Sweet treat made from garden goodies: Summer Squash Streusel Muffins

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summer squash streusel muffins

My oldest daughter has been generously sharing with me the bounty of her garden, especially the abundant zucchini and summer squash. I have a couple zucchini dishes I regularly count on — Chocolate Zucchini Bread and Zucchini Cobbler in particular — but hadn't yet found a pleasing way to prepare summer squash as a sweet treat. (My husband eats squash only when hidden in baked goods... so the need for such was real.) I recently came across a summer squash bread that came close to...

Click for the full recipe in Grandma's Recipe Box...

As the season slips away: 6 summery somethings I still want to do

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summer sunset

Kids are back in school. Pumpkin-flavored coffees pour forth from the coffee shops. Halloween candy and costumes line the shelves at the stores.

It seems fall has arrived full force despite the calendar still showing summer on the schedule.

As September 21 — the official final day of summer despite what the retailers profess — creeps closer, I'm mulling over the summer sorts of stuff I meant to do and didn't. A few stand out that I still want to do, still hope to do, before I can no longer...

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Watching the solar eclipse?

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Watching the solar eclipse?

Watching the solar eclipse?

1921 solar eclipse in Paris
Three Parisian women watching the solar eclipse of 8 April 1921 on the Cour du Havre, next to the gare Saint-Lazare. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Are you watching today's solar eclipse? How are you watching? From where and with whom? Depending on when you read this it may all be past tense, but either way, I'd love to hear your view on the phenomenon.

I will be watching... from my backyard with only my dog, Mickey, as my companion to ooh and aah over the event. And I'll be sporting my mandatory eclipse spectacles for a direct view of the show.

My eclipse glasses became nearly a no-go for me (and mine) at the last minute, despite my having ordered several pair for my entire family a month or so ago. The glasses...

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Friday briefs: Squash, cinnamon rolls, and Instagram weirdos

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SQUASH
Many successful gardeners — my daughter Brianna included — recently began seeing the bountiful fruits (and veggies) of their spring and summer labors, picking, pulling and happily harvesting this and that from their yards.

I'm not a successful gardener. I am, though, happily awaiting the right size and right time to pull and prepare the two — count 'em, two! — squash I did manage to grow in my woebegone garden of sorts.

zucchini and summer squash

Woot! I'm celebrating the wee bit of success for this black-thumbed gardener wannabe. (Truth be told: I'm pretty sure they grew only because Brianna started them for me at her house then passed along pots with the babies for me to plant and finish the job.)

 

CINNAMON ROLLS

It has never resonated with me when friends (and strangers and social media connections) mention eating entire containers of ice cream or cookies or bags and boxes of chocolates all on their own, being literally unable to stop themselves. Because I'm not all that in love with sweets. I've never really gotten...

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My (uneventful) week in photos

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I haven't done much of anything worth writing home about about on my blog this past week. Which, in all honesty, is okay with me. Sometimes busyness and booked calendars are highly overrated (not to mention exhausting).

Even with nothing much on the agenda, though, I did manage to take — and in one case, appropriate from my daughter's Facebook page — photos of the nothing much marking my days. Following are a few such markings from my past week.

bear yard art
A chainsaw-crafted set o' friendly bears a neighbor recently...

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BTS 2017: Grandsons and good teachers

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From the look of their first-day-of-school photos (which I nabbed from my daughter's Facebook page), my grandsons lucked out with caring and personable teachers for the new school year.

brothers first day of school 2017

Camden kicked off kindergarten with a super-sized grin — sporting the empty spots...

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Practicing what I preach

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Practicing what I preach

Practicing what I preach

I do my best to practice what I preach here on Grandma's Briefs. Last week I preached all about ways grandparents can help school-bound grandkiddos. One of the suggestions in the post is to give grandkids a BTS care package of sorts (with an outfit or pajamas) before school begins.

It just so happens that the day that post was published, I received a text message from Megan with a picture of my grandsons thanking me for the BTS care package i had sent them, which included a few school supplies plus an outfit for each boy. (Shorts and tees that I thought were cute as can be for school but would work just fine as jammies if the boys considered my selections not cool for school.) Declan — who's only three and spends his days with Mommy, not at school — got a package just like his brothers, too, because, well, how could the cutie not?

grandson heading back to school
Declan, Camden, and Brayden grinning big for Gramma!

The package arrived just in time! Today Camden starts...

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BTS tradition: 10 ways to support school-bound grandchildren (plus a few extra)

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Ah, back-to-school time. The past few years at this time, I've shared the following post from my archives. It's always gotten a great response — because grandparents are awesome and want to be involved in the education of their grandkiddos — so I hereby pronounce this post an annual BTS tradition.

This time around I've updated it in a few ways, including adding suggestions from other grandmas who shared tips in comments on the post in the past. (Thank you, ladies!)

10 WAYS TO SUPPORT SCHOOL-BOUND GRANDCHILDREN
Originally published August 6, 2013

My daughter Megan is not only the mother of my awesome grandsons, she was also an elementary school teacher for several years before MOM became her full-time job. Here are a few suggestions she and I came up with for supporting school-bound grandchildren in ways that will garner an A+ not only from the kids, but from their parents and teachers, too.

back to school ideas for grandparents

1. Send a care package to be opened the night before school starts. Consider adding new cozy jammies to help ease...

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