Remake America: Getting through tough times together

/

Times are tough—for many of us, if not all of us. I must admit that the last couple of years have been the most economically difficult ones Jim and I have faced in our 30 years together, due to lost jobs, lost income, lost retirement funds. And we're far from being out of the woods yet.

We're definitely not alone. Yahoo's Remake America web series makes that abundantly clear—while providing hope for all of us. The Remake America weekly video series, an election year initiative that kicked off in March, follows the lives and challenges of six families as they strive to get back on track toward achieving the American dream. The tagline of the show is Real families, real challenges, your solutions as Yahoo! visitors are invited to participate and connect with the families by viewing the weekly episodes then posting comments—advice, opinions, encouragement—for the folks featured. Additionally, experts weigh in on the challenges of the chronicled families.

One great thing—at least as far as instilling hope for struggling grandparents like many of us here on Grandma's Briefs—is that one of the six stories on Remake America is that of grandparents Bill and Donna Clarke (above). The Clarkes face tough challenges similar to what other baby boomers may be currently working through.

For many years, Bill and Donna lived “the American dream.” They provided well for their three children, owned two homes, traveled the world. Then Bill suffered a stroke. He could no longer work the corporate position he'd held for years, so he and Donna decided to open their own hardware business. They used their retirement funds and now, thanks to the economy bringing their livelihood to the brink of collapse, Bill and Donna are struggling, to say the least. Difficult as it is facing home foreclosure and more, matters are made worse as their daughter Erin, a single mom of three-year-old twins who's featured along with them in "Remake America" episodes, faces losing her home as well.

The Clarkes were one of the families chosen for Remake America because their story was so impactful, says DeAndrà Harrison of DKC Public Relations, Marketing & Government Affairs, a representative for Remake America. After the tragedy of his stroke, "Bill had a second chance, instead of just saving his money and surviving, he put it all in a business that he had no idea would be successful. They have been struggling to hold on to that 'second chance' ever since."

You might think viewing Bill and Donna's struggles would be depressing, but the Clarkes express surprising hope and optimism. I had the opportunity to ask a few questions of Bill, and his responses show the same positive attitude he and his family exude in the Remake America episodes, despite the challenges they face and difficult choices they must make.

Grandma’s Briefs: In what ways has it been difficult for you to share your circumstances and challenges (hardships with business, foreclosure of home, etc) with strangers online?
Bill Clarke: It has not been difficult sharing our situation with strangers. Once we first made the decision to participate, we did not look back!

GB: What have been the positive outcomes of your experience with Remake America? What are some of the negative outcomes?
BC: The overall experience has been very positive. We would definitely do it again. Thanks to RA, our business really has a chance to survive. I feel overwhelmed with the support we have gotten from so many strangers. It's just great to see Americans helping Americans.  I am surprised at the communications I get about us being an inspiration to other small business owners. The only negative part is some of the comments, but we try to not let that bother us.

GB: How has your situation affected your time as a grandparent?
BC: I just don't have the time I wish I did to spend with my grandchildren. I just missed Erin's twins' birthday party. I hate that. I felt I missed a lot with my own kids because of my job, and here I go again!

GB: What do you hope your children and grandchildren learn from you documenting your challenges?
BC: I hope my grandchildren and others watching learn to keep praying, and keep swimming. With the help of God, and lots of hard work, anything is possible.

GB: Your daughter Erin is facing financial difficulties of her own and is also featured in Remake America episodes. How does it feel to be going through the tough times at the same time as your daughter?
BC: I hate not being able to help my daughter financially. It is very difficult watching her struggle, and know I can do little to help. I just have to trust in her heavenly father.

GB: What have you learned about yourselves—personally and as a couple—from your health and financial struggles as well as by being featured on Remake America that you would not have learned otherwise?
BC: I have learned what I already knew, that my wife is terrific. She has been through so much since my stroke. It has been so wonderful to have her at my side.

