The Saturday Post: Playing For Change Day edition

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Today is the inaugural Playing For Change Day in which, as the organization's site says, "musicians are taking to the streets and stages in their communities to raise funds and awareness for Playing For Change Foundation, a non-profit organization that is bringing music education programs to children around the world."

Inspiration from the ever-awesome Playing For Change:

Make music, make a change...even if only in your home, your heart.

Happy Saturday!

Please read

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Please read. Not just this post, but in general: Please read.

I'm a site coordinator for the local children's literacy center. I've spent the last two weeks struggling to match far too few—yet much appreciated—volunteer reading tutors with far too many students in overwhelming, unbelievable need.

Perhaps there wouldn't be such a need, may not be so many children lagging behind in the very most basic, very most important of skills, if more people would please be a model...if more people would please take the lead...if more people would please read.

Please read with your grandchildren, children, nieces, nephews, with any child in need.

Please read to youngsters and with youngsters, no matter their age.

Please read story books, chapter books, comics, graphic novels. Please read novels, poems, riddles, jokes.

Please read road signs and maps and plaques on the places you go.

Please read recipes, cereal boxes, soda cans, milk cartons. Please read chip bags, price tags and labels throughout the grocery store, throughout any store.

Please read television shows—turn the closed-captioning on then read. Together.

Please read movies, too—subtitled movies!

Please read calendars, and websites, and text messages. Please read gift cards, bulletin boards, ads, and restaurant menus.

Please read game directions, game boards, game controllers. Please read instructions for building, instructions for creating, instructions for taking apart.

Please read newspapers, magazines, e-mail, real mail, junk mail, mailboxes.

Please read programs...from school, from plays, from church, from sporting events.

Please read rosters, billboards, scoreboards.

Please read. Anything. Everything. Together.

Please read.

Today's question:

Other than this post, what have you most recently read, by yourself or with another?

Wisdom and wit

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While Pinterest, my latest social media obsession, may be the mecca of all things crafty and oh-so-worth cooking, it's also an awesome spot for finding words of insight and inspiration. And you know how I love words...especially in the form of quotes. (And if you didn't know, well, now you do. See? You learn something new every single day here on Grandma's Briefs.)

Here for your reading pleasure are some recently discovered words of wisdom and wit, pinned for future pondering on my Pinterest board titled Food for Thought (attribution given when available):

What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday.

 

It isn't that I'm not a people person, I'm just not a stupid people person.

 

Girls are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. The boys don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just get the rotten apples from the ground that aren't as good, but easy. So the apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they're amazing. They just have to wait for the right boy to come along, the one who's brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree.

(Mothers of daughters, tell your daughters that one. Often. Mothers of sons, urge your sons to be brave. Always.)

 

You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughta be. ~Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

 

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. ~Albert Einstein

 

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me." ~Erma Bombeck

 

Success isn't just about what you accomplish in your life, it's about what you inspire others to do.

 

PS: If you tried to join Pinterest and were told you've been added to the waitlist, email me and I'll send you an invitation that should allow you to bypass the wait...no strings attached.

Photo: stock.xchng

Today's question:

Where do you like to go for wisdom and/or wit?

Progress

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Bubby started swimming lessons this past summer.

He has progressed from this...

and this...

during his outdoor lessons in June, to this...

and this...

during his indoor lessons in August.

Progress, for sure!

Megan and Preston hope to purchase a house with a pool in the next few months, so the swimming lessons will surely continue—swimming lessons, I'm thinking, in which Bubby is the teacher, teaching Gramma all the right moves.

I'm crossing my fingers Gramma progresses from guppy to surfer dude as quickly as her grandson has! Well, minus the "dude" part of it. And maybe the "surfer" part, too.

Today's question:

What is one new thing you learned over the summer?