Since I last wrote

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Since I last wrote

Hello friends!

I hope everyone is well and enjoying fall, my favorite time of year.

Since I last wrote, a fair amount of this and that has happened for my family and me.

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March gladness

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March gladness

Ordinary moments — dare I say, mundane moments — marked March 2023 for me. Ordinary moments for which I’m all the more grateful and glad to have had in light of this month’s heartbreak and loss for so many in the west, in the south, and, especially, in Nashville.

Moments like these:

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Rockin' PawDad's party

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Rockin' PawDad's party

The recent weekend in which my family was all together—a relatively uncommon occurrence even in the best of times—featured not only Robert’s baptism, as I previously shared, but a milestone birthday celebration, too. That milestone being Jim’s sixtieth birthday.

The birthday festivities, organized primarily by Megan, revolved around a rockin’ theme as …

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Chameleon cool

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Chameleon cool

My bonus grandson James, who will be 13 in April, lives pretty much half of the time with his mom and half of the time with his dad, Brianna, Benjamin, and Robert. The specifics of the shared custody changed recently, and the new configuration resulted in it making more sense for James’ pet chameleon, George, to reside full-time at Dad’s house.

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Some grand news amidst all the bad news

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Some grand news amidst all the bad news

So much bad news surrounds us lately. Most of it beyond bad, in fact. Bad news about the pandemic, about politics, about inexplicable injustices and more batters our brains and hurts our hearts pretty much every single day beyond anything we might have imagined mere months ago.

Yet amidst all that bad news, I have some good news.

Some grand news.

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Summer's end: Mark it with a B

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Summer's end: Mark it with a B

As Labor Day weekend signified the end of summer for most folks — despite there being, technically, three more weeks of the sun-filled season — I must say my summer didn’t close with much of a bang. It did, though, end with a few other B words of note. A few of my favorite B words, in fact.

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Summer break ends: What changed while I was away

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Summer break ends: What changed while I was away

Grandma’s Briefs is back! Yep, the summer break I announced at the start of June is officially over.

While I was away from the site, a few changes took place. Some big, some small. Here’s a (relatively) quick update:

For starters, one blog change is that Grandma’s Briefs hit the 10-year mark in July! Hard to believe but true, as you can see from my very first post, published a decade ago.

Another blog change is that you’ll see a few new faces in the Meet the Family section of the sidebar, those being of Andrea’s new …

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Be yourself!

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Be yourself!

Be yourself!

This week’s extra special message, best expressed by James.

Plus…

GRAND Social No. 347 link party for grandparents

IMPORTANT NOTE: InLinkz, the app I use for link parties, has changed their format, unbeknownst to me until I created this post/party. It seems folks who add links now must sign up with InLinkz when adding links to a link party (simple enough using your email address or your Facebook profile—and InLinkz cannot post on your Facebook page). If you have trouble linking to the GRAND Social, please let me know and I’ll do my best to help you out.

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Big bro bonding

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Big bro bonding

Big bro bonding!

James has for 10 years lived in the “little brother” position, having two older half brothers who are eight and eleven years his senior. It’s taken him no time at all, though, to settle in as Benjamin’s big brother, tenderly balancing his adored baby bro on the Bobby like a pro.

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Gramma goes tubing

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Gramma goes tubing

Despite having been born in Minnesota and living in the Land of 10,000 Lakes the first decade of my life, I'm not big on water sports. To any degree. I still don't know how to swim... even after having swim lessons as a child and again at 40 years old.

I'm not deathly afraid of water, but I certainly don't seek out splishy-splashy fun in water over my head. Not even water up to my chest, to be honest.

So it should come as no surprise that I've never whiled away hours in an inner tube on a lake. Nor have I engaged in tubing…

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