240V SPACE HEATER

This is my paternal grandmother, Mary Rountree Ballard; she was a kind, independent, and resourceful woman that I greatly admired and looked up to.

This photo was taken from a shoebox full of many other small, curlicue edged photographs. Photos of my grandmother in a boat (both hands griped tightly to the sides...she couldn't swim!) , posing in a sassy hitchhiking line with her college friends, holding my dad (just a baby then) with her husband...and other small images reminding me that my grandmother, always "old" in my memories, was once young too.

Unfortunately, she passed away last week after 7+ years of Alzheimer's and declining health.

Some of the things I remember best about my grandmother:
- her cheerful mending and patching of my constantly disintegrating baby blanket
- the traditional Sunday dinners of flaky buttered biscuits and tender beef stew
- her almost 90 degree hill of a driveway that was perfect for sledding and not so perfect for drivin
- waking up every Easter morning and opening the front door where she mysterious (and faithfully) left candy-filled baskets for my brother and I
- her long brown shuttered house that was full of old and fascinating knick-knacks: textured bamboo wallpaper in the living that was so expensive to put up, my first experience with baseboard heaters that were perfect to lay wet mittens or a cold bottom on, a clacking rotary phone, cabinets with fancy knobs, an old piano with a seat full of curious sheet music, small magic trick trinkets and string puzzle toys hidden in drawers
- the muddy river that flowed behind her house, hidden in the woods at the bottom of the hill

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If you haven't noticed by now, I've been taking a break from posting to Flickr and Twitter since the New Year. Part of it is winter doldrums, part of it is lack of creativity, and part of it is a consuming interest in other things non-internet related. I haven't given up on iPhoneography though and will return soon. I hope to see you all then!