Fun story

Don't you love stories like this when your kids are struggling in College.


 Must tell story:

I've been working in a Biophysics lab since June with a really cool Professor. Yesterday I gave my first presentation at our combined lab meeting and presented a scholarly paper I was assigned a few weeks ago. I put a lot of effort into understanding the concepts, putting the material together in an understandable way, and practicing the presentation (always get nervous with these). We also have a treat at Lab Meeting. I signed up to do this also.  I got some Jelly Belly Beans and mixed them up with Bertie Botts every flavor beans. I gave the presentation and folks told me I did a good job. While I walked with the Professor out of the meeting room. I still had a few jelly beans left and I offered him one and took one myself.

There were five left, two gray, a peculiar orangish one, and a couple others.
"Ugh, avoid the Gray one, it's black pepper!" I told him.
He took the orangish one, popped it in his mouth, and said,
"Alas! Earwax!"

I will keep this experience in my heart forever. :)

Smores

Have you ever watched grandkids make smores with those huge marshmellows? So much fun and so much white goo everywhere! The kids challenged grandpa to eat one so they could see the white stuff all over his beard and he ate it as clean as a whistle. Everyone was disappointed to say the least!

Spring & Summer

Wow, eventful Spring & summer! Picnics, family visits, fireworks, Lagoon with everyone for my Daddy's 80th birthday celebration and emergency hernia surgery just in time for my dear daughter and 2 grandaughters to stay an extra week to help. (Great summer fun for them!)  Feeling a wee bit sorry for myself till I saw a poster of Batman bowing his head with a sunset in the background honoring those people killed and hurt so terribly just because they wanted to see a movie with a favorite action hero. So senseless, so hard to understand. 

Solar Eclipse

Tonight is the solar eclipse being called "The Ring of Fire".  My son-in-law who loves astronomy sent the family all letters and special eclipse shades to look directly at it. It's a little cloudy even though I specifically ordered no clouds today!  It will be fun thinking of all my family looking at it (or trying to) at approximately the same time tonight. Love you guys!

What a wonderful Mother's Day! I got a call from all the kids and then all of sudden my son's family from 2 1/2 hours away popped in for the evening! What a beautiful surprise! Thanks you guys. I love being a grandma, even if I am a little mischievous, hehe!

Spring!

      It's almost the end of April! So many cute and fun things happen that I want to write down like last week my daughter in law that lives a few hours away called and asked if I could tend their kids for a week a year from now. I said sure! She said, "Aren't you even going to ask what for?" Apparently they are going on a cruise with my other son and his wife as a goal and reward for eating better and living a healthier lifestyle. I think that is a great goal to work towards and I would get to be with the grandkids!  It's too bad lots of us don't realize the importance of taking care of ourselves as young adults so we can feel good as older folks.
     Spring is here and lots of yard work! Picking up small sticks from the many trees we have, digging, planting, mowing, sneezing, coughing and more sneezing! I offered the local grandkids a penny a piece for picking up sticks and boy did that work great! We are even saving some of the sticks for art projects.
     One grandaughter was excited to tell me that they are learning about what bullying is in school and how mean and unfair it is. What a great thing to learn and be aware of. Just ask me how horrible it was to be bullied. The memories never go away.

April Fools!

A few weeks ago I posted about how my grandaughter "D-Love" (dolphin lover) asked if I had a 1943 copper penny because there was a man in her area that was offering to pay $100,000.00 for one. They are very rare from that year due to all copper being used to make weapons for WW2. Sunday she sent an e-mail that she had found one and her father was calling this man about it. We also had other family members visiting on the IPhone picture at that same time. She then wrote how her father had got a hold of him and he was on his way to their house. Half the family was connected and getting excited about her find. She got most of us good!  April Fools!  Nice One!  Gee, no one believed me when I told them I had my head shaved so it would be easier to take care of, haha!       And here's to my 13 yr old grandaughter who just got braces and had to have 6 teeth surgically removed, I've been thinking about you every second!  Get better quick!    

I DON'T BELIEVE IT!

