Category Archives: Whimsies

Thursday Thoughts

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Pregnant
No, I don’t want to scare you. I’m not pregnant, nor are any of my grandkids. It’s my burrito that’s pregnant. Even before Bec arrived in Colorado, she warned me, “I’m in the mood for Mexican food. Be prepared.” I have mentioned before that the Mexican food in AZ is a lot different from the Mexican food in Colorado and New Mexico. The difference is most notable in the green chile. In AZ, burritos might be filled with a version of green chile whereas in Colorado, burritos will be smothered in green chile. Anyway, there is a Mexican restaurant to which I have taken Bec before called El Senor Sol. I can’t say that it’s significantly better or worse than other Mexican restaurants. What I can tell you, however, is that they have something on their menu called a Pregnant Burrito. That, my friends, is a bean burrito with either a chile relleno or a cheese enchilada stuffed inside. The first time that we ordered this particular item, Bec’s and my expectations were unclear. We each expected the relleno or the enchilada to be on the side. So when the server set down a plate containing a single burrito, we both looked confused. “Excuse me,” I said politely. “Where is my enchilada?” The server gave me one of those looks, and said, “It’s inside the burrito, you nimwit.” Well, she didn’t actually call me a nimwit, but I know she thought I was exactly that. “Oooooh,” I said. “That’s why it’s called a pregnant burrito. I’m certain she rolled her eyes. At any rate, they are delicious, and now we have the whole pregnant thing NAILED…..

Trash Barrel
Bec and I were in our family room the other day watching Gone With the Wind (Oh, Ashley, Ashley…) when I heard Bill holler at me. Kris, come here for a second. Putting the movie on hold (just as Scarlett was pulling down the front of her dress so as to show her decolletage, making Mammie’s head explode), I went to see what Bill wanted. He had pried the bottom two steps off in preparation to replace them with the red oak he is installing all over the house. It seems that way back when our house was built in 1972, the construction workers didn’t see the need to use a trash can to get rid of their lunch remains…..

Yes, my friends. For all of these years, this trash has lived inside our stairway, unbeknownst to us.

Construction Continues
Bill is making real progress in our home improvement project. I promise you, I can even barely keep a straight face when I call it our home improvement project. I vowed I wasn’t going to show any pictures until it’s done, but this contrast is amazing. From this…..

To this…..

Isn’t it so pretty? And that’s without the stain on the wood. He still has a bit of work yet to do on the spindles, but I love it so much.

Let’s All Go to the Movies
I managed to get Bill to take a day off of construction. He worked in his office for a bit, went out to lunch with a friend, and then we went out for dinner and a movie. A very good movie, as it turns out, called Logan Lucky. I would likely never even have heard of this movie if Court and Alyx hadn’t seen it on Monday and told me about it. Court said it was a hillbilly Oceans Eleven, and indeed it was. Very clever plot. Very Coen-Brothers-like, though it wasn’t the Coen Brothers. Lots of fun.

Ciao!

Jump Serve

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The other day, my phone rang, indicating a call from our eldest granddaughter, Addie. Addie frequently texts me, but rarely calls. I of course immediately went to my “who died now” place, and answered the phone.

Nana, I left my gym bag at school after volleyball practice, she told me. Can you give me a ride back to school to pick it up? Mom had to go somewhere and can’t take me.

Thankfully, her school is a mere 10 minute drive from our house, so I told her I would be happy to give her a ride. We arrived only to find the doors locked up tight and so she was unable to get her bag.

As we drove home, she was uncharacteristically quiet and distracted. I asked her if she had much homework. She sighed and told me she was going to go home and grab some dinner and then spend the rest of the night doing homework. I asked about her classes this year, and she gave me a rundown that sounded much like the way I imagine the president of the United States spends his day. Only without Secret Service and Air Force One.

Don’t get me wrong; she wasn’t complaining a bit. I think that it’s just taking her a bit of time to get used to the pace of high school. No surprise there. It seemed like every class she told me about had the word honors in it.

So it was fun yesterday afternoon to watch her play volleyball for the Thomas Jefferson High School Spartans freshman volleyball team. Why? Because it looked like she was just having herself some fun. She had her own little cheering section – her mother Jll, her father Dave, her Aunt Julie, my sister Bec and me. Together, we could yell Go Addie! quite loudly. I’m sure she was thrilled to have us waving to her from the stands.

I used to change her diapers! I yelled. No, I didn’t really. Give me a bit of credit.

