Confessions of a Grandma

I went shopping yesterday--on line and in the stores.  Since I also make handmade gifts throughout the year, I am in good shape for the holidays.  I have to admit that I absolutely and completely love gift giving--except for people who are really, really hard (Mike).  I love thinking of an appropriate and kind of novel gift.  I love the hunt to find it or the effort to make it.  I love the wrapping and the presentation.  If I had unlimited funds and less of an aversion to crowds, I would go out shopping for random gifts every day. Tomorrow, Kristen and Dane will open the first of their Advent gifts.  My son delivered them for me, for which i was most grateful.  These are really quite small things that I put together, but I so enjoy doing it and I think they look forward to each day's surprise.  Today I got a  thank-you card in the mail:  "Giving is just your style...and you do it so well!  Thanks for ...

Hello?? Is this working at all??  I wrote a whole piece and it disappeared,  Testing...testing...

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, I went to the Cabot Factory sock sale, then out to lunch, with my sister.  On Sunday, I took the grand kids out to lunch.  Wednesday was an unexpected lunch because of trapping ourselves in the basement.  Thursday, of course, was a full day of feasting and nibbling.  On Friday, we made our annual pilgrimage to Giant Grinder and Modern Bakery on Franklin Street in downtown Hartford.  Then we went out for a soup and sandwich supper on Friday night.  In between all this eating was either work on sanding/finishing stair treads or driving.  Healthy food choices?  Exercise schedule?  This is how I can gain five pounds over the holiday season, and I just decided not to do that. So yesterday and today, it's out for brisk walks and pull out the vegetarian recipes and the exercise bands.  This morning, I made a big pot of oatmeal.  I used to eat a lot of oatmeal breakfasts but then I got out of the...

I am being totally frustrated with computers today.  It seems that everything I have tried to do has not worked out.  I tried to copy some files from our home computer to transfer to the laptop that we use in Florida.  No luck with that.  I tried to print from the laptop--that didn't work.  I wanted to download some music, but the sound is turned off again.  All these things can be fixed with a little fiddling and changing of settings, but I have to bother Mike to do that because I always forget how--and that's the most frustrating thing of all. I just want to sit down and do what ever it is I have planned to do.  I have no patience for the quirky needs of machines.  For instance, we keep getting a message on the laptop that new Apple software is available for download.  We don't have an Apple computer.  Why do we get that message?   Also, if I  download music on the laptop, it tells me it is being saved in i-something, w...

Talk about painting yourself into a corner...I was working on laundry this morning in the basement of our raised ranch house while Mike was putting on the final coat of floor polyurethane.  When he finished he went out to the garage to clean up and I went up the deck to go upstairs through the back door...only to discover that we had not unlocked the back door before starting our chores.  Ha!  We could sit in the basement den waiting for the stairs to dry in five to eight hours and watch TV.  We decided to go out.  Mike's wallet and license were upstairs and so were my glasses.  Fortunately my purse was downstairs and I had a pair of glasses in the car so we went out for a nice long lunch, made a trip to Costco (coffee, wine and craisins) and then to a shopping center where I bought two new tee-shirts that I badly needed.  By the time we got home, the stairs were dry.  So tomorrow morning we will head for Connecticut to spend the weekend wi...

We have ripped out carpet, sanded, stained, sealed, and are now putting a floor finish on the stairs.  They are looking pretty good.  In the meantime, I have been taking down pictures and putting away knickknacks in preparation for the painter and trying to keep after the sanding dust.  I am going through a whole lotta vacuum bags and tacky cloths.  Can't wait for this project to be done--just in time for a MAJOR cleanup for the holidays. Saturday night and Sunday, I spent with my grand children--a welcome break.  I am almost finished with putting together the Advent calendars I make for them.  I collect stickers, trinkets, coins, activity books, treats, ornaments and such so they have 24 little surprises while counting down the days til Christmas. My kids had the kind of Advent calendar that showed a picture for each day, but I started this little gift tradition and now it IS a tradition.  It is fun to be a grandma! I have to d...

In the paper this morning there was an article about a Wisconsin man (Vermont, Wisconsin, oddly enough) who shot his televsion because Bristol Palin has not yet been eliminated from "Dancing with the Stars."  Oh, that struck me as incredibly sad...that someone would care enough abut that TV show to engage in violence against an innocent piece of electronics. And I think it is kind of sad that, if the ads can be believed, that "Dancing with the Stars" is America's most watched program.  Surely, surely, this nation could do better than that. Well, it is for certain that we can produce worse shows--much worse.  Anything that involves wife swapping, for instance.  Where is the moral outrage on that one?  Or anything involving "real" housewives.  Especially if those housewives are from New Jersey.  Come to think of it, it really seems like a bad idea to have any kind of program that features the denizens of New Jersey at all.  Those hair dressers?...