You can view the most recent Remake America episode featuring Bill and Donna Clarke HERE. Be sure to view previous episodes, too, to learn their story from the beginning. And don't hesitate to leave comments for Bill and Donna. They may be the grandparents being featured, but we're all going through these economic struggles together, and a little encouragement and hope goes a long way toward recovery for us all.

Remake America is part of Destination 2012, Yahoo! News’ yearlong elections program. Find out more and catch up episodes featuring the Clarkes as well as the stories of the five other families featured by visiting Remake America on Yahoo!

Photo credit: Anna Naphtali Photography

Disclosure: I was not compensated in any way for this post.

Today's question:

What advice has best helped you get through difficult economic times, past or present?

Brain fog, head games and Cranium Crunches

/

I always admired my mother-in-law's determination to keep her mind functioning as well as possible. She did crossword puzzles every single day and regularly engaged in new activities to help keep the wheels of her aging brain turning.

I used to enjoy crossword puzzles but I've done only a handful in the past decade or so. I did start taking piano lessons in my forties in hopes of increasing the dendrites in my brain, those little networking cables that make the mind move better the more you have. Unfortunately, though, I had to eliminate piano lessons when money got tight. My determination to keep up the practicing sans lessons pooped out soon after, as well as my dendrite production.

My mind and memory have apparently pooped out, too. A recent lunch with a friend I'd not seen in more than five years made me all too aware of my egregious lack of recall. As my friend and I and her daughter dined and discussed getting together with our husbands for a game night, I told my friend that although I don't know her husband, he must be a pretty good guy if she's married to him. To which she responded that I have indeed met him, have actually had him and her over to our house for a barbecue several years ago.

I didn't remember. At all. And felt pretty stupid about it. I couldn't even blame it on having a few too many beers during that forgotten BBQ because it wasn't that kind of a gathering, considering her then-adolescent kids had attended and enjoyed hanging out in our hot tub. Which I didn't recall either. At all.

Again, I felt pretty stupid. I wanted to blame the brain fog on having MS, to say, "Oh, I must have a sclerosis smack dab on top of that specific memory." But that would be even more stupid. And surely a lie.

Truth is, my brain fog, my memory, my total (or even partial) recall has been getting worse and worse and worse as I age. And I'm not really all that aged. But I find myself more often than before forgetting what I was going to say in certain circumstances, and I've become pretty bad at brainiac things I was once good at, like word play and matching games and puzzles.

I've found help, though. It's free, it's fun, it makes a difference, and it can be enjoyed by anyone at any age. It's called Cranium Crunches.

Cranium Crunches is the brain child (yes, pun intended; I can still throw together a pun now and then) of Ruth Curran. Curran, who is degreed in psychology and has extensive research experience, hatched the idea for the site after witnessing dementia issues with her parents—attributable to cancer and chemo in her mother's case, Parkinson's disease in her father—and the difference puzzles and games made in restoring their cognitive ability and their confidence.

"I set out to create a series of photo based puzzles that remind us of our lives," Curran says, "a set of brain exercises with cross generational appeal that provide a safe place to practice those skills that might be slipping, work on/hone some skills, improve focus, or just look at some cool photos and tell stories. It had to be free, require no subscription, no plan, no commitment—just come and play."

Which is exactly what Cranium Crunches provides, as well as a page on what games will help you most. The selection of photo-based games and puzzles include Memory Match, Find the Difference, One of These Things is Not Like the Others and more. All the games are quite fun and engaging, but my favorite so far has been Find the Difference, mostly because I'm determined to find them all before my time is up (which I've not yet been successful at). With increasing degrees of difficulty, it's easy to choose one you like and get better and better and better at it, all the while exercising that cranium and achieving an ageless brain in tip-top shape.

Ageless and tip-top shape is my goal for my brain. I've got quite a ways to go, though, according to the scores I've earned so far in my Cranium Crunches game play. But it's a start. And it's fun. And it's something I plan to incorporate into my daily routine—just like my mother-in-law used to do with her crossword puzzles.

photo: stock.xchng

Disclosure: I wrote this blog post while participating in a campaign by BOOMboxNetwork.com on behalf of Cranium Crunches and received payment for my participation. All opinions stated within are my own.

