Picture this: Happy birthday, Granny

Jim's mom turned 83 yesterday.

This is how I like to remember Granny, with my girls...

Megan, Andrea, Granny, Brianna — 1994

She was one of the best.

We love you, Granny.

Today's question:

What age stands out in your memory when thinking of your grandparents — your age and their age.

10 reasons this grandma needs new glasses

Yesterday morning I attempted to eat yet another Dove foil-wrapped chocolate egg left over from Easter — solely for the purpose of getting in my recommended daily allowance of dark chocolate, for the touted health benefits. (We'll ignore that the egg was milk chocolate, not dark.)

But I couldn't. I simply could not eat another chocolate egg. Literally — because I could not see the spot in the foil where I could begin to unwrap the darn thing so I could pop it into my mouth.

After cursing the foil for foiling my attempt to pack in a few more unnecessary calories, I decided to put on my reading glasses and give it another shot.

Voilà! I had the chocolate unwrapped and in my mouth in no time... quickly followed by two more easily unwrapped eggs. (Hey, don't judge; that was only half the suggested serving size.)

In the past few years, it's become increasingly difficult to do anything that requires me to see anything smaller than, oh, a golf ball. Like finding where the foil on a chocolate egg can best be opened. Lately, though, it's no longer just difficult, it's now downright impossible.

The time has come for me to invest in a new pair of bifocals to replace my once-not-so-necessary yet now so very expired pair. It's become a necessary evil, so I can be fully bespectacled and prepared for any less-than-golf-ball-sized matters that might come my way — without having to wear my reading glasses around my neck on a chain or readily available atop my head at all times.

I've come to this conclusion because the unfoiling of the chocolate eggs is just one minor example of everyday tasks I once did with ease that now require glasses. Here are nine more:

Reason No. 9: Seeing my wrinkles and brown spots. I thought my new face cream was doing surprisingly well, as my wrinkles were disappearing, my brown spots fading. Or so I thought — until I put on my reading glasses the other day to tweeze my brows (and, yes, chin hairs). Oh my! Nope, that to-remain-unnamed face cream definitely isn't working as well as I thought it was.

Reason No. 8: Seeing the time on my iPhone when driving.

Reason No. 7: Seeing who I'm trying to call — or who is calling me — when I'm driving. (Forget texting when driving... and not just because it's illegal.)

Reason No. 6: Reading the packages and price tags — or even my list — when shopping.

Reason No. 5: Choosing music on my iPod.

Reason No. 4: Choosing camera settings on my camera.

Reason No. 3: Picking and choosing what morsel to savor next from my salad. Or from any meal at any time.

Reason No. 2: Reading recipes — even those I've been making for years. (My memory has gotten nearly as bad as my vision.)

And the NUMBER ONE reason why this grandma needs new glasses: So I can see my grandsons when visiting through Facetime on the iPhone!

At this point, when connecting via Facetime without glasses — or even with my reading glasses, since it's all blurred when I have to hold the phone far enough away so they can see me — it's nearly impossible to tell if Bubby and Mac are as happy to see me as I am them. Well, as happy as I am to sort of see them.

I suppose that final reason could have been the first... and the last... and the only one mentioned. For that surely would have been enough.

Whether one reason or ten, though, there's no longer any reasonable doubt: This grandma needs new glasses.

Case closed.

photo: stock.xchng

Today's question:

What activities have recently frustrated you because of less-than-stellar vision?

10 signs of aging gracefully

When it comes to aging gracefully, forget the face creams, hair colors and exercises — the physical manifestations others see as we rack up the years. Instead, I prefer to focus on a different kind of trait that others see, one I think trumps the physical when considering how gracefully others are aging and how gracefully I'm aging myself.

That trait? It's attitude. For, as age is just a number, aging gracefully is just an attitude.

So when it comes to having the right attitude as I age, I look to the signs. Signs such as the following ten, which remind me of what’s important, what I need to remember as I attempt to age gracefully... as well as graciously, intentionally, hopefully.

