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August 27, 2012

GRAND Social — Grandparent linky — August 27

August 27, 2012/ Lisa Carpenter

I've been rather unavailable and unresponsive online the last few days—here, on Facebook, on Twitter, and through email. You're welcome to blame it on these guys, my hosts and activity directors for the weekend:

That was taken yesterday. Today I bid them farewell and return to the stripe-free zone reality. Part of that reality is the weekly GRAND Social. I hope you'll join me.

How it works:

All grandparent bloggers are invited to add a link. You don't have to blog specifically about grandparenting, but you must be a grandparent who blogs.

Posts shared can be an old one or a recent one, your choice. I like to link up to older posts that current readers likely haven't seen.

To link up, copy the direct link to the specific post you want to share, not the link to your blog's home page. Then click the blue "Click here to enter" text below and follow the directions to add your post to the list.

You can add up to three posts, but no duplicates, please, and none you have promoted on a previous GRAND Social linky.

No contests, giveaways, or Etsy sites.

Adding a mention at the bottom of your linked posts, such as This post has been linked to the GRAND Social linky, is appreciated. Or, you can post the GRAND Social button using the following code:

Grandma’sBriefs.com

The GRAND Social linky is open for new posts through Wednesday evening, so please come back to see those added after your first visit.

Looking for another grandparent linky? Be sure to visit Connie's Grandparent's Say It Saturday Link Party each Saturday (open to links through Monday nights).

If you're not a blogger, you have the pleasure of being a reader. All bloggers who link up would be honored to have you click, visit, read and comment.

READERS and PARTICIPATING BLOGGERS: Please visit the posts others have linked to by clicking on the thumbnail photos. Comments are always appreciated by the bloggers whose links you visit, even if it's simply "Hey, stopping by from GRAND Social."

Thank you for participating in the GRAND Social grandparent linky!

August 20, 2012

GRAND Social — Grandparent linky — August 20

August 20, 2012/ Lisa Carpenter

My, oh, my, it's Monday. I hope you're not feeling the way I am already about this week, for this is how I feel...already:

I suppose "I'm late, I'm late" isn't quite accurate. It's more like "I'm behind, I'm behind," but I couldn't find any video matching such a sentiment.

Yes, I'm behind on oh so much. I have my fingers crossed, though, that this will be the week I catch up. Come Friday, I'll let you know how the crossed fingers worked out.

For now, though, I'm late, er, behind, so I will straightaway get on with things. Things being—drumroll—it's time again for the GRAND Social. Welcome, one and all!

How it works:

All grandparent bloggers are invited to add a link. You don't have to blog specifically about grandparenting, but you must be a grandparent who blogs.

Posts shared can be an old one or a recent one, your choice. I like to link up to older posts that current readers likely haven't seen.

To link up, copy the direct link to the specific post you want to share, not the link to your blog's home page. Then click the blue "Click here to enter" text below and follow the directions to add your post to the list.

You can add up to three posts, but no duplicates, please, and none you have promoted on a previous GRAND Social linky.

No contests, giveaways, or Etsy sites.

Adding a mention at the bottom of your linked posts, such as This post has been linked to the GRAND Social linky, is appreciated. Or, you can post the GRAND Social button using the following code:

Grandma’sBriefs.com

The GRAND Social linky is open for new posts through Wednesday evening, so please come back to see those added after your first visit.

Looking for another grandparent linky? Be sure to visit Connie's Grandparent's Say It Saturday Link Party each Saturday (open to links through Monday nights).

If you're not a blogger, you have the pleasure of being a reader. All bloggers who link up would be honored to have you click, visit, read and comment.

Thank you for participating in the GRAND Social grandparent linky!

August 14, 2012

The grandma in a box

August 14, 2012/ Lisa Carpenter

This post was named People's Choice in the humor category in the 2013 BlogHer Voices of the Year.

A STORY:

Once upon a time there was a woman.

Who had a husband.

And three daughters.

Plus one house, two cats, two dogs, and an addiction to collecting books and pictures of people she loved.

And she had a writing job that had nothing—yet everything—to do with all of the above that she loved.

She liked rock music, independent films, and playing games with her friends—which was usually paired with a wee bit of drinking, too, whiskey or beer but never, ever umbrella drinks of any sort.

The woman also liked learning new things, especially when it came to computers, cameras, cooking and cantatas.

(She also really liked alliteration, so cantatas worked far better in that sentence than piano.)

The woman loved her mom, her dad, her brothers and sisters. She loved Jesus and America, too—as well as stories and songs that turned her heart inside out.

The woman liked the things most women do. No matter what their age.

Eventually the woman’s daughters grew up and flew away. One got married and had two sons.

Which made the woman a grandma. Yet another thing she loved.

So the woman added to her writing job, writing about those grandsons. Writing about them online—along with lots of other things she'd write about—on a blog.

