What I learned this week: I'm bad and Toyota is awesome

I've been bad. Very, very bad. And I'm feeling pretty guilty about it.

What I'm feeling guilty about is the thing that I learned this week. And that thing is this: I can eat a batch of lemon bars. All by myself.

Okay, it wasn't an entire batch, but close enough to be an utterly disgusting deed for me to complete on my own.

But I did. And that's something I have never, ever done before.

See, I made lemon bars for eating after Easter dinner. Just something small, considering that I, er, the Easter Bunny had given loads of chocolate, jelly beans and other sweets to Jim, my daughters and their boyfriends.

A few of the bars were eaten on Easter. Then I forgot to give each of the girls some to take home.

Jim doesn't care too much for lemon bars. I, on the other hand, care far too much for them. Which meant that I simply could not just let them go to waste.

So nearly every day since Easter, I've nibbled on a lemon bar or two, pulled from the dish in the fridge. In all justification fairness, I usually chose to eat them for breakfast — as my breakfast, not in addition to it, in order to swap out at least some of the extra calories.

I couldn't waste them. I couldn't resist them. And as of yesterday, this is what was left:

 

Which I promptly ate. For breakfast... instead of breakfast.

So very, very bad. And so not what I wish I had learned this week.

(But they were pretty darn good. If you'd like the recipe, you can find it here. Just learn from my mistake — share them!)

So what do lemon bar sins have to do with Toyota? Well, absolutely nothing.

Toyota is part of this post because I wanted to tell you today where I'll be going and what I'll be doing for the next few days, starting tomorrow and courtesy of Toyota. (Though you will find new daily posts here; can't ruin my record.)

Toyota contacted me not long ago to be one of their guests at the annual Lifesavers National Conference on Highway Safety Priorities. With all expenses to be paid by Toyota for me to attend the Saturday through Tuesday event. Transportation, hotel, meals. Yes, I feel so very privileged.

Lifesavers, according to the conference website, "is the premier national highway safety meeting in the United States dedicated to reducing the tragic toll of deaths and injuries on our nation’s roadways." Which means I should have some pretty great info to share with you all afterward on keeping those we love — little ones, big ones, and older ones (including ourselves) — safe on the roads.

One of the highlights for me will be the stay at the fabulous Brown Palace Hotel in Denver. It's the spot where Jim and I celebrated our 20th anniversary more than 10 years ago, and this return trip will surely be quite a treat... even though Jim won't be along.

One particularly amusing note about my trip: The conference is in Denver. I live in Colorado Springs. Toyota is flying me there instead of providing a rental car, as I suggested. Flight duration? Forty-two minutes.

It's not often — at least not yet — that baby boomer bloggers are honored with such invitations. The fact Toyota has put their money on baby boomer bloggers in general and this baby boomer blogger in particular makes them, in my opinion, totally and completely awesome.

Now if only a brand would invest in this baby boomer blogger and foot the bill for me to attend BlogHer13 coming up in July. That, I must say, would be equally totally and completely awesome.

Perhaps offering lemon bars to brand representatives might do the trick. Ya never know — those lemon bars make folks do things they have never, ever done before.

Or so I unfortunately learned this past week.

Today's question:

What did you learn this week?

Seven days... and the language of love

Every family has a language all its own. Sure, the words may be common knowledge to those outside the family, but the manner in which some words are strung together — and, often, the tone in which they're said — have significance far beyond the basic for those privy to a special, familial meaning.

For example, how would you feel if I were to say to you any sentence containing the phrase "love pop-can chain?" Confused, I'd venture to say.

For my funky family of five, though, any mentions of "love pop-can chain" cause hearts to warm and smiles to form as we remember one long-ago camping trip.

None of us recall exactly how it started, but at some point in the weekend, we came across a small chain of pop-can tops, you know, the kind in which you pull back the ring to open your can of sugary carbonated goodness, and are left with a dangerous metal shard in your hand (yet another thing kids nowadays know nothing about).

One by one we added our pop-can tops to the chain and eventually, for reasons I can't recall and in fits of laughter that still define many of our family gatherings, we dubbed the chain our love pop-can chain. We brought home our love pop-can chain, displayed it proudly. I have it somewhere — and am now quite unsettled because I just this moment realized I can't remember where I hung the love pop-can chain when we moved to this house more than four years ago. Because I can't recall its location, I can't share a photo. But just know that it's a chain of connected pop-can tops, linked together with love and lots and lots of laughter. For reasons understood only by my family.