Sign No. 10:

Sign No. 9:

Sign No. 8:

Sign No. 7:

Sign No. 6:

Sign No. 5:

Sign No. 4:

Sign No. 3:

Sign No. 2:

And the No. 1 sign of aging gracefully, the one I do my best to live by, day in and day out:

Today's question:

What does aging gracefully mean to you?

Gizmos and gadgets: Impress grandkids with how things used to work

Take a look around the library or a bookstore and you'll see there's no shortage of books based on the theme of “How Things Work.” Such books, most often written for elementary age kids, explain — and sometimes show with brilliant illustrations — how science, the body, our government, and everyday gizmos and gadgets of a dazzling array work.

Those types of books are always fun to peruse with grandchildren. While they learn how things work, we grandparents get to see how our grandchildren's minds and imaginations work.

Even more fun, though, is showing grandkids how things really work. More accurately, showing them how things really used to work, things that you — and possibly your children, parents of the grandchildren — once upon a time used on a regular basis.

In fact, grandparents may have what may seem to some an outdated home, yet to a grandchild, Grandma and Grandpa's house could serve as the ultimate museum on just how things used to work.

Take telephones. Some of us still have rotary phones. I do. I don’t use it, as I’ve gone high-tech with an iPhone and no longer even have land-line service. I do, though, still have that old rotary phone around, a style of phone my oldest grandson has likely never seen and surely has never used.

Next time my grandsons visit my house, I'm going to pull out that old rotary phone and show them both how telephoning friends and loved ones used to work.

Consider music, too. My oldest grandson is used to accessing Mom's and Dad’s smartphones, iPads, iPods, computers and even the television music channels for listening to music. Some days my daughter does go old school with my grandsons and plays — gasp! — CDs. But records? I'm pretty sure my grandsons have never seen a record, never heard a record.

Well, I have records. Albums and 45s. And I have a record player. I even have records that I used to play on that very same record player for my daughters to dance to, sing to at the top of their lungs. Next time my grandsons visit my house, I plan to play a few records for us all to sing and dance around to together, the way enjoying music used to work.

Maybe we'll even bust out the cassette player and cassettes for a real party atmosphere! Yes, we still have them.

Cameras are another biggie, another gadget most of us have on hand — and not just on our smartphones. One of my hobbies is taking photos, and I’ve taken literally thousands of photos of my grandsons in the four-plus years I’ve been a grandma. All have been taken with a digital camera. I do, though, still have a camera that requires film, results in photos and negatives.

I can just imagine how intrigued my grandsons will be when I buy a roll of film — they do still sell it, don’t they? — and load it into my old camera, then click-and-advance to show them how photos were taken in the old days. (Of course, the oohing and aahing will have to wait until I get those photos developed. They do still have one-hour photo centers, don't they?)

Now if only I still had that 110 Instamatic from my early years of photo taking, just after shelving the Polaroid camera. Even my daughters might be impressed with my old 110 camera and its film cartridges, my weapon of choice when my girls were wee babes.

The ideas for sharing with a grandchild how things used to work are endless once you consider the changes in just the past few decades to all things electronic.

Think televisions. Turning a dial to change channels? How bizarre that might seem to a child used to using a remote.

Or typewriters versus computer keyboards … and iPads.

What about transistor radios versus Pandora on iPhones or iPads?

And the one we all lovingly remember, possibly still have: crank-style ice-cream makers. The ones you (or your own mom or dad) had to pack with salt then all the kids took turns cranking and cranking until the creamy goodness was ready.

Pretty amazing gadgets we grandparents once used, if you think about it. More impressive are the Jetson-like advances in just our short — yes, short — lifetimes. Imagine the jaw-dropping advances our grandkids will see in their hopefully long lifetimes.

So take a look around your home. One need not be a hoarder to have all the equipment on hand for entertaining — and educating — a grandchild for hours.

And when you run out of ideas, simply consult your encyclopedia. Not the one you access online, but the one on your bookshelf. You do still have one, right? I thought so, for we grandparents know printed encyclopedias are the way accumulating knowledge used to work.

Every once in a while those old encyclopedia volumes still work, at least when it comes to entertaining a grandchild with our antique accumulations. Plus, they work in grand ways for pressing leaves and flowers inside the pages, too — something newfangled online reference sites will never be able to do.

photos: stock.xchng

Today's question:

What are some of the outdated gizmos and gadgets you still own? (And, no, your spouse doesn't count!)

