What I learned this week: I must make time for life... offline

 

Summer is upon us and the outdoors beckons. Which is why, after much back and forth, debating and deliberating, I finally learned this week what I must do: I realized/learned/confirmed that I must allow time in my schedule for life... offline.

Making the time for life offline will require some online changes. Changes to my blogging schedule, to be exact. See, I have been publishing a post on Grandma's Briefs every single day since July 25, 2009. Many of you have been reading those daily posts that long, too. Which is so incredible and heartwarming and humbling.

But I think we're all sitting on our butts and staring at screens far too much. I know I am.

So I'm proposing that now that summer has arrived, we not focus on Grandma's Briefs — at least not on the weekends. I'm talking only weekend-long breaks, as I couldn't bear to take a full-fledged summer-long break from blogging; it's in my blood now, and I could not survive without it. I hope you, too, couldn't bear to live without my blogging. (Yes, I do like to flatter myself now and again.)

But weekends, especially in the summer, beckon all of us to get up and move, to do something, to live. So I'm going to do my part this summer and no longer post the scintillating — and, yes, sometimes silly — stuff you've grown to expect in this space on Saturdays and Sundays.

It's going to be hard. My four-year habit will surely be difficult to break. But a break is what we all need. A break that gets us offline. At least on the weekends. At least for the summer.

With that said, consider this post the official notice that you will not find new content on Grandma's Briefs come tomorrow morning. That doesn't mean, of course, that you can't visit here on the weekends, if you choose. Grandma's Briefs will always be open, always welcome one and all who want to visit any day, any time, any page throughout the site. So if you do drop by on a Saturday or Sunday, feel free to catch up on anything you may have missed during the week.

(Of course, you just might see me drop in on the Grandma's Briefs Facebook page on Saturdays and Sundays; just nothing regular or scheduled, for sure.)

Now, as I said, it's going to be be a challenge for me to not share with you over the weekend. Proof being that I already had a doozy of a video to post for my regular Saturday Post feature. So I'm going to share it here today; I simply couldn't wait until Monday for this one.

This video came to my attention courtesy the awesome women at Better After 50. I hope it makes you chuckle as much as it did me.

With that in mind, I hope you'll remember come tomorrow that there will be nothing new happening here on Grandma's Briefs until early Monday morning. I hope I will remember that, too.

I'm pretty sure I will remember, though — because it's what I need.

And that is what I learned this week.

Today's question:

What did you learn this week?

The Saturday Post: Music to kick off summer edition

Billboard Magazine released its Top 30 Summer Songs this week. Not a whole lot on the list resonated deeply with me, for a variety of reasons — mostly because I'm too old, they're too old, or they're just too not my style.

There were a few, though, that made me smile, tap my toes and cross my fingers this summer will be light, carefree, happy. Is that possible at our age? Or are such things bestowed only upon the young?

I share those here: the four light, carefree, happy and downright summery songs from the Billboard list that made me want to grab an ice-cold beer, kick back, and believe that such things are possible at any age. They're the ideal soundtrack for kicking off the holiday weekend, the unofficial start of summer.

Cheers to summer! Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Today's question:

What song screams summer for you?

Photo replay: Boys of summer

Savoring every last drop of summer:

Today's question:

What do you consider the official end of summer?

Photo replay: Hummin' along

Jim and I haven't had much luck attracting the hummingbirds this summer. Last Saturday, though, one finally visited our deck—and I was fortunate it was hungry enough to stick around while I ran to get my camera.

Today's question:

What birds do you regularly see out your kitchen window?