Confessions of a Grandma

Last week when I was visiting my daughter and grand kids, we saw a Minecraft ® shirt in JC Penney's.  It's a computer game that my grand son is currently into.  From what I can tell it is much like building something out of Lego® blocks except in the virtual world.  I am not really sure what is wrong with actual Legos, but I suppose that just shows my age. So the little man really, really, really wanted the shirt.  The problem was it was a men's size medium and way too big for a six-year-old.  What is a grandmother to do? Well, I got out a "print and iron" cotton sheet and took a picture off Google Images to make him a shirt.  I am probably going to go to jail for violating trade and copyright laws, but it made him very happy.

Honestly, what happened to the rest of the week?  This is quite distressing that time is going by so fast.  It was a week's school vacation around here.  Vacation weeks always went fast.  But wait a minute--I am retired.  Why should the fact that it is a "vacation" week affect me in any way?  That is not my life any more. April vacation was always the time I devoted to a thorough spring cleaning of the house and maybe, in a good year, a bit of yard work.  Mike and I did do some yard work this week, but the housework is lagging.  I don't have much to show for a week having gone by.  The dust bunnies are winning the battle this week Reading?  I was going through two and three books a week during the winter.  I am half way through Sweet Tooth and I have had it out from the library for two weeks now.  I can barely get through blog reading before I am distracted by something totally nonproductive. Exercise?  I count t...

A garden is all about patience and endurance. It is not a competition.  Well, I guess it certainly could be and probably is for some.  But my time working in the garden is for me.  Although, to be completely honest, it is hard to look at the photos of the Reeder gardens , and not feel twinges of envy.  Still, I know that their gardens are the result of long labors and loving, patient tending over the years.  Clearly, their gardens feed their souls. So I try to be patient with my fumbling efforts and my evolving gardening sense.  I know that this year I have a lot of work that needs to be put into the soil.  There will be no expansions, but what I have will take all of my available garden time and then some.  I will probably end up tearing out more than I plant this year, but that will be okay. The first task is clean up.  This border along the garage is pretty tired looking.  When the coreopsis and Shasta daisies are in bloom it...

Marvelous Muffins from Cooking Light. 1 cup all purpose flour 1 cup whole wheat flour 1 3/4 cup oat bran 3/4 cup brown sugar 1/3 cup non-fat powered milk 1/4 cup flaxseeds 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon 2 teaspoons baking soda 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 cups shredded carrots 2 cups chopped Granny Smith apples 1 cup raisins 1 cup fat-free milk 1/4 cup canola oil 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3 large egg whites 1 orange, unpeeled and quartered Preheat the oven to 375°F.  Spray muffin tins with cooking spray. Combine dry ingredients (first 10) in large bowl and whisk together.  Add carrots, apple, and raisins. Combine milk, oil, vanilla, eggs, and orange in blender or food processor.  Process until smooth. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour the milk mixture into it.  Stir just til moist. Spoon batter into muffin cups and bake in batches for 20 minutes.  Muffins should be brown and should spring back whe...

The first week we were home from Florida, I really felt at loose ends.  I had things to do around the house after more than three months away, but I didn’t feel energetic and I didn’t feel like I got much of anything worthwhile accomplished. After palm trees and sunshine, these scene from my front window does not inspire me.  My sister told me that the entire winter was this grey. This second week has been a bit better—at least for me.  Mike has been down with a stomach bug that he cannot seem to shake off for much of the time. I got back to the town library on Monday and Wednesday to do some of my volunteer tasks.  Also, the annual poetry workshop started there on Monday evening and our regular writers’ group met there on Tuesday evening.  So quite a bit of time spent at the library. I went to lunch with my friend Ginnie on Tuesday.  We went to the Cobblestone Café in Burlington.  The draw was that they serve handmade pierogis.  We eac...

I was visiting my daughter and grand kids so while I was aware of some of the developments in Boston,  I was having a blissful, play-filled, lovey time totally free of television images.  Well, we did watch Tom and Jerry and Tweety on the cartoon network Friday morning--that is like a cultural history lesson. It was I drove home Friday evening with NPR on the car radio that I caught up with the timeline of events that had unfolded in the night and through the day.  When I got home, the TV was on and the boat was being examined by a robot. Such intense police drama--and it was all real.  The technology that is available today is mind boggling.  At least for a moment, the people of the Boston area could breathe a sigh of relief.

Margaret of mag offleash  passed along the five book charge. I have been asked and so I ponder--five favorite books. Five.  Only five? Favorite?  No other categorization? Oh, and my brain has been so very muddled for the past  weeks.  This task demands some thinking. Thinking?  Oh, no.  My sister was recently taken aside by a  member of one of the book discussion groups she attends to be asked if she could not, please,  just read and enjoy (or not) the chosen books and kindly stop   thinking about them quite so much. Choosing five books.  A Sisyphean task indeed.  Perhaps pushing the rock up a mountain a few times will clear my head and set me free for other endeavors. Let me start at the beginning.  My reading life started early on.  So my first favorite is not a single book but an entire collection. #1 Favorite Book: Childcraft , an anthology of books for children published by the W...