I don’t know a lot about volleyball, but I suspect I will learn quickly. But I do know about high school athletics, because I grew up in Nebraska where high school sports are king. Especially football. But, the last time I had been to our neighborhood Target, I noticed they had clothing for our favorite sports teams – the Denver Broncos, the CU Buffaloes, the CSU Rams, and – what?????? – the Thomas Jefferson Spartans. I kid you not. Thank you Target.

So about an hour before the game, I headed over to Target and got myself a Spartans shirt……

I believe I was the only one who knew about Target’s support of their local high school, because except for the volleyball team, I was the only one wearing TJ attire. And proud of it, I might add. Brown and yellow, fight fight.

By the way, I almost didn’t go to the game. It was tempting to think about sitting outside in the afternoon drinking gin and tonics. But, I kept looking over at Bec (who I believe hasn’t missed a single one of her two grandkids’ sporting events), and decided I wanted to go see my girl play volleyball. Not that Bec would judge….

This was only the second game of the season. Not only did Addie have an exceptionally good game, but the home team was victorious. What more could I ask?

Go Spartans. Go grandkids.

Second Rounds

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While my mother’s death wasn’t sudden – in fact, she outlived the odds by several years – it still was a blow to her family when she died. Not surprisingly, my dad was particularly affected. Not only had they been happily married for over 40 years, but he had patiently cared for her during her illness – schlepping her to doctor appointments, staying with her during hospital visits, providing moral support and care and love and laughter.

So it wasn’t unexpected that he was pretty lost following her passing. His kids tried to help him move on. Jen in particular (because she lived in the same town) made sure he was taking care of himself. But as the months and then a year or two went by, he still seemed lost.

And then he met Shirley.

I wish I could tell you that I was a complete grown-up and accepted this new relationship with joy and support. Nope. I was a big fat baby. My siblings would probably say they were no better, but I assure you they were. I was the worst. Shame on me.

Despite all this, Dad and Shirley married. And remained married until my dad’s death in 2010. They had a happy marriage. After some time, both his family and her family came to grips with the fact that their mommy and daddy were living their lives in a way that made them happy. Dang. I hate when people act like grown-ups. The two of them did fun things – took driving trips, went to shows in Branson, MO, took in frequent movies, dined out, picnicked, made many trips to Estes Park, entertained all of their kids.

And when he, too, became ill, Shirley cared for him graciously until he died, something for which all of Dad’s children are — and always will be — grateful.

So the end of our story is a happy one. Because we all love Shirley, and she loves us back.

I am writing about Shirley because Bec and I spent a good portion of yesterday with her. She made us breakfast in her lovely little apartment in Loveland, an apartment which is cheerfully decorated with photos of her kids and grandkids and her great-grandkids. We reminisced, caught up with each other, looked at Bec’s China pictures, and ate and drank coffee. Two or three times, someone would walk into her apartment through the open door that leads to her patio telling her, Shirley, I have been trying to call you, but your telephone won’t ring. These interruptions lead me to two conclusions: 1. Her phone service must not have been working; and 2. She is clearly the most popular person at Mirasol Senior Living! Miss Congeniality, no doubt.

As we drove home, Bec and I talked about how though sometimes we don’t realize it, God really does put the people you need into your life if you just open your eyes to it…..

By the way, I had to take this picture for Dad’s grandkids’ pleasure. Shirley has kept their Poppo’s license plate…..

 

Full Plates

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The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook. – Julia Child

At the end of the day, there are probably few things more pleasurable than feeling the crunch of the herbs on the outside of a prime rib cooked medium rare or the taste and feel of an ice-cold oyster dipped in spicy cocktail sauce and doused with a squirt of lemon sliding down your throat. And yesterday, I experienced both sensations. And much more.

For more years than I remember, some iteration of folks – but always including Bill, Jen, her son BJ, and I — have visited the Greenbriar Inn just a few miles north of Boulder, Colorado, on Mother’s Day for brunch. Because it’s Mother’s Day, we knock elbows with many, many other folks treating their mothers to the Greenbriar’s amazing brunch.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. At least one year Bill and I were unable to make it because of one of Colorado’s infamous early-May snowstorms. That year, diehards Jen and BJ sat at their little table for two eating their mussels and eggs benedict and shrimp. A little snow wasn’t going to stop them from their appointed round of Mother’s Day brunch. They are gamers.

But this year, we simply couldn’t make the Mother’s Day brunch happen. There were many reasons, not the least of which was Bill and I arrived back to Denver from AZ a couple of weeks later than normal because we stayed to watch our niece graduate from ASU. And this year even Jen and BJ couldn’t get things to fall into place. With much chagrin, we decided we had to bag our annual Mother’s Day pig-out, er, brunch at the Greenbriar.

