Another Grandchild Makes the Grade

Pictured is Grandson #2, Michael, who graduated from high school last month and will be attending a college for the artistically gifted, which of course he is. This marks two grandchildren to make it to college, two with rather extreme artistic talents who ought to do very well in the world, and one very, very proud grandma!

We’ll be seeing Mikey and his folks and sister for the week following the 4th of July. Now this is going to be a little bit tricky, but I’m looking forward to Mikey’s complaint-less help in harvesting blackberries for the cobbler he loves so much. We are leaving this coming Saturday for Oklahoma to visit Great-Grandma, who will be 87 in August. We’ll be on our second day homeward on the 4th, and will have to swing through Kentucky on the way home to meet with other sisters, brother-in-laws, nieces and nephews to send my little sister’s ashes over Cumberland Falls, something she made us promise to do before she died a couple of years ago. It’ll be the first time we’re all together since then, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Meanshile, Mikey and family will be leaving Atlanta on the 4th to come here. I’m going to give them the ‘break-in’ secret for getting into the house if we’re not home yet (and we might not be), because we’ve been having a bit of bear trouble this year. Don’t want them camping in the yard, for very good reason.

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Obama Salad & Berry Cakes

First Lady Michelle Obama takes an end-of-term garden work-day to offer some thoughts on healthy food and healthy bodies…

The volunteer students from D.C.’s Bancroft Elementary School who have put some backbone into the First Family’s organic kitchen garden this season enjoyed a fresh lunch salad topped with sweet, fat peas that they’d helped to grow and harvest. For dessert, they got cupcakes topped with berries, also grown in the garden on the South Lawn.

Thus far the well-tended organic garden, which sports various cultivars chosen by the White House Chef to compliment the cuisine served both to the Obama family and to their guests - with a majority of the bounty going to local D.C. food kitchens - has thus far produced 80 pounds of fresh food. And it’s still June, not even tomato time yet! As the First Lady says in this clip, getting involved in growing, harvesting and preparing fresh, organic food can help with a number of health-related issues that plague this country’s citizens…

Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure are all diet-related health issues that cost this country more than $120 billion each year. That’s a lot of money. While the dollar figure is shocking in and of itself, the effect on our children’s health is even more profound. Nearly a third of the children in this country are either overweight or obese, and a third will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lifetime. In Hispanic and African American communities, those numbers climb even higher so that nearly half of the children in those communities will suffer the same fate. Those numbers are unacceptable.

A. Siegel of Get Energy Smart blog does a little math and comes up with an intriguing scenario related to gardens just about a quarter the size of Michelle’s. If just five million Americans were inspired to create a Victory Garden in their yard (or in containers on their deck or patio, in window boxes, inside by a sunny window, etc.) that produced 20 pounds of food each year, it would amount to 100 million pounds (50,000 tons) of fresh, healthy vegetables and fruits grown right at home or in the neighborhood. That’s 50,000 tons of good food that would not have to be grown with chemical intensive agriculture, harvested by third world peasant/slaves, shipped to your local market using fossil fuels, and costing a hefty chunk of the shrinking household budget.

The added incentive is of course getting people outdoors instead of parked in front of the television when they get home from work, bending, digging, hoeing, tending and simply enjoying their garden. Even that little bit of exercise and simple enjoyment can help reduce a tough day’s accumulation of stress, and reducing stress has its health savings dividends as well.

Kudos once again to our beautiful First Lady, her helpers in the kitchen, the Obama girls and the students of Bencroft Elementary for a tasty job well done. Things like this are a fun and healthy chunk of the Change We Need!

LA Paper Sounds GMO Warning

I’ve been back and forth with #1 Daughter-in-Law down in Florida about grandson’s upcoming graduation from high school (Yea, Mikey!) and their plans to visit us here in the mountains the week of the 4th of July. It’s a little tricky, since we’ll be in Oklahoma to visit Great-Grandma until the 3rd, so we’ll both be converging on the homestead the afternoon of Independence Day. The good news is we’ll all be traveling through fireworks states, so should have some nice sparklies for the evening!

My DiL is an organic gardener like me (I’m so proud!), we often go back and forth about different cultivars, particular techniques for (trying to) beat bugs, etc. She linked me to a story from the LA Environmental Health Examiner this morning that I’m making the subject of this post.

Jon Stewart spoofs and doctors warn: avoid GMOs

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Super Granny to the Rescue!