Another example is the phrase "in net, under monkey." That means nothing to anyone other than the five members of my family, all of us privy to the anal tendencies of Andrea. Those tendencies once proved Andie's downfall, as she chose to keep a written reminder to herself where she hid contraband from Mom and Dad — yet kept the note neatly on her bedroom desk in plain sight. Let's just say it was hard to mete out any meaningful disciplinary action when Jim and I were laughing so hard at how we discovered her hidden stash.

Those are phrases exclusive to our Carpenter clan. Others our family utters with grins and giggles are phrases millions of others have heard, possibly repeated themselves, because they're lines from movies. But they make us smile when stated with a certain tone, at appropriately perfect times.

A few family favorites:

"I'll be right back" from Scream (not "I'll be back" from Terminator!).

"What time I s'posed to be there?" from Bill Cosby: Himself. Jim says this. Often. Making the rest of us chuckle. Often.

"Time, Mr. Carter?" from Point Break.

Another related to time — funny how so many are — is "Seven days...". It's best said in a creepy whisper, and even more effective when said over the phone. Proof that such things are understood only by my immediate family came by way of a recent interaction with one of my sisters, when we were testing out a new phone system I had hooked up for our mom.

After getting all the handsets correctly set up, I called my sister from it to ensure all systems were go. "Seven days..." I whispered to her, in a creepy manner my daughters and husband would be proud of. Her response: "WHAAAT?" So I whispered it again... and got the same response again. It had nothing to do with the phone connection and everything to do with her not getting the reference.

So I groaned, then spent far longer than necessary explaining the creepy phone call from The Ring. You know, the one characters receive after watching a video (back in the days of VHS) that they so should not have watched and now had only seven days left to live, as the creepy caller so creepily informed them. She shrugged, didn't get it. (Maybe I should have just said to my sister, "Do you like scary movies?"... which is, um, from Scream.)

Yes, we find such things funny in our family. And it's the "Seven days..." phrase that ran through my head again and again yesterday as I kept telling myself "Seven days...". But yesterday's seven days carried a far less creepy connotation, because it's, yes, a mere seven days, until I finally get to see Bubby and Mac again.

Seven days... until I get to see in person my grandsons doing Harlem Shake moves that were featured in a gut-busting video Megan recently texted to me, prefaced with a strong warning that, "This is not appropriate for sharing anwhere online."

Seven days... until I get to see in person the equally inappropriate-for-posting-online Mac as he models big-boy briefs instead of diapers. Megan shared with me the other day a sweet picture of Mac posing in his new undies, accompanied by his giggle-infused comments of "I nakey!"

Seven days... until I get to spend ten days with the lights of my life, my favorite boys ever.

Thing is, because I wrote this post yesterday, the key phrase is now "Six days...".

Only six days until I get to hug my adorable and goofy grandsons.

And that is a phrase everyone reading this likely understands and appreciates — family members or not.

Today's question:

What phrases make your family giggle though others may not know why?

Picture this: If you give a squirrel a grape

Today's question:

What do you feed wild critters at your place?

Gardening with grandkids

Over the weekend, I finally got around to starting some seeds for later filling a few patio containers. In Colorado, nothing should go in the ground before Mother's Day, so I'm hoping the timing will be just right. It's the first time I've tried starting seeds, and I'm crossing my fingers my zinnia, snapdragon and marigold seeds will have grown to a decent size by the time there's no longer a chance of snow, ice or frost.

As I poked the seeds down into the egg cartons filled with soil, I wished I had a local grandchild or two to help out. When my daughters were little, they helped me plant things now and then. Nothing major — meaning, no bountiful harvest — ever came of it, just a sunflower or marigolds here and there, as Colorado's not the greatest climate for growing things. Still, there’s something about getting one’s hands dirty and appreciating what comes (or might come) from the earth to counteract all the electronic and artificial stimulation kids get on a daily basis.

For grandmas who are more fortunate than I — those who can enjoy a little digging and growing with the grands — below are some tips to ensure your grandchild’s curiosity with the natural world grows right along with the goodies you plant together.

• Designate one part of your yard or garden — or even one special container garden, if you’re short on space — then together peruse gardening catalogs and websites for ideas of what they could include in the space.

• Keep in mind this one particular space is primarily for the grandchild, so guide the process but allow him or her to make plenty of the selections and decisions.

• Plant using a variety of methods. Seeds are always fun to plant and see sprout, while plantings already started provide some instant gratification while they wait.