    This past week I got to help tend my son's kids while he was at work and their momma was back east visiting her mother. The 6 yr old discovered she had her first loose tooth and it was quite traumatic for her. After talking to daddy about it (momma was on the plane and couldn't talk) we discovered that the permanent tooth was coming in behind the loose tooth. She decided she wanted to text daddy and tell him that, too.  I sat down with her all ready to help her text with my older phone. After asking me about 3 questions she had texted the whole message and sent it by herself. I just stared at the wall & laughed at how many years it had taken me to learn how to text!  But there's more!  They have a small under the kitchen cupboard entertainment system. The 2 yr old wanted to watch a movie while we made lunch. I took the movie, tried to follow which buttons to push, and could not figure it out.  She got up on the counter and said, "first you have to push this button grama," and she put the movie in, "and then this one and oh, don't forget this one over here for the sound," and the movie started! The feeling I had then was comical & honestly bewildering.  Only 2 yrs old!

Movies

A bunch of us saw Hunger Games this past weekend. Movies are such a great way to keep the talk going between your kids and grankids. Projects are good too. I love to here my grankids talk about books they are writing, their artwork, their favorite video games and heroes and especially the books they are reading. I say "talk" but most of the time it is talk through e-mail and internet communications. So many people my age and older quietly sit back and hear about the internet but don't know how to use it. (That includes me with a lot of areas!)  I wonder if my parents and my in-laws would let us teach them the basics. I would have to visit with them and maybe have one of my whiz kids or grankids with me and not let them say, "oh, I can't learn that!"or "I have no use for that!"  Lots of my older friends & relatives have computers purchased for them by family members, but using them is a whole other story!

1943 copper penny?

The other day my 11 yr old grandaughter e-mailed me and asked if I had a 1943 copper penny in my coin collection and can she have it if I did? I was about to write back that sure if I had one I would send it to her. I asked hubby if he thought we had one and he checked for it's value on e-bay,  it turns out that they are very rare because in 1943 all copper was used to make WW2 weapons and most pennies were made out of steel at that time. I wrote back this information to her and she said that there was a man that was trying to buy a copper penny for $100,000.00.  Wow, who new!!!!  I do have a 1934 wheat penny, I think it might be worth $9.00 depending on the condition.

Simple Pleasures

We went to see our 14 year old grandaughter play in South Pacific last night. She got to be one of the nurses. How fun it was to see her sing and dance. How fun it was to see her face light up when she saw us there! She and another grandaughter play the flute. I wonder if I could get my old flute out and try and play it with them. It's a grama thing. Hehe!

College Kid

I need my college kid to come home and show me some more things about having a blog. Even though I read the instructions, I just can't seem to understand until someone shows me. Oh well, lots of my friends won't  admit how computer illiterate they are. They just nod their head and say "oh, yes" when you are discussing or joking about twitter or facebook or the like. At least I admit it!  It's the same with being a nurse. So many of us older RN's won't admit that we don't know something or ask someone for instructions. After all, we are suppose to know everything! Haha,hehe! My grandaughter says she wants to be a nurse like me. It's nice to hear her say that, but these days we do more paper work than patient care lots of the time. Grrrrr!

White ice cream & spicey juice

White ice cream & spicey juice? Silly people! Everyone knows that means root beer floats, of course, hehe!        The other day the kids were here and grandma got out the vanilla ice cream. I didn't get any for myself and the 4 year old said:  "you have some too grandma."  I muttered, "Grandma's too fat, I'll have some juice."  The 6 yr. old looked straight into my eyes and said, "You are not fat, you are just trying to eat healthy!" It was so sweet.

I know I shouldn't meddle but.............

I had a nice visit with my daughter-in-law last evening and sometimes she shares some of the funny stuff my son does. For example, she is desperately trying to loose 15 lbs. before a trip back east in May.  He gave her a box of chocolates for Valentines Day. She mentioned that her friend got 3 dozen roses and how sweet that was. I know I shouldn't mettle but.......      She also complained to him about how fat she was getting and instead of saying the traditional "Oh honey you're not fat, you look wonderful!" He said " Yes, but your fat is distributed in all the best places" She just laughed and joked about it and I know I shouldn't meddle but............ Why do you not see what you should have taught your sons until they are grown up and think you are meddling?

Super Bowl!!!!!

Got the chip's and cheese and crackers, made cinnamon rolls and brownies for the Super Bowl and I got to play with the 3 little grandkids! We had a goofy time, I got my nails painted and played a new version of UNO, and really did act goofy! Is Madonna really 53? I never realized what a short time I would have my kids home and what a long time I would be an emptynester. Why does it take so much time to learn what is really important. Like not judging others. Like knowing when to keep my mouth shut. Like not worrying what others think of me. And the hardest one, taking care of myself. Whew!

