Because 2 days is never enough.

I just got back from Arizona, where I spent a few days visiting my 91 year old grandmother, Maxine Broad.

I love to spend my time making things and learning new crafts, but this weekend, I realized that my grandma is the real deal. She raised 10 kids on a tight budget by doing everything herself. Grandma didn’t do crafts, she just lived her life. She learned how to sew as a small child, when her mother helped her sew a cooking apron. She spent the rest of her life sewing, looking at fashion magazines and replicating patterns out of newspaper, fitting 10 kids into nearly every piece of clothing they wore, and staying up all hours of the night at her sewing machine. She cooked volumes of food from simple ingredients. She read and played the piano and danced and laughed. And she never let anything go to waste; everything could be turned into something new.
I hope I grow old and have half the satisfaction and joy with the life I’ve lived, half the talent and resourcefulness, and half the love in my heart that she has. If so, I will have lived an amazing life.