8 reasons besides Christmas December warms my heart

/

The cookie swap lineup a few years ago.1. My family's annual cookie swap, which has been happening for more than 25 years (no one knows the number for sure). It's the one tried, true, and continuing tradition I share with my mom and sisters, and all the kids and kids' kids we've produced.

2. My middle daughter's birthday, the goofy and great mother of my grandsons. Happy birthday, Megan!

3. My son-in-law's birthday, as equally goofy and great as my daughter to whom he's married and the sons to whom he's the dad. Happy birthday, Preston!

4. My dear friend's birthday, the one friend I've stayed (thankfully) close to for more years than any other. Happy birthday, Debbie.

5. The birthday of a friend from days long gone (but still a Facebook friend!). The high-school friend who graciously invited me to live with her when my mom moved mid junior year. The friend who, inexplicably so, was later diagnosed with MS, just as I was, just as her Dad had been years earlier. Truly, inexplicable. Thoughts of her always warm my heart, make me smile. Happy birthday (today!), Joanie.

6. My baby sister's birthday. A baby sister all grown up—grown up to be several inches taller than me, in fact, and oh-so much stronger in oh-so many ways. Happy birthday, Susan.

7. The anniversary of being laid off from my longest-held job. Three years ago I became an editor no more. I thought it was an end, but it was truly just the beginning of great and unexpected things. Happy anniversary to me...and to all my Special Sections co-horts who were laid off with (and some before) me! 

8. The countdown to a new year, a new year which holds the promise of being, as always, better than the one ending.

Today's question:

What about December besides Christmas warms your heart?

Toddler gratitude

/

As a Thanksgiving activity, Bubby and his preschool classmates crafted turkeys made of footprints and feathers. On each work of art, the teacher wrote what each toddler said he or she was thankful for.

Here is a photo of Bubby's masterpiece:

Did you catch what Bubby is thankful for? Bath toys. Yes, bath toys! Nary a mention of a loving Mommy and Daddy, an adorable baby brother, a cozy home, abundant health, always having plenty to eat.

And that's okay. Because, at three years old, Bubby surely takes for granted that all little boys, all little girls have such things.

At three years old, Bubby is blissfully unaware of the profundity of his good fortune, his bountiful blessings.

At three years old, Bubby surely has no idea that life could be any different.

For that, I am truly grateful.

Today's question:

Name one thing from your day so far that you're grateful for?

Shop early for gifts—plus 10 more things I didn't do in 2011

/

Last December I swore I'd shop early for Christmas 2011, that I'd accumulate holiday gifts throughout the year so as to not have to rush around like a madwoman come December.

I didn't do that.

The metamorphosis into madwoman shall soon commence.

That's not the only thing I swore I'd do in 2011 that remains yet undone. Here are but a few:

• Order prints of the hundreds (thousands, maybe) of digital photos I'm behind on printing. "Behind" meaning the need goes back 8 years or so.

• Put a new Grandma's Briefs header into place, with an updated photo of granny panties on the line.

• Lose 20 pounds.

• Start riding my bike again (which would help with those 20 pounds).

• Paint the laundry room.

• Take up the hem on several of my favorite dresses to a more fashionable length. Yes, there's still time, but they're summer dresses...and will now sit on my sewing table until spring...at least.

• Learn Photoshop.

• Figure out how to be an active participant in Twitter parties without feeling like my head might explode. Or like a wallflower no one notices is in the room.

• Transfer a huge chunk of our CD collection to an iPod. (No way we'll manage to get all our music digitized...unless we set up a separate server for it. And no, Kate, we won't be following your lead.)

• Get caught up on reading my continually growing stack of magazines. Or just throw them all into the recycle bin and start fresh.

There are many more tasks, projects, and chores left undone, unfortunately. With the remainder of 2011 pretty much dedicated to holiday fun and frivolity, I don't see any of the above getting done at all before the clock strikes midnight on December 31.

Que sera, sera. There's always next year.

photo: stock.xchng

Today's question:

What did you intend to accomplish in 2011 but have now added to your to-do list for 2012?

Wild geese

/

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ From Dream Work by Mary Oliver

Today I'm on the lookout for that announcement, the one letting me know of my "place in the family of things."

photo: stock.xchng

Today's question:

What are you on the lookout for today?

13 things that scare me

/

During this spooky season, it's not goblins and ghosts that give me goosebumps, but these...

13 things that scare me:

• Holiday potlucks with people I don't know well enough to have been to their house to see how they prepare food

• Holiday potlucks with some of the people I do know well enough to have been to their house to see how they prepare food

• The sound of rocks being stacked, reminding me of Crowhaven Farm

• One of my grandkids...or kids...or Jim...or myself falling down the millions of stairs in my house

• The state of our society as we struggle to adjust to and compensate for the thousands (millions?) of jobs lost that will never return

• Grown men in Speedos

• Having a flat tire in a dark, relatively seedy part of Denver after a PR event. (Which, believe it or not, happened last night. Luckily Brianna drove, Brianna changed the tire...while I used my iPhone as a flashlight for her.)

• My boiler

• Sleeping with one hand over the edge of the bed

• Jim's driving (It's not him, it's me...most of the time)

• No life insurance

• Having an angry—or amorous—buck charge me and the dogs while on our morning walk

• The possibility I may never have a book traditionally published

Photo: stock.xchng

Today's question:

What scares you?