Photo replay: Another year older

Jim's birthday — March 2, 2013

Today's question:

What has been your favorite age so far?

Friday fun: Keep Your Heart Young

I heard this song—this artist, actually—for the very first time yesterday. Where have I been?

I really enjoy this song and thought you might, too. Just a little something sweet and simple for Friday.

Keep Your Heart Young — Brandi Carlile

My grandpa gave me a wheat penny and I kept it in my pocket

Had big plans in my backyard to build me a space rocket

Talked to my brother on a fake CB that I made from a tic-tac box

Packed my snowballs nice and tight and in the middle I put rocks

Don't trade in your tic-tac box for a ball on the end of the chain

And don't go spending grandpa's pennies buying into the game

You gotta keep your heart young

Don't go growin' old before your time has come

You can't take back what you have done

You gotta keep your heart young

Dad took the wheels off of my bike and he pushed me down a hill

But speed got the best of me and I took my first spill

That was back when alcohol was only used on cuts

Stung like hell so I shook my leg and mama said it would give me guts

Don't trade in your tic-tac box for a ball on the end of the chain

And don't go spending grandpa's pennies buying into the game

You gotta keep your heart young

Don't go growing old before your time has come

You can't take back what you have done

You gotta keep your heart young

So take a picture of the one you love and put it in a locket

Go dig up your time capsule and the blueprints for your rocket

Keep in touch on a fake CB and that same old tic-tac box

Pack your snowballs a little less tight but in the middle still put rocks

And keep your heart young

Don't go growing old before your time has come

You can't take back what you have done

You gotta keep your heart young


You gotta keep your heart young

Sometimes you don't die quick

Just like you wished you'd done

The love is a loaded gun

You've gotta keep your heart young

You can't take back what you have done

You gotta keep your heart young

# # #

Today's question:

What's one of your treasured memories of your grandfather?

Ornaments of Christmases past

At tree-trimming time every Christmas, I gave each of my three daughters a new ornament, beginning when they were all still quite small. Some years the ornaments given reflected a passion or hobby of each individual girl; other years, all three received similar ornaments with only a slight variation on a common theme. Every year, all were dated and hung upon the family tree.

With three new ornaments added for the girls each year plus a new one for Jim and myself annually, too, our Christmas tree became jam-packed with ornaments by the time the girls were ready to leave the nest. The paring down of the baubles was far more abrupt than the collecting. First it was Megan's collection that we wrapped up and sent with her once she became a newlywed. Next, Andrea moved up and out and on, taking her ornaments with her. Then, just a few years ago, Brianna and her seasonal stash found a new home, as well.

Now that Jim and I decorate our tree with many old ornaments of our own, plus nearly just as many new ornaments to take the place of those relocated to our daughters' Christmas trees, it's been especially heartwarming this past week while visiting my grandsons to see many of the familiar ornaments of Christmases past hanging on Megan's tree. Not only those I had given her through the years, but ones she had made herself or received from others, too.

 

Equally heartwarming to see hung in a place of prominence at Megan's house was an advent calendar I had made for my daughters many years ago, now providing a chocolate-y countdown to Christmas for my grandsons.

It's bittersweet to see old, familiar seasonal decor adorning a home so far removed from mine, in years and in geography. Every once in a while during this visit, I've been hit with the overwhelming realization that things will never go back to what they were, that time has indeed ticked along, those days are gone, and this is where we as a family are, what we will be from now on. Not that I didn't realize that—or be okay with that—already, but the confirmation of such sometimes comes in unexpected and occasionally uncomfortable waves. No more kids' ornaments hanging on the tree was and is just the beginning...and the end.

That serves as the bitter. The sweet? Seeing the enjoyment my grandsons now get pulling foiled Santas and chocolate balls from the very same crudely numbered pockets their mom and aunts once did, counting the days until Santa's arrival. Days that to a child move far too slowly. Days that to a mom—and now a grandma— moved far too fast and somehow, without proper notice, became years.

Today's question:

What holiday ornaments have you passed down to your children?