Which was confusing to some.

It wasn't the writing on the blog that confused some, it was the being a grandma. Grandmas are old and know nothing about being online. Or anything interesting at all, for that matter. Grandmas rock in rocking chairs, they hug and kiss their grandkids, they pull up their gray hair into buns. Maybe they crochet. But that's pretty much it.

At least that's what it seemed some non-grandma bloggers thought of grandma bloggers. They’re only grandmas. They’re old. They’re boring. And they’re invisible if there's the G-word in their name, the G-word in their game.

Once a grandma,only a grandma, they thought.

Some unenlightened brands, bloggy networks, and PR folks seemed to think the same thing, too.

If they even thought of grandmas at all.

Other grandmas understood. Other grandma bloggers really understood—even those who didn’t write specifically about their grandchildren, about being a grandma.

The other grandmas understood because all of the grandmas, online and off, were put in the very same box. Were trying to get out of the same box. Together were saying, HEY, you meanies who squished us up into this uncomfortable GRANDMA box: We want out! We love our grandkids way beyond words, but they’re not all we love. Can’t you see we are so much more than grandmas? Can’t you see we are all that we were before? Can't you see that we are now all that AND a bag of potato chips, er, grandmas!

But the non-grandmas didn’t see any of that. They didn't see the woman and her fellow grandmas pounding on the box. All they saw was the word GRANDMA. And the box.

If they saw anything at all.

Every once in a while, someone did see something at all. Mostly it was just the word GRANDMA, though, and they thought the boxed-up grandmas would be happy as clams to talk about canes and assisted living centers and denture cream and gadgets that help them when they’ve fallen and can’t get up.

Those non-grandmas didn’t realize grandmas can and do get up. On their own. And they get down, too. That they're still vibrant and relevant. That they still love music. Still have jobs that have nothing to do with being a grandma, yet love the job of being a grandma, too. They still have spouses and daughters and sons and parents and brothers and sisters and animals and friends and interests.

And that they do all the very same things they did before they became grandmas.

They even—gasp!—still have S-E-X.

And they still talk about and write about things that matter, with people and for people who matter.

So that woman who was now a grandma but still had a husband and three daughters and still really loved all sorts of things non-grandmas think grandmas shouldn't or couldn't like decided to write about being stuck in the GRANDMA box.

In hopes others might see her and her grandma friends in there and let them out.

Or…perhaps they might do nothing at all.

But at least that grandma who loves, loves, loves being a grandma yet is so much more than a grandma would have her say.

Then she ended her plea for release from the GRANDMA box with an oh-so cute photo of her grandsons. Simply because she could.

And to further confuse those non-grandmas who Just. Don't. Get. It.

THE END

Today's question:

Anyone second that emotion?

August 13, 2012

GRAND Social — Grandparent linky — August 13

August 13, 2012/ Lisa Carpenter

Writer Rebecca West once said, "There was a definite process by which one made people into friends, and it involved talking to them and listening to them for hours at a time." She shared that wisdom a long time ago—she was born in 1892 and died 90 years later—but it still applies. We become friends by talking to others and by listening to others.

Nowadays, though, we often become friends with folks we'll likely never meet in person, folks whose voice we'll likely never hear. Thanks to the Internet. It's where we write our stories instead of talking about them, read those stories instead of listening to them.

The GRAND Social is a great opportunity to do just that: to share our stories, read each other's stories, become friends. I hope you'll join me!

How it works:

All grandparent bloggers are invited to add a link. You don't have to blog specifically about grandparenting, but you must be a grandparent who blogs.

Posts shared can be an old one or a recent one, your choice. I like to link up to older posts that current readers likely haven't seen.

To link up, copy the direct link to the specific post you want to share, not the link to your blog's home page. Then click the blue "Click here to enter" text below and follow the directions to add your post to the list.

You can add up to three posts, but no duplicates, please, and none you have promoted on a previous GRAND Social linky.

No contests, giveaways, or Etsy sites.

Adding a mention at the bottom of your linked posts, such as This post has been linked to the GRAND Social linky, is appreciated. Or, you can post the GRAND Social button using the following code:

Grandma’sBriefs.com

The GRAND Social linky is open for new posts through Wednesday evening, so please come back to see those added after your first visit.

Looking for another grandparent linky? Be sure to visit Connie's Grandparent's Say It Saturday Link Party each Saturday (open to links through Monday nights).

If you're not a blogger, you have the pleasure of being a reader. All bloggers who link up would be honored to have you click, visit, read and comment.

Thank you for participating in the GRAND Social grandparent linky!

August 06, 2012

GRAND Social — Grandparent linky — August 6

August 06, 2012/ Lisa Carpenter

It's Monday, which means time for another always awesome GRAND Social linky party for grandparent bloggers as well as grandparent—and non-grandparent—readers.