For want of a round tuit

/

Decades upon decades ago, I came across a cardboard cutout in my mom's issue of Woman's Day or Family Circle, the only two magazines she regularly treated herself to. The cutout was of a "Round Tuit"—a circle with the words ROUND TUIT written on it, for presenting to procrastinators who say such things as "I'll do X when I get around to it."

Why that goofy feature stuck in my mind for many years after, I'll never know. But not long ago I found another Round Tuit in an antique shop and was happy to offer it as a prize in my then-weekly haiku contest here on Grandma's Briefs. The tchotchke looked like this:

I now wish I had kept that Round Tuit rather than give it away, as it sure would have come in handy for all the things that we didn't get around to doing while Megan and the boys were here last week.

A Round Tuit would have been useful for:

• Carving the warty pumpkin we picked from the pumpkin patch

• A second splash in the hot tub with Bubby

• Taking Bubby over to Aunt B's to visit her kitties

• Eating the two packages of Wholly Guacamole I bought specifically for Megan then discovered at the back of the refrigerator soon after she'd left

• A treasure hunt for PawDad and Bubby using PawDad's metal detector

• Baking peanut butter cookies with Bubby

• Collecting leaves from the back yard for Bubby to take back to the desert, where the cactus and palm trees don't change in the fall

• Relaxing in the hammock with Bubby

• Assisting Megan on the sewing project she hoped to complete while here

• Printing photos of our week o' fun to place in a mini photo album for Bubby to take home with him

There's not much I can do about most of what's on the list above. Some simply won't happen, and some will be added to the agenda for when Megan and the boys—with Preston—return at Christmastime.

I will, though, eat all the guacamole myself. I also will pick some red and yellow leaves from the trees in my back yard. Then I'll place the leaves, along with printed photos of the visit, in a mini keepsake album that I'll mail to Bubby.

As soon as I get around to it a Round Tuit.

Today's question:

What would you surely accomplish, if only you had a Round Tuit?

What I would NOT do if I won the lottery

/

The last couple weeks I've been involved in a thing or two only because I need the money. I'm not talking drug peddling or prostitution or any other equally unsavory deed, just things I really wouldn't be doing if I didn't need the money.

Which has gotten me thinking about a few other things I wouldn't be doing if I had more money.

If I won the lottery, I would no longer:

• clip coupons for grocery shopping.

• go to the grocery store, for that matter; I'd shop online and have my groceries delivered.

• drive to Denver each time I fly somewhere; I'd fly out of my local airport, no matter the cost.

• drive my dinged-up 1998 Ford Explorer...to Denver or anywhere.

• feel like my blog photos are inferior; I'd have a better camera and take photography AND Photoshop classes.

• be without cable television.

• buy my dog's food at Walmart.

• feel guilty that my piano has not been touched in months as I spend nearly every waking moment on tasks that might make a penny here and a penny there.

• delete without viewing the weekly e-mail newsletter announcing upcoming concerts and performances.

• deal with obnoxious neighbors; I'd build an 8- to 10-foot-tall fence (height depending on ordinances I've not yet researched). Or I'd move.

• turn down invitations to cover interesting events because I don't have the travel budget to get there.

That said, at least I'm able to buy groceries and dog food, have a vehicle to drive, can fly to see my daughter and grandsons now and then, and receive invitations to attend interesting events.

Yes, things could indeed be far worse.

Still, it sure would be awesome to win the lottery.

Or Publishers Clearing House.

I'm not picky.

(Just a complainer now and then.)

Photo: MS Office

Today's question:

If you won the lottery, what would you NOT do?

I swore I'd never

/

 I swore I'd never blog. Too self-involved, too navel gazing for me.

Yet, here I am.

 

 

 

I swore I'd never join Facebook. Too many people wanting to be friends with someone (that'd be me) who's not really all that friendly.

Yet, you can find me on Facebook...in not just one place but two: personal and bloggy FB pages.

 

I swore I'd never join Twitter. Too silly and psycho with all that personal disclosure of little import streaming by.

Yet, you can find me there daily, tooting and tweeting as @GrandmasBriefs.

 

 

 

I swore I'd never post videos on YouTube. Too many bad videos of kids hiding out in their bedrooms creating snippets of stuff their parents should ground them the rest of their lives for doing.

Yet, I not only visit it often, I regularly share videos from there and, get this, even have my own YouTube channel.

 

I swore I'd never join Pinterest...mostly because I didn't understand what the <cuss> it was.

Yet now I'm pinning and pining away on Pinterest...far more often than I should be...am far more in love with it, am more obsessed with it, than I should be.

 

I swore I'd never win Publishers Clearing House.

WAIT! That's not true! I've sworn again and again and again, for years and years and years, that I was going to win PCH!

 

I think I get it now: All these years, I have taken the wrong route to reward with PCH, using positive declarations and visualization techniques in hopes of seeing the Prize Patrol Van show up in my driveway.

High time to change all that.

I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...

Today's fill-in-the-blank:

I swore I'd never ____________, yet now I'm _______________.

What I did

/

When the towers came down, I lived thousands of miles away. I had no personal connection, no intimate relation to the horrific events.

Yet, I was glued to the television. For hours that turned into days.

Instead of continuing the wringing of my hands as I cried watching the news, I put them to work. Still crying. Still watching the news.

This is what I did:

For myself. For my family. For anyone who wanted one.

It didn't make any difference. Except to me.

I've not looked in this tin since then. Until today.

Maybe I'll make another.

To never forget.