• Include plenty of goodies to eat along with the pretty and colorful marigolds, sunflowers and such. Beans are one of the easier edibles to grow. Consider cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins, too. And don’t forget herbs such as basil and oregano, which can be sprinkled on homemade (or frozen) pizza.

• Forego chemicals on a garden children will be digging into. Either on your own or together with older grandkids, research organic ways to ward off bugs and disease. Consider options for repelling wildlife, too, including squirrels, deer, even cats and dogs.

• Include your grandchild in the work (weeding, watering) involved in gardening as well as the reaping of the bounty. They’ll naturally tire of the toiling far sooner than you, far sooner than will be effective, but take that with a grain of salt and finish up the job yourself later, especially with the younger kiddos.

• Plan some fun things to do with what’s grown. Include edibles grown in the garden in snacks or meals. Allow flowers to be cut and shared with friends and family. Etch a child’s initials (or name, if short) into a small pumpkin to watch the scarred name stretch and grow right along with the gourd.

For additional ideas on gardening with grandchildren (or any children), read Susan's About.com—Grandparents article on Helping Kids Garden and Teaching Them to Love It.

Photo of child courtesy Pixabay.com

Today's question:

What are you planning to grow this year — with or without children?

One Baby Band kicks off the GRAND Social

Hello to a new week! Thank you for visiting once again for the GRAND Social link party.

Today I'd like to open the show in GRAND fashion, with this from the One Baby Band:

A star in the making, no doubt.

And now, the headliner: the GRAND Social link party. Enjoy!

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. And 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 anywhere on your page using the following code:

<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. Bloggers who link up would be honored to have one and all — bloggers and readers — visit, read and, if so moved, comment, even if just a "Hey, stopping by from the GRAND Social."

• Looking for another grandparent linky? Be sure to visit Connie's Grandparent's Say It Saturday Link Party each Saturday.

Thank you for participating in the GRAND Social!

Photo replay: Run, Bubby, run

Bubby participated in his first organized run yesterday — the half-mile kids' dash during an annual community run that benefits local families in need.

Bubby ran with Mommy (who placed first in her division in the adult run), and when the going got rough after about a quarter of the way, they held hands and pumped their arms together.

Megan reported that they sprinted at the end, and Bubby was quite proud of himself once he'd crossed the finish line.

Soon after, I received this text from Megan: "I just asked him if he would ever do a race again and he said 'No way! But you know what I got from my race?' Then showed me his guns! Ha!"

Seems for a nearly 5-year-old, the arm pumping is far more enjoyable — with better payoff — than the leg pumping.

Today's question:

Which do you work harder to keep fit — your guns (arms) or your legs?

What I learned this week: Gooey photos and more

One of my goals is to learn how to do really awesome things with Photoshop. Well, this week I did not learn how to do that. Nope, I did not learn how to do awesome things with Photoshop. I didn't even learn how to do crappy things with Photoshop.

I did, though, learn something kind of close — to the awesome, not the crappy.

What I learned this week was how to make "gooey" photos, not using Photoshop, but using Creative Kit. And it's super easy. And super silly. And, to be honest, super time-sucking fun.

Creative Kit, a Google product, was added to Picasa, the Google photo manager I — and many others — use to store and sometimes tweak photos. I recently found that the tweaking is even better when using Creative Kit (which replaced the former editing software, Piknik). In particular, I now no longer have to store in Picasa but upload to PicMonkey when I want to do something extra special.

Something extra special I don't typically do, like going gooey. For example, this photo of Andrea and her boyfriend, looking just a wee bit happier than they do in real life, after I used the "gooify" function in Creative Kit on their smiles:

As those two are all gooey about one another in real life, maybe the following would be a better example of what can be done with Creative Kit.

The first photo below is one of Jim and me, just being normal (well, as normal as Jim gets). The second is us looking far more interesting than we typically do, thanks to getting gooey and bearded and more:

Get this: You, too, can make friends and family far more interesting in Picasa, thanks to the Creative Kit option. (And, no, this is not a sponsored post.) It's located in Picasa as shown in the first photo; the second photo shows some of the fun things you'll find:

      

Using the goodies in Creative Kit works on animals, too. Here's proof — my now-evil cat, Isabel:

Actually, Isabel always has been kind of evil... in a loveable sort of way. But the red eyes? Creative Kit all the way.

That is what I learned this week!

Today's question:

What did you learn this week?