A new household project has begun.  In preparation for the painting to be done after Thanksgiving, Mike and I decided to pull up the Berber carpet that covered the stairway.  Pulling up carpet is an icky job, but better to do it now rather than at some future point after the walls and woodwork are covered with fresh paint. So, my story is that I was severely chastened as we picked up the task again today.  Mike had laid out the tools after we finished up half the job yesterday.  I was using some pliers, but when we started to get in each other's way as he was pulling carpet and I was pulling staples, I decided to go do the breakfast dishes.  Once Mike was finished with the carpet and padding, he went to get the pliers.  They were not in the neat array he had left. "Where are the pliers?" I heard from the kitchen. "Oh, I have them right here."  I took them to him.  He had that hard-eyed glint in his eye. "They were not where I had put...

I was doing an online craft workshop and needed to have some felted wool sweaters.  I found a nice supply of wool sweaters at a local thrift shop for very little money, but then I ended up feeling a bit guilty about shrinking down the sweaters and cutting them up for craft purposes.  Cold winter is coming and someone could have worn those sweaters. This was a large men's sweater made of 100% Alpaca wool in Peru.  I felted it, but then I could not force myself to cut it into pieces.  So, instead, I redecorated it and turned it into a girl's jacket.  A local restaurant serves a free Thanksgiving Day dinner and distributes coats and jackets at the same time.  I had planned on donating a pie, and now I will donate this jacket as well.   I hope someone will like it enough to wear. I have a pile of hats ready to donate to the Salvation Army for their gift baskets, along with some toys I have picked up, baby booties and bibs.  The ...

Embossed trees Stamped and sticker cards Punch outs Scraps used to make gift tags I have been making Christmas cards bit by bit.  Since I am just learning how to do this, I have experimented with a lot of different designs and techniques.  I'm sure it would be more efficient to pick a design and make a whole bunch to send out, but I am not there yet.  So now some people will get nice handmade cards and some will get kind of crap cards.  In either case, everyone who gets a card from me will know it's handmade, for what that is worth.  It is a good thing I do not send out that many cards.  I like making the little gift tags and  using stamps and coloring them in, but I really like using chalk to blend a background.  The card with the ice skaters is my favorite. My card making friend's mother, who is 92 years old, made 80 Christmas cards to send out.  She also has made all the birthday cards for friends a...

Mike has left home--at least for the day.  It is the onion that are putting the tears in my eyes, though. I started my morning by making a big pot of soup which in itself started with mincing and sauteing an onion, garlic, carrots and celery.  The onion smell did kind of take over the house there for a while, and Mike really hates onions.  I added chicken stock, potatoes, squash, pumpkin, and apple cider, blended it all together and finished it with thyme, sage and a little bit of half and half.  OMG, it is so, so delicious.  I feel better after the lackluster mole debacle. We don't get to eat it though, so Mike will come back when he is done playing.  The soup is going to the Artisans' Market at the local high school.  Our town library sells soup as a fund raiser as part of this event each year.  I will go to buy a calendar for the benefit of the community center and have a soup and bread lunch for the benefit of the library.  They have be...

A 77 year old Burlington, VT man known as Poppa Neutrino, set out on an around the world raft trip earlier this week.  Unfortunately, the trip was cut seriously short when the raft was smashed by high winds into a 30 foot cliff on Lake Champlain.  Around 50 rescue workers arrived at the scene to pull Neutrino, his two crew members, and three dogs to safety.  Neutrino apologized to the people of Vermont for the pollution to the lake (several containers of gasoline where dropped into the water) and for using the time and effort of the various rescue workers. Apparently the raft took three months to build, but the entire project has been in the works far longer.  The intent was to advance economic, environmental, and joyful living beliefs.  If you have interest in your own floating, self-sustaining, off-grid life style, you can read more about Poppa and his pals on an essay entitled "Floating Neutrinos" here . It's the new wave of the future.