Worries,worries,worries!

Last week my son-in-law had some surgery with some wicked side effects. I worried myself sick about him, my daughter& my 2 granddaughters!  I tried not to be a bothersome pain to them but it was so hard! Being a far away grandma is really hard. The weather was too bad to drive, wait, now that I think of it, I could have ski'ed or used my neighbors snowmobile!  I guess as a grandma I am learning that patience and staying calm is a gift I can give my children. He's much better now and I can see that being anxious usually just make's things worse. I wish there were a magic answer to being instantly calm.

A visit from 8 of the grandkids, I really am just a mischievous kid!

A visit with 8 grandkids Sat. morning. We played and colored and screamed and talked. Why has it taken me so long to learn that  when you are visiting with a child or any other person the trick to help them know you are really interested in them or love them is to look directly at their eyes when they are talking to you or when you are talking to them. I've spent my whole life working and hurrying here and there. Stop and listen, that's my new goal.  I did the same thing with hubby yesterday and football. I got a big smile and a nice visit with him. It works!

A family with triplets!

We went to great grandpa's house tonight to play games. My brother-in-law has 11 year old triplets. Their mom mentioned how she is looking forward to having grandchildren some day. Can you imagine how many grankids she could get in a 5 year period! Whew!      
I get to see my grankids from down south this weekend. The 8 yr old has type one diabetes and it irritates her to death to be treated differently from anyone else. I'm going to plan my menu so I can tell her how many carbs are in everything so she can put the numbers into her insulin pump and it will give her the proper amount of insulin. That blows me away that an 8 yr old can be taught this. I'm a nurse & I never learned how insulin pumps operated until she taught me. (This is an embarrassing secret, please don't tell anyone!)  After all I'm from the age of insulin shots.  I love to have new coloring books and crayons when they come. A couple of them are showing a drawing talent. I like to draw, maybe I'll find one of those drawing games & we can guess each others drawings.  I wonder if the Mario Brothers movies are too scary for 3 yr olds.

I can't believe it!

Yesterday I got all ready to tend my son's kids while he and his wife went on a date last night. They live about 15 miles north of town. I cleaned, made a fun supper, got out their favorite movies, thought of nutritious snacks. At 5pm my son called and said his wife would be a little later because she is a photographer and wasn't quite finished with her last session so would 5:15 be ok. About 6 pm they hadn't arrived yet. He called and said. "Are you ok?" and I said "Sure, why do you ask?"  It turns out I was suppose to go out there! By then they had changed their plans and I didn't get to see the grandkids!  Mixing up instructions or forgetting things can be so irritating! My 12 yr old grandaughter brought her flute to play songs for me at Christmas and forgot her music. That was tragic! It reminds me of when my wonderful grammy wrote me several pages of poems when I was young.  I put them in my stuff when I was in college and I've been looking for them ever since. It's a good thing my ears are glued to my head or I'd forget them too!

A grandma who can't say no, that's ok isn't it?

Hi everyone, My college kid is teaching me how to start a blog. I thought it might be fun to share my experiences, mostly bloopers from being a grama. After being one for almost 13 yrs I've come to one simple realization. The key to being great is to have fun and keep your mouth shut! ;) For example, mine paint my nails and put makeup on me, they make cookies with me, we dance, we color, we sing, we swing outside and we arrange pictures on the fridge. There's a funny little sign on my wall that says: "Grandchildren welcome anytime, children by appointment".  No one can describe what it's like to be a grandma until you are one. I've heard that being a grandma is the reward for raising a child. My children scold me for not being able to say no. I have 5 kids &11 grandkids from age 2 to14 (one is in Heaven).  Whatever you do, don't offend their parents, accidentally or on purpose because they know how to punish you!  For example, make sure  you get permission for the movies they watch. Grandma's can misjudge movies they think are fun but can be too scary for small kids, or don't let your type1diabetic 6yr grandchild help you make cookies if you let them eat more than one. (and I'm a nurse to boot!) Wow, I think I could like this blogging thing although it does get a bit embarrassing when your 5 yr old grandson instructs you in computer use.