Today's question:

What do you like to do to keep your mind challenged and exercised?

Some day is now

/

Like many mothers, things I wanted to do and achieve for myself during the childrearing years were put on the backburner in favor of what my kids wanted, what they needed. In a busy nest filled with babies to birth and bathe and feed and teach how to fly—protecting and doing my best to form them into fine, functioning, happy, kind and compassionate contributors to society—there was no time to consider much less execute my plans for personal goals. So they were set aside, placed on a list of things I'll do some day.

Some day arrived last Saturday. With a nest that's been empty for some time now, I finally—finally, I say—plucked one of the items from my "Some Day I'll..." list, gathered the goods, and accomplished something I had been wanting to do for years.

I made bagels.

Homemade bagels.

From scratch. The kneading, the forming, the boiling, the topping with yummy cheeses and cinnamon (not on the same ones, of course), and the baking to golden perfection. I did it all.

Yes, indeed, I made bagels.

And yes, indeed, they turned out awesome.

So awesome, in fact, that I called Jim out of bed earlier than he wished to be called on a Saturday morning. "Come look at what I made for breakfast," I coaxed him. "I'm so proud of myself! You will be, too!" And he was.

I texted my three daughters with photos of my achievement. They oohed and aahed and said "Yum!" and Brianna texted, "Can I come over for breakfast?" And she did. And I shared.

And I grabbed my camera to share my bagelicious beauties with you, too. 

See what I mean? They look good enough to rival those we spent years and years purchasing from the bakery, the bagel shop. I can honestly say—and Jim and Brianna concur—they tasted as good as they look. So not only will I share with you the photo, I'll share with you the recipe, too.

This is a combined recipe, a melding of one from Taste of Home Cooking School Cookbook and the one included with my bread maker. Yes, I used the bread maker for the kneading, so this recipe is geared toward placing the ingredients in that, but you could surely make them without one.

Homemade Bagels

1 1/4 cups warm milk

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 egg yolk

4 cups bread flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast or bread machine yeast

Melted butter, for brushing on tops

Toppings such as cinnamon sugar, cheese slices (I used cheddar, colby/jack, and pepper jack), poppy seeds, sesame seeds, onion bits, if desired

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place all ingredients except melted butter and toppings in machine in order listed, making a well in the flour for the yeast. Let the machine knead the dough one time (about 10 minutes), then turn off machine and let dough rise 20 minutes in the machine.

On floured surface, divide dough into 12 circles. Push your thumb through center of each circle to make the hole, and stretch to form bagel shape. Place circles on a well-greased baking sheet, cover, and let rise for 15 to 20 minutes.

In nonaluminum pan, slightly boil two inches of water. Slowly submerge three or four bagels at a time into the water. Cook for about 30 seconds on one side then flip and cook about 30 seconds on the other. Carefully remove bagels with slotted spoon and place on wire racks to let excess water drip off.

Place bagels back onto well-greased baking sheet. Brush tops with butter then add toppings, if desired. Bake 8-10 minutes or until slightly browned.

Makes 12 medium bagels (though I ended up with 13 because one of the 12 was huge so I divided it)

A little time consuming, yes. But hard? Not at all. And definitely worth it. I kept asking myself—after Should I have another...and another?—why in the world I didn't try making bagels sooner. Like when my bagel-loving daughters were still at home. They shouldn't have been placed on a some day list, they should have been made now, even back when the now seemed so impossibly busy.

Those boiled and baked delights have me looking at my some day list in a new light. In a nest emptied of kids but filled with time and possibility, there's no stopping me now. That's the kind of wild woman I've become, by golly—a wild, homemade-bagel-making woman, that is.

Like I said: There's no stopping me now.

Today's question:

What's your favorite kind of bagel? Have you ever tried making them yourself?