And then a few weeks ago, Jen (remember, she’s a gamer?) called with great excitement. The Greenbriar doesn’t just offer brunch on Mother’s Day. Why don’t we go out to brunch when Bec is visiting Colorado? She’s never been, and I think we are all available.

Voila! And so we did just that. Yesterday we enjoyed Sunday brunch at the Greenbriar Inn, and it was better than ever, largely because Bec was with us. It helped that, not being Mother’s Day, there were fewer patrons to fight over the oysters and mussels.

There is something so elegant about a brunch. It simply feels different than an all-you-can-eat buffet, even though for all intents and purposes, it is all you can eat. The offerings are fewer and more special. The atmosphere – at least at the Greenbriar – is elegant yet comfortable. And they promptly remove your plates each time you head up to the various food stations, thereby creating the illusion that all you are eating are those three shrimp and the tiny slice of bleu cheese on your plate. There’s no way to prove that’s actually your third helping of shrimp. And then, of course, there’s the champagne.

When we first sat down, BJ noted that he intended to be quite strategic about his approach. I’ve given this some thought, he said with a twinkle in his eye. My goal is 36 trips this year.

We all nodded thoughtfully. Well, we all told him, then you’d better have champagne instead of Bloody Marys because they will fill you up too quickly. He didn’t quite make it to 35, but he did darn well. As did we all.

So well, in fact, that at the end of the meal, when he saw that we had filled up a big plate of desserts instead of the little tiny plates they offered on the dessert table, our server nodded satisfactorily, and said, Nicely done, folks, nicely done. It made us recall one time when Court joined us for brunch and ate so many of the little crème brules that he was nearly sick; nevertheless, he grabbed another on his way out the door!

At the end of the meal, when we all were literally unable to eat another bite, our champagne glasses were messy with our fingerprints, and even the thought of one more oyster made us cringe, it occurred to us that we probably ate more at a single meal than some families eat in a week.

That notion makes me both proud and discomfited about being an American. But we sure had ourselves some fun. And God bless America……

Saturday Smile: School Smiles

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Somewhere in one of my many moves as a young mother, I lost a box. I don’t know what all was in that box, but one thing that I know WAS in that box was a photo album that included many pictures of my son Court as a small boy. And one of those photos was of his very first day of Kindergarten. While I can’t produce the photograph, I remember clearly that he wore navy blue shorts and a green short-sleeved collared sports shirt. He probably wore silly white socks with blue and red stripes, because that’s what I rolled in the boys’ socks department.

Because I can’t produce that photo, I doubly love the photos our children take of their children on the first day of school each year…..

L-R Dagny prepares for her first day in middle school, sixth grade; Alastair is entering seventh grade; Dagny is heading of to high school. I love Dagny and Alastair’s briefcases.

Maggie Faith entered fourth grade, and I promise Biscuit-the-Guinea-Pig did not go to school with her.

Kaiya is entering fourth grade.

Mylee will be a second-grader this year.

And Cole, oh Cole. He is entering preschool. God bless his teachers.

The Vermont grandkids don’t start school until after Labor Day. Good luck to all of the Denver grands.

Have a great weekend.

Thursday Thoughts

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Birthdays
Tuesday was Kaiya’s real birthday, though she will celebrate with her school friends on Saturday. I Face Timed her in the afternoon, once she was home from school. How does it feel to be 9? I asked her. Nana, she said in THAT voice. It doesn’t feel any different than being 8. As my sister Bec often says, she suspects our grands look at us and think, And they’re running the world. They came for dinner last night and I made her favorite kind of cupcakes – chocolate with mint frosting, with sprinkles, of course…..

Casper
My weekly (it seems) update on cute things I’m making and selling in my Nana’s Whimsies Shop (link above): Since the days are ticking by and Halloween is nearing, look at my adorable little ghost coasters. Or scrubbies. Or tie them to a string and call them a banner. Whatevah. I just think they’re very cute, and they take no time at all to make. Boo…..