I hope that some of my readers have clicked on the blogroll links over to the right side of this page and are passingly familiar with some of the excellent offerings there. One of those, Super Granny, is by Sally Wendkos Olds. Who really is Super Granny, and now has a a book by the same name available for us all to add to our libraries and pass on to our children when they become grandparents themselves.

The subtitle is “Great Stuff to Do with Your Grandkids,” and it’s a regular treasure trove of ideas and projects grouped ever so usefully into age ranges and includes things even the most tech-savvy kids will find to be great fun. Don’t let on to the grandkids, but some of them are even… (gasp!)… educational!

Olds’ conversational style and well-honed writing skill makes the book eminently readable, and since it graced my mailbox my older grandchildren have taken to reading it themselves for fun ideas even when this poor old granny is too busy doing paid work to get immediately involved. They set things up and then all I have to do is join in - does that make my beloveds Super Grandkids? I think so…

Of course, as the weather warms there are enough ongoing projects out in the garden, on the ridge trails and disc golf course, or even in granny’s several major projects for the year - including a nifty solar food dryer the kids are very excited about and planning to describe for their next school years’ edification - to keep them plenty busy for the next few months. Still, they’re becoming familiar with the many great resources and hints, so I’m expecting that during the big gatherings when there are 2-5 year olds here for the teenagers to entertain they’ll be pulling out Super Granny for themselves. As if the book itself qualifies by that title for their purposes!

Again, that’s Super Granny. Get yours today!

Papa’s Last Great Balloon Launch

Wooly Bully, Amen.

In true Rainbow Traveling Show style, there was much fireside sitting, heavy binge drinking, tearful goodbyes and storytelling belly-laughs at Papa Dollar’s Memorial and Wake in sunny Florida on Wednesday, February 25, 2009. With just about every one of the ‘usual suspects’ up to no good from start to finish.

Not the least of which was when the heir-apparent put my daughter Tash in charge of the blank-book in which we were all supposed to write something pithy about our old friend’s multi-storied life and times. She asked him what day it was so she could use her beautiful calligraphic skills to etch the title page, and he told her it was February 29, 2009. She (not paying attention to dates much) believed him. And now the precious family keepsake is forever dated Leap-Day in an Odd Year, something that’s never once actually occurred in the entire history of date-keeping!

But the best - better even than the formal Medicine Show eulogies - was the balloon launch, something Ras Papa was internationally infamous for. For this one it had been decided to launch Papa’s ratty old hat with the balloons. Which the 120 or so people present had to shuttle from his front porch helium tank to the mower polo field so they could be tied together into a freeform… thing. The animal balloons had sat in the sun too long, mostly exploded before they could be filled, but we did get a few. People drew or wrote things on the regular balloons with Sharpees before filling them, each with a personal note or charicature that related to Papa’s life.

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More of Life’s Comings and Goings…

Yes, Grandma is once again gifted with a baby grandson, this one making his appearance on Valentine’s Day! No doubt a signal that he’ll be as much of a heartthrob (and/or heart-breaker) as his big brubby and his Daddy, whom I often describe to people as one of…

The Few, The Proud, The Incredibly Good-Looking. Yup, he’s a Marine. Seems to like it okay, will soon hit the decade mark with the Corps. We’d been hoping he would be stationed nearer, but it seems they like him too much where he is now. Welcome to the world, grandson #7!!! I hope it treats you well, and that you will spring lightly along your journey.

Proud and happy as I am to report another grandchild in the growing ranks, it’s been a rough couple of months on the loss side of the scale too. First a friend succumbed after a hard-fought five year battle with ovarian cancer. Days later a another dear friend discovered he had cancer of the spine. He went out relatively quickly, which is just as well with this particular cancer. Yet another old friend fought his cancer hard, checked out last night.

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As Beautiful as those TV Mamas!

I encountered a post on the PopCrunch blog this past week, The 15 Hottest TV Moms of All Time, which if you don’t remember what life on planet earth was like before there was television, might be forgiven its “all time” hyperbole.

We do know that casting roles of 30 to 40-something actresses for television fills in the entertainment media ‘wasteland’ in between honest-to-starlet status as a Sweet Young Thing and the usual grandmother roles older actresses can get if anyone in Hollywood remembers their names when they get that old. These glamorous middle-age women all radiated a certain ageless beauty from the small screen that made them memorable, and for some, allowed them to move gracefully into the older-lady roles.

