My Grandmother the Hottie-repost

Originally posted: Monday, September 15, 2008 by my cousin Becky. I thought this described my grandmother to the "T" and asked her if I could re post it. Thanks Becky!

My Grandmother the Hottie For about the past thirty years or so, my Grandmother has had a 10x13 picture of herself sitting on her fireplace mantel. The picture was taken in the early forties when she was about sixteen. Anyone who walked through my Grandparents front door would comment on the picture. "You were a very beautiful young girl," was the typical remark. My Grandmother was always expecting these compliments and accepted them graciously. "Yes, I know. I was the most beautiful girl in Texas." My cousins and I usually giggled at the way she boasted, but Grandma made no apologies for her self-confidence. After all, it was part of what made her beautiful.Grandma not only prided herself on her beauty, but also on her sex appeal. Once I went to her house in short shorts, and she looked at me proudly as if to imply that she was ecstatic that I was following in her footsteps. "You know", she said, "when short shorts first came out for women in the forties, they were considered scandalous and only Hollywood actresses would be seen in them. No one in Texas had ever worn a pair. But I didn't care. On my sixteenth birthday, I got a pair of short shorts. Mother didn't approve, but what do you think I did? I put those shorts on with my best pair of high heels and my prettiest lipstick, and went walking down main street so all the boys could whistle at me. That was one of my best days." Only my Grandma.To hear me go on about her, I can only imagine the image you must have in your mind. A self-absorbed woman with perfectly coiffed hair wearing a fur coat and lounging on a chaise. But what is truly amazing about my Grandmother is that in all her diva-Esq glory, she raised nine kids on a truckers salary, cultivated a huge garden that provided the foods she claimed "made her beautiful", volunteered at the red cross, and quit school in the seventh grade to pick onions in a field which helped her mother support her younger siblings. She fed countless hungry neighbors with her beans and cornbread, ground her own wheat to bake two loaves of bread every day, cared for countless sick people in her own home, and invented her own methods of remaining beautiful when money was scarce. Vel Soap, Pond's Cold Cream, lots of exercise, and an old-fashioned healthy diet was all she needed to stay beautiful.I had the great pleasure of sitting with her in the kitchen two weeks ago as she prepared for a long road trip (at the age of 79) back to Texas to attend her niece's funeral. She spent three hours in the kitchen boiling eggs, slicing vegetables, cutting fruit, preparing sandwiches, and filling water bottles so she wouldn't have to stop for that "horrible fast-food that will make me less pretty". All the while she explained to me the benefits of eating healthy. After she was finished in the kitchen, I kept her company while she did thirty minutes of cardio on a machine I'd never even seen in my life, one she'd ordered from an infomercial. When she was finished with that, she said, "Well, sweetheart, I'd like to visit with you more, but I have to go and get my beauty rest."I hope to pass on to my three daughters the lessons my Grandmother has taught me about beauty. Get plenty of exercise, eat natural healthy foods, give service to those in need, and hold your head up high no matter what your circumstances. If you believe you're beautiful, others will believe it too.