I was reading a magazine at the car dealership while having the oil changed and saw a recipe for Chicken Mole and I jotted it down.  I decided to experiment with supper last night and made something I'd always been curious about but had never tried.  Sometimes experiments work out fine...and sometimes, not so much.  Chicken Mole has a combination of spices--garlic, cinnamon, cloves, red and black pepper, cocoa--and this recipe called for almond butter (which I have been wanting to use up).  For the variety of ingredients, I found the dish quite tasteless.  It was almost like one thing would cancel the other out.  Out of consideration for my dear husband, I left out the onions--maybe that is what was needed to tie everything together. It's back to the tried and true for tonight--a hamburger for Mike and a walnut-lentil burger for me.  It is nice enough to fire up the grill.

You have noticed, I am sure, because everybody in the entire world has, that men just can not find stuff. Male:    "What did you do with this, that or the other thing ?" Female: "It's under the sink (or in the medicine cabinet, on the floor next to the bed)" Male:    "No, it's not.  I looked." So when the female interrrupts what she is doing and goes to assist in the search where it this, that, or the other thing?   Under the sink (or in the medicine cabinet, or on the flooor next to the bed), of course. Now let's admit, sometimes things get moved around.  Some times they get misplaced and it's aggravating.  But really--how lost can the A-1 sauce get  in the refrigerator door?  How many times does the toothpaste wander out of the bathroom?  If blue socks get piled over with green socks, does that mean the blue socks are gone forever?  Why is it that the male of the species seems genetically incapable of findin...

The neighbors' lovely woodland garden at rest for the winter.  This is what we call a sunny November day here in Vermont.   This is what remains of the gorgeous autumn color. The mountain is both cloud and snow covered. It's the time of year when we really notice the darkness.  The gardens are covered with their blankets of mulch, asleep for the winter.  The skies are mostly steely and grey.  There is a quietness all the more noticeable from the ruckus of the occasional flock of honking geese making their trip to their winter homes.  Perhaps when ours was a more agrarian society, it was easier to sense the rhythms of Nature and embrace this time of year as the time of much needed rest for both body and soul.  That is the way of Nature, after all, that all living things need a period of rest and renewal.  So I am not going to curse the darkness.  I am going to light a small candle for my intentions. leaf through a spiritual se...

I think a day could not BE more New England-November than today--dark, dreary, cold to the bone, and raining.  A cup of Constant Comment tea and few ginger cookies--that's all there was to be done on a day like this. I did get the results of my blood work in the mail today.  Everything--most of which I haven't really a clue about (total alkaline phosphatase?  AST?  Albumin?)--was within normal limits.  My cholesterol has gone down a whopping 20 points over the past year.  The "vegetarian inclined" diet changes have paid off there for sure.

One crotcheted hat, Two Fleece hats, and Three small knitted hats. I have been on a hat making binge for a while.  I have a fleece jacket I made from the tan fleece on this hat and i lined another jacket with the flower print fleece, so I will keep this hat. As I am sitting here at the computer I can watch two birds fluttering around under the eave outside the window.  I know Mike filled the feeder today, so they can't be begging for food.  Maybe they just want to come in and get warm and dry.  Maybe they just want to visit with the two glass cardinals that sit on the window sill.  Maybe they are just jealous of those two glass birds because they are inside.  Oh, now there's a mess of them and they are banging at the window...Alfred Hitchcock...

The temperature was 19 degrees this morning and a heavy frost did not disappear until around 11 a.m. With the hills to the east of us, we did not see the sun until 9:30 this morning and when I went for my walk at 1:00 this afternoon I was blinded by the sun shining into my eyes because it was barely above the horizon.    After the weekend, when clocks "fall back" we will be full into the dark time.  This is "Florida weather" for me--time to start planning for that trip. I took a shift at our library this afternoon but it was not at all busy.  On the way home there was enough light to see the coppery tones of the oak trees but most of the other trees are bare and their frames looked black, like iron, against a pewter grey sky.  I had the thought that the mountains have turned metallic.  I was inspired to start working on a poem about it. I'm thinking right now about putting on some comfy pajamas and brewing a cup of sleepy time tea.  Then I...

It's all over but the shouting now.  We have but to await the results.  Mike and I went to our town elementary school to vote.  The governor's race is supposed to be very close--too close to predict.  I sincerely hope that it is not so close that the agony is prolonged.  How sad that that is how I think of this election season--agony. I used to be more enthusiastic and involved. One of my earliest memories is of being carried into the polling place in Olyphant, Pennsylvania in the arms of my maternal grandfather.  He died when I was three, so this is a really early memory.  I do believe I recall, though, that he let me pull on the lever of the voting machine.  Maybe that was the first time I actually cast a ballot. I think that  our first television set came in time for my parents to watch the Eisenhower-Stevenson campaigns from the national Conventions right on through to the election--that must have been 1952ish. I mean, I th...