Grandma Deta

My Great Grandma was a great lady.  She was the ultimate homemaker.  She taught us all to be germaphobes (taking my mom as a little girl around Los Angeles with white gloves on so she could instill in her forever how very dirty your hands get when you touch everything/anything in public), and I can call on my memory any time, any where to hear her voice calling my brothers "them boys."  

I don't have a ton of memories of Grandma Deta (her name is actually Letha, but Grandma Deta is all any of her grandchildren know) while she was sane, but one of them is going to her house for dinner and she was making homemade spaghetti noodles and made me drink a big glass of milk-- probably whole (I hate milk).  I remember her sitting in her chair next to all her sewing supplies and working on whatever project she had going.  I remember her stubby index finger.  I remember their house and the chorus of clocks my Grandpa built and the vintage toy collection made up of old camera flash thingies, empty lotion bottles and wooden blocks.  

After she went loony-ish, I remember she would just watch me like a hawk.  

I remember one time I was making some kind of bread with my Grandma Donna, Grandma Deta's daughter.  I was probably 11 or so and I had dough-y hands from my bread making lesson.  Somehow I got the idea to rub my hands together and was like, "sweet, this gets the dough of my hands."  As usual, Grandma Deta was there, watching me like a hawk.  As I rubbed my hands together over the dough/work space, Grandma Deta laughed at me and tried to get Grandma Donna's attention so she could stop me.  I wonder what went through Grandma Deta's head all the time she watched me.

Often, whenever I'm doing something homemaker-ish-- mending Dave's suit pants the other day, beading for a stocking, cooking something special from scratch (sorry, Grandma-- I'm never doing homemade noodles)-- I imagine Grandma Deta watching me like a hawk from heaven just like she used to on earth.  

Grandma Deta loved to cook and she was great at it.  We have lots of favorite family recipes from her.  Somehow, I got lucky and inherited Grandma Deta's cookie press for one of said recipes: butter cookies.  But I didn't just get the press, I got her whole loot of stuff she used with it.  It was really fun pulling everything out and seeing where it's worn or torn or had something she spilled on it and thinking of her.  I wonder what year she bought the stuff.

 These are the smallest little biscuit cutters I've ever seen.

 Pency (Expensive).

 I wonder if I'll ever get adventurous and use the decorative tips...

You better believe I imagined Grandma Deta watching me the whole time I made those butter cookies and thought of her thinking, "Now why is she taking all those pictures?"