The Saturday Post: Granny O'Grimm edition

/

Forget Julia Roberts in Mirror, Mirror and Charlize Theron in Snow White and the Huntsman, this is a fairy tale for the grandma gang.

I love the line, "She'd show them how it is to feel old and constantly sleepy." Oh, yeah!

Today's question:

What was your favorite fairy tale as a child—or now?

She came in through the (bedroom) window

/

I write picture books. I've yet to have one published. Thanks to a particularly challenging last week or so as it relates to such things, picture books have been on my mind lately. A lot. And not just as they relate to kids.

As a mom, I had a favorite picture book I regularly read, regularly cried to, regularly gave as a baby shower gift to moms-to-be.

As a grandma, I learned the error of my ways—at least as far as giving that favorite picture book to new mothers.

The book of which I speak is Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. It's not a literary classic by any means, but it resonated with me. For those of you who don't know the story—is there really a mom who doesn't?—it's about a mom and her beloved baby boy whom she loves tirelessly throughout the years. Her son begins as an infant, and, as baby boys are wont to do, grows into a man. Through each phase of his life, his Mommy rocks him and tells him...

I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always,

As long as I'm living

my baby you'll be.

In the story, Mommy grows older, too. And bolder. At one point, once her beloved boy is a man with home of his own, Mommy drives across town in the middle of the night, leans a ladder up to her son's bedroom window, and climbs the darn thing. She goes through the window into the bedroom, where she cuddles and rocks her sound-asleep man-sized boy.

Ladder-climbing Mommy continues to get older...and older and older, and eventually it's the adult boy's turn to rock his Mommy, singing basically the same song.

So sweet. To me, at least.

So creepy, though, to Megan. Megan, my daughter. Megan, mother to my grandsons. Megan, recipient of what I thought was a love-it-forever baby shower gift—a hardback copy of Love You Forever. Not long ago I learned Megan didn't find the gift sweet, that she actually hated it. Always has, she eventually admitted. Mostly because a mom climbing through the bedroom window to express her love to her grown child hits the high point on the creep-o-meter. At least for Megan.

Creepy never crossed my mind when reading and crying over Love You Forever. It just seemed a sweet tale of never-ending loyalty and love between mommy and son.

Now it seems it's yet another way I show my age.

Like so many other things related to parenting, reading and loving Love You Forever is apparently outdated, not how the current generation of parents does things. Nor how they want things. Like picture books. No, kids nowadays—meaning adult kids nowadays, parents themselves—eschew the sweet, the sentimental, opting instead, it seems, for all things practical, pragmatic.

A friend of mine who is a bit younger than I and clearly not of the sweet and sentimental sort (at least not before having kids; motherhood, though, has softened her significantly) received from me for her baby shower a couple books from the Baby Be of Use series: Baby, Mix Me a Drink and Baby Do My Banking. They were given in jest, obviously not to be taken seriously.

That was several years ago. One of the current top books for giving new parents—parents who understandably likely already or will soon want to scream the title to their kid—is Go the F**K to Sleep. Fortunately I don't currently know any moms-to-be, because though I like to give picture books as baby shower gifts, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around giving the particular popular picture book. I've considered buying a copy for myself, for the novelty of it and the chuckles it will surely elicit. (I'm not that much of an old fogey.) But when it comes to baby showers, Go the F**K to Sleep is surely not this grandma's cuppa tea. (Okay, maybe I am that much of an old fogey.)

Maybe like everything else, though, the picture book pendulum will swing back to the sweet, the sentimental. Just like what happens with parenting rules—such as recommendations for placing a sleeping baby on his back...or stomach...or side...or whatever is the current wisdom—what was once old will eventually be new again.

In the meantime, while I wait for that pendulum to swing back my way, I'll just go read Love You Forever another time or two.

And cry.

And consider the logistics of lugging a ladder to the desert for my next visit to Megan. (Mostly just to creep her out.)

Today's question:

What picture book has creeped out you, your children, or your grandchildren?