"Happy am I each day, going along life's way"

My Grandma turned 103 today! Maudie Clara Mashburn from Five Points, TN. A little country lady from a country town...she loves to say "you couldn't pay me to live in the city," and she means it!

She planted a garden into her 90s and lived alone for many years after my Granddaddy died in 1990. She could make anything grow - flowers that were wilted, garden vegetables during a dry summer...my favorite is a small pine needle tree she used every year as her Christmas tree. It was just supposed to be big enough to sit on a table, but by the last Christmas we had at her house a few years ago, she had it so big the top touched the ceiling and curved over!

She always loved to sew and would make us things out of scraps around the house. Granddaddy would build doll cradles out of wood and Grandma would make blankets and pillows and decorate the inside. The cradles were the centerpiece to the millions of times my sisters and I played babies growing up.

She lived on several acres and there was a big pasture with a pond behind the house. I remember a little calf chasing me one time! And how the cows looked when they would chew the corn husks we threw over the electric fence. If you stood at the back garden and yelled into the pasture, you could hear your voice echo against the forest. That was where I first heard an echo - we used to always yell "hey!"...I can just hear our drawn out southern "haaayyy-ay-ay-ays"!!!

Every time we came to visit, Grandma would have cold biscuits - homemade that morning - sitting in the oven. Oh, it was so good to eat the yummy cold biscuit and drink a Coca-Cola! When we spent the night there she would cook breakfast in the morning - eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy. I can remember her trying and trying to get me out of the bed. I love to sleep in the morning, but even more there - the sun came in the window so pretty. It's been so long since I slept there, I guess the sun would still look the same... She would come in the room and do her "Heyuu!" call and say, "Get up, sister!"

It always seems like everyone knows Grandma and thinks so highly of her, and I am always so proud that she is my grandmother.

I think of her when I see birdbaths, pretty flowers, a blue sky, the moon...and I wonder what she would think of New York. It would probably kill her to be here! It's amazing to me the completely different lives she and I have in just two generations (granted, two generations spanning over a 100 years!), but I still feel so connected to her. I'm glad I have the country in my heart.