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Grandmother Roles: “First Grandma”

M.Spencer Green / AP

We are quite used to the “People’s House” at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue being temporary home to not just Presidents and First Ladies, but also to their children. From the toddler-hood of John Kennedy Jr. to the late teens and young adulthood of the Nixon and G.W. Bush daughters, the house has served as a true family home for many of the First Families privileged to live there. With the election of Barack Obama, we the people get something extra to include in our thinking about what it means to be a First Family. We’re getting a “First Grandma”.

Her name is Marian Robinson, mother of Michelle Obama and grandmother to First Daughters Sasha and Malia. The 71-year old family anchor will be moving into the White House to extend the role she’s been playing for the past two years in the Obama campaign - holding down the family fort as only a grandma can. As Obama said in an article during the late stages of his election campaign,

“One of the best decisions we made when I was elected to the Senate was that we wouldn’t move from Chicago. A big reason for that was that Marian lived 10 minutes away. She loved nothing more than to spend time with her grandkids.”

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Saving Money on Projects and Printables

If you’re like me and spend a good deal of time on the internet instead of in front of the television, you’re probably familiar with the many cool projects and activities available on line for you and the grandkids to do, or just things to print out by the ream to keep them busy when they’re visiting. At my house we’ve been doing Christmas Card projects, and that means that once again, my poor printer is officially out of the expensive color ink that costs more than $35 for a replacement cartridge. Paper for an ink jet printer is certainly cheap enough, but since the ink is not, some good tips on how to save on that will go far through the course of a year in saving money.

One of my favorite sites for cool projects and print-outs is Printables4Kids. It offers coloring pages, math worksheets, mazes, word puzzles and a long list of other fun things that will keep your printer plenty busy when the grandchildren are around. So it was with some appreciation that I found a recent post, 10 Ways to Save Money and Use Less Ink to be just what the money-doctor ordered.

Since I had to purchase a color cartridge just before Thanksgiving that is now telling me it’s empty again, I think I’ll go for the ink refill kit idea. Of course, I’ll probably make a total mess of it (and end up with some tie-dyes I hadn’t planned on), but this option does get Granny’s Seal of Approval for at least being a recycling project. Between that and figuring out where my printer is hiding it’s “draft” option, I should be able to print the amount of stuff I already do print every year, at about half the cost.

While you’re over at Printables4Kids, go ahead and look around at the list of great activities offered for things like birthdays, holidays, general craft projects, etc., and pay particular attention to the section entitled “Coupons and Deals.” Here there is the promise of saving even greater amounts of money on art and craft supplies, paper and ink, and other necessities that will help keep your younger generation brood safely occupied with fun projects as well as always excited to visit Grandma’s house (in addition to the usual cookies and stuff, of course).

Some Last Minute Gift Ideas

In addition to the idea of giving of one’s self and time by volunteering through the coming year, and making use of the creative possibilities of do it yourself craft gifts and cards, and even enlisting the entire family in such projects, as the Big Day gets closer there always seem to be a few people on the list that just must have a gift you haven’t purchased yet. So I’ve been surfing around in search of good ideas and advice.

First, there are the young granddaughters. What’s a better gift than a doll? I found a blog called Doll Diaries with a list of the Best Dolls for Girls Ages 3-6. I especially like the fact that these recommendations don’t include Barbie or any of her oddly-shaped fashion-hound friends. It’s never seemed a good idea to me to push boobs, high heels and prostitute wardrobes on girls so young. The My Twinn and Bitty Baby dolls are quite adorable, I’ll be looking at those next Christmas for my little Miss Sunshine.

The Casual Keystrokes blog has a useful post, Clutter Free and Last Minute Gift Ideas that grannies will like a lot. Things like movie tickets for the underagers are easy, as are tickets to other activities and events kids love. Coupons for a nice meal out or night of bowling are good for grownups, especially the parents of your grandchildren who could always use some time off. How about including yourself as babysitter too?

Concert tickets, a spa gift certificate, there are a lot of good ideas here that work for any age group, can be obtained quickly and late in the Christmas shopping game. Check it out and see what you can come up with for those friends and relatives - and yes, grandchildren - that will be a welcome addition to the pile of gifts and won’t clutter up anybody’s living space.

Links:

A Holiday Gift of Self
A Fun Family Do-It-Yourself Christmas
Best Dolls for Girls Ages 3-6
Clutter Free and Last Minute Gift Ideas
CBS: Last-Minute Holiday Shopping Guide