Time to change, plus time for the GRAND Social

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Ah, Daylight Savings Time. It's not much fun the first couple days as we struggle to wake up get used to the change.

Perhaps the following will make it a little easier:

♪ Sha na na na na na na na. Sha na na na na. ♫

Okay, maybe not easier, but definitely cheesier. And cheese is good, right?

The GRAND Social is good, too. Thank you for joining me!

link party

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.
  • To link up, copy the direct URL to the specific post — new or old — that 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 and graphic 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, please.
  • 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

<a href="/" target="_blank"><img src="http://grandmasbriefs.squarespace.com/storage/GRANDsocialbutton.jpg " alt="Grandma’sBriefs.com" width="125" height="125" /></a>

 

  • The GRAND Social linky is open for new posts through Wednesday evening, so please come back to see those added after your first visit.
  • 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 all — bloggers and readers — visit, read and comment, even if it's just "Hey, stopping by from the GRAND Social."

Thank you for participating in the GRAND Social!


Photo replay: Desert sunset

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It's been bone-chillingly cold at my place all weekend. The low temps and high winds have made me long to visit my grandsons in the desert. Not just because Bubby and Mac warm my heart, though, but also because chilly evenings there look like the photo below, which I took from their back yard in January.

It was colder during my January visit than any other time I've been to the desert, yet it was still far more colorful and warm than the whistling, windy, white weather here at home the last couple days.

Best wishes to you for a warm, cozy, and colorful Sunday!

What I learned this week: Apple slicers cut perfect home fries

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We're never too old to learn something new, be it tangible or intangible. This week I learned something super handy of a super tangible sort.

My lesson? I learned that apple slicers are great for cutting home fries! Especially if you don't have one of those nifty kitchen gadgets made specifically for slicing up fries.

how to cut fries

French fries, according to myriad medical and nutritional experts, are oh-so bad for you. But they're oh-so good to the taste buds. Making (and baking) fries at home cuts down a smidgen on the awfulness of the tater treats, but cutting the potatoes for home fries is a pain in the patootie, whether using regular potatoes or the healthier sweet ones.

That is, until I realized this past week that an apple slicer creates perfect home fries. Here's how:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Figuring one potato per person plus an extra, scrub them clean or peel them — though it's the peels that make them "home" fries, if you ask me.

Next, pull out your handy dandy apple slicer, then carefully cut through the potato just as you might an apple.

Viola! French fries!

making french fries

Slice the center piece, the one where an apple core would be, in half length-wise to make all your home fries about the same size.

sliced potato

To complete the home fries process, sparingly slather (oxymoron?) the potato slices with light mayo, sprinkle with pepper and seasoned salt, then place on a baking sheet coated with non-stick spray.

Bake for 30 minutes or until tender, flipping the potatoes halfway through.

Pull them out of the oven, and there you have it — home fries. Perfectly cut. With an apple corer.

home fries

See? You're never too old to learn something new.

This post linked to Grandparents Say It Saturday.

Today's question:

What did you learn this past week?

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

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old gadgets

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!)

10 reasons to hug your grandchild

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reasons to hug

Have you hugged a grandchild today?

Renowned family therapist Virginia Satir once said, “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need twelve hugs a day for growth.”

Here are 10 reasons why hugs are so important — and why you should share a few with your grandchild today.

TEN:

Hugging makes a child giggle.

NINE:

Hugs make you giggle, too.

EIGHT:

Hugs alleviate tension, show compassion.

SEVEN:

Hugs are an easy way to say “I love you!” without saying a thing.

SIX:

Hugs strengthen social and familial bonds.

FIVE:

Hugs lower the stress hormone cortisol while increasing the "feel good" chemicals serotonin and dopamine.

FOUR :

Hugs are free and require no special equipment.

THREE:

Hugs increase self-esteem and feelings of acceptance.

TWO:

Hugs are linked to lowering heart disease, according to studies, and it’s never too early to start heart-healthy, preventive measures.

And the NUMBER ONE reason to hug your grandchild:

Because it feels so darn good — to you and your grandchild!

Ultimately, though, do we really need a reason to hug our grandchildren?

I don't think so.

Today's question:

When did you last hug a child?

Butter candles plus the GRAND Social

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We grandmas are a crafty lot, and many of us are dedicated fans of Pinterest. This weekend, though, I stumbled upon a craft far more clever than most I've seen on Pinterest of late, one from a very non-grandma-like fellow who likely doesn't even possess a Pinterest profile.

Take a look:

Come on, now, you know you want to try it. I admit that I do ... and will ... eventually.

Now, though, it's time for this week's GRAND Social! Thank you for once again joining me. Dive in and enjoy! And please do remember that if you link up and receive visits and comments to your post, linky protocol is to return the same in kind to others. Cheers!

link party

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.
  • To link up, copy the direct URL to the specific post — new or old — that 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 and graphic 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, please.
  • 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

<a href="/" target="_blank"><img src="http://grandmasbriefs.squarespace.com/storage/GRANDsocialbutton.jpg " alt="Grandma’sBriefs.com" width="125" height="125" /></a>

 

  • The GRAND Social linky is open for new posts through Wednesday evening, so please come back to see those added after your first visit.
  • 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 all — bloggers and readers — visit, read and comment, even if it's just "Hey, stopping by from the GRAND Social."

Thank you for participating in the GRAND Social!