First, though, a song that gets stuck in my head nearly every single Monday of late, despite my being just a tot when the song was released.

Yes, there it is—your earworm for the day. You're welcome!

Now, please join me in linking and reading in today's GRAND Social!

Happy Monday Monday!

How it works:

All grandparent bloggers are invited to add a link. You don't have to blog specifically about grandparenting, but you must be a grandparent who blogs.

Posts shared can be an old one or a recent one, your choice. I like to link up to older posts that current readers likely haven't seen.

To link up, copy the direct link to the specific post you want to share, not the link to your blog's home page. Then click the blue "Click here to enter" text below and follow the directions to add your post to the list.

You can add up to three posts, but no duplicates, please, and none you have promoted on a previous GRAND Social linky.

No contests, giveaways, or Etsy sites.

Adding a mention at the bottom of your linked posts, such as This post has been linked to the GRAND Social linky, is appreciated. Or, you can post the GRAND Social button using the following code:

Grandma’sBriefs.com

The GRAND Social linky is open for new posts through Wednesday evening, so please come back to see those added after your first visit.

Looking for another grandparent linky? Be sure to visit Connie's Grandparent's Say It Saturday Link Party each Saturday (open to links through Monday nights).

If you're not a blogger, you have the pleasure of being a reader. All bloggers who link up would be honored to have you click, visit, read and comment.

Thank you for participating in the GRAND Social grandparent linky!

July 30, 2012

GRAND Social — Grandparent linky — July 30

July 30, 2012/ Lisa Carpenter

Really? Is it really already the end of July? As I filled in all the blanks of the form to create this week's GRAND Social linky, I couldn't believe the end date I input for this week's three-day link party is August 1. August first!

Truly, I have no idea where July went, no idea how it flew by so quickly. It's gone, gone, gone.

As time is clearly whizzing on by, I'll waste no more of it marveling at its speed. Here, my friends, is this week's GRAND Social! Happy linking! Happy reading! Happy Monday!

Oh, and happy end of July—whether we were ready for it or not!

How it works:

All grandparent bloggers are invited to add a link. You don't have to blog specifically about grandparenting, but you must be a grandparent who blogs.

Posts shared can be an old one or a recent one, your choice. I like to link up to older posts that current readers likely haven't seen.

To link up, copy the direct link to the specific post you want to share, not the link to your blog's home page. Then click the blue "Click here to enter" text below and follow the directions to add your post to the list.

You can add up to three posts, but no duplicates, please, and none you have promoted on a previous GRAND Social linky.

No contests, giveaways, or Etsy sites.

Adding a mention at the bottom of your linked posts, such as This post has been linked to the GRAND Social linky, is appreciated. Or, you can post the GRAND Social button using the following code:

Grandma’sBriefs.com

The GRAND Social linky is open for new posts through Wednesday evening, so please come back to see those added after your first visit.

Looking for another grandparent linky? Be sure to visit Connie's Grandparent's Say It Saturday Link Party each Saturday (open to links through Monday nights).

If you're not a blogger, you have the pleasure of being a reader. All bloggers who link up would be honored to have you click, visit, read and comment.

Thank you for participating in the GRAND Social grandparent linky!

July 16, 2012

GRAND Social — Grandparent linky — July 16

July 16, 2012/ Lisa Carpenter

Summer is my least favorite season, and this year it's proving to be my least favorite summer of all. My No. 1 reason? It's just too darn hot and dry. Even the deer are running through the sprinklers across the street any chance they get.

It's definitely too hot to go outside, and it's too hot to do much of anything productive inside. At least in my part of the world, at least today. Maybe it is in your part of the world, too. If so, I invite you to join me in grabbing an icy cold drink, settling into a comfy chair, and joining this week's GRAND Social.

How it works:

All grandparent bloggers are invited to add a link. You don't have to blog specifically about grandparenting, but you must be a grandparent who blogs.

Posts shared can be an old one or a recent one, your choice. I like to link up to older posts that current readers likely haven't seen.

To link up, copy the direct link to the specific post you want to share, not the link to your blog's home page. Then click the blue "Click here to enter" text below and follow the directions to add your post to the list.

You can add up to three posts, but no duplicates, please, and none you have promoted on a previous GRAND Social linky.

No contests, giveaways, or Etsy sites.

Adding a mention at the bottom of your linked posts, such as This post has been linked to the GRAND Social blogging event, is appreciated. Or, you can post the GRAND Social button using the following code:

Grandma’sBriefs.com

The GRAND Social linky is open for new posts through Wednesday evening, so please come back to see those added after your first visit.

Looking for another grandparent linky? Be sure to visit Connie's Grandparent's Say It Saturday Link Party each Saturday (open to links through Monday nights).

If you're not a blogger, you have the pleasure of being a reader. All bloggers who link up would be honored to have you click, visit, read and comment.

Thank you for participating in the GRAND Social grandparent linky!