up with more than you can count. Yes, you read that right. Get a whole bunch, and DON'T EVER COUNT! Psychologists tell us that the average person can look at a collection of items and automatically know how many are there until the number reaches six, and then he has to count to make sure. I figured if I had more than six of everything, there would always be a few around and I'd never know just by glancing how many were missing! Friends, you can't imagine what wonders this has done in my life. Having nine children and a whole bunch of grandchildren, number increasing as we speak, has given me license to just buy stuff in bulk, and never stop to count. My first victory was with the scissors. I went and bought a bunch (no counting!) of child-size scissors and "strung" them on a round shower curtain ring. And there they are to this day! Are they all there? I don't know--I don't WANT to know, because then I would feel compelled to go and find the missing ones. I check every now and then, and if the ring looks reasonably full, I go back to bed with a smile on my face.

    Flush with success, I transferred my concept to every conceivable trouble spot. I now have more forks, spoons, and knives of my two main sets than I can count at a glance, so I never know if or when a couple are missing. Seven rolls of scotch tape, three or four staplers, half a dozen hole punchers, five Phillips screwdrivers (but who's counting), at least two dozen cheap plastic rulers, seven waffle irons. (Oh wait--missing waffle irons were never a problem, that's just a hobby of mine, collecting vintage waffle irons.) If anyone questions my extravagance, I always have the comeback that I want to have enough of everything to pass one down to each of my children. The reading of the will is going to be so great: "And to Timothy I leave the purple ruler and the green scissors, smaller pair..."

    has spoken at 9:40 PM
    5 Backtalks to Granny



    Sunday, March 05, 2006
    Well, my one measly post during February proves the previous point about my malaise!

    So, not being able to wait until Van Buren Day, we did take a week off last week, and I think it's done me a lot of good. My cousin came for a visit and gave me a good excuse to "power down" and do nothing for a while. Actually, we did a lot--but all of it was out of the normal routines so it was refreshing and nourishing.

    Just seeing "March" on the calendar is good for me...for some reason it always feels like the beginning of the last leg of the school year. We're now planning what we're going to do/present/show for our support group's Family Day, a kind of open house we do each year. And that means it's getting close to the end of another "chapter" in the home schooling journey!

    Lest you think that all my belly-aching means this is a journey I'd really rather not be taking at all, let me assure you that my mind is already well on the way to the planning for next year! Granted, the planning is always my favorite part and if I could do this for a living and let someone else do a good bit of the execution I'd sail through a lot more smoothly. But as in any other job, there are the exciting bits and the satisfying bits and then there are the parts that make us yawn or just plain drive us crazy! And nearing the end of my 21st year on this path, I'm convinced that some of those things will never change. At least by now the rhythms are clear and I know myself well enough to know what to expect....

    So, off and running early tomorrow morning, expecting and planning for a great spring and a satisfying end to 4th grade. And 6th. And 8th. And 11th. And 12th :-)

    has spoken at 11:15 PM
    0 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
    November 2005
    December 2005
    January 2006
    February 2006
    March 2006
    April 2006
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    July 2006
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    January 2007
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    January 2008
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    January 2011
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    May 2011
    June 2011
    July 2011
    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!"