Good News and Bad News
I stopped over to the McLains the other day on my way home from the grocery store because I wanted to see how their first couple of days of school had gone. Magnolia moved from third to fourth grade in the same school and Alastair moved from sixth to seventh grade in the same school, so I wasn’t really concerned about them. But both Dagny and Addie had moved to entirely new digs and I had been keeping my fingers crossed and saying prayers that the new schools would work out. As Alastair flew by, I asked him how school was going. Fine, he with a mouth full of after-school snack and kept on going. Addie was at volleyball practice, so I didn’t get to see her. But the fact that she made the volleyball team and had a practice to GO to was a good thing. Lots of new volleyball friends. I knew Magnolia was fine because I watched the eclipse with her. So that left Dagny. Well, she told me, there’s good news and bad news. Ooo boy. What’s the good news, I asked her. I made a new friend today. Her name is Amelia. Also, I figured out how to open up my locker. (This really was a very good thing, because on Sunday, she confided in me that she was very fearful she wasn’t going to be able to open her locker as she had struggled during locker-opening practice the week before.) I asked her for the bad news and held my breath. My locker partner doesn’t speak English. Hmmm. You mean, she doesn’t speak good English? I asked hopefully. No, she doesn’t speak any English at all. I have to use my hands to try to tell her things and it doesn’t really work very well. But Dagny doesn’t get the nickname Delightful Dee for nothing. She added, But the girl in the locker next to us speaks Spanish and English, and she translates for us. Also, even though my locker partner doesn’t speak English, she’s very cheerful and smiles all the time. At least there’s that.

House Beautiful
Speaking of smiling all the time, I’m certainly not. I’m trying to keep a positive attitude about the remodel. The results thus far are amazing. I can’t believe Bill does such beautiful work. I will post pictures soon, but this is what much of our house looks like right now…..

Yesterday Bill went to Home Depot to get the rest of the red oak steps that will replace our awful carpeted steps – awful because the carpet was so dirty it simply wouldn’t come clean any longer. Twenty-five years of climbing on them will do that. He was working away while I was baking cupcakes. I heard a loud and unfamiliar noise. Are you okay? I asked him, just as I ask him about 25 times each day when I hear a loud noise similar to the sound of a construction worker falling. Yes, he told me. I bought a new drill today, and it’s a bit, well, aggressive. That’s what he said. I can’t make this stuff up. Who’s the patron saint of home remodel?

Ciao.

I’ve Seen Both Sides Now

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I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all. – Joni Mitchell

When I was in my early 20s and living with my parents in Leadville, Colorado (VERY early 20s and not for very long, so don’t start snickering), I recall one morning I was watching early morning television, probably the Today Show. That was back in the day when the Today Show actually was only a couple of hours long and they really did feature some news. Barbara Walters hosted, as I recall.

Anyway, I didn’t normally sit around idly watching morning television as I did have that thing called a J-O-B. But I turned it on that morning because one of my favorite musicians/singers of the time was going to perform – Judy Collins. She had recently come out with her Judith album, and I loved her voice and the music on that particular album. I liked a lot of that kind of music in those days – James Taylor, Carole King, Jessie Colin Young, Carly Simon, Cat Stevens. Oddly, not Joni Mitchell, though Both Sides Now is one of the songs I frequently attempt to sing (particularly when I’m with my grandkids looking at clouds) and always fail. Lots of highs and lows, I’m afraid. Much like Joni Mitchell’s life. But I digress.

Anyway, on this particular morning, my grandmother was watching television with me. Grammie mostly kept her opinions to herself, but when she felt strongly about something, she didn’t hesitate to comment. Judy Collins was performing Send in the Clowns, a song I particularly liked from the album Judith. Grammie listened for a little bit. Finally, I heard her sigh heavily, and she said to me in her strongly accented Swiss dialect, “Ehhhhhh, Krisily, is dat moosik?”

At that moment, I believe Grammie felt she was getting too old for the world. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time she felt that way. Nor was it likely the last, as she lived for quite a few years past the horrific Judy Collins moment that was probably etched in her mind forever. But she was born in 1896 and lived to be in her mid-80s, so she saw a lot of things change, come, and go, and come back again. Mostly she rolled with the punches, but in her mind, Judy Collins’ singing did not constitute music.

Now, as the years go by, I can relate. Oh, I still like Judy Collins okay, though admittedly when I listened to the song again as I wrote this blog post, I did find it somewhat annoying and a bit screechy. Perhaps in 10 years I would also question whether or not it was moosik. Nowadays, I’m much more liable to listen to Zac Brown Band or Luke Bryan, and bluegrass interests me more than folk music. Or whatever you would call the music I liked back in the mid-70s.

Interestingly, both of my sisters and I have become country music fans. There was a time in my life when I wouldn’t have imagined listening to songs about drinking whiskey and beer and dancing in the back of a pick-up truck. But I like the songs of most of the contemporary country singers. In fact, I watched the recent CMA Music Festival on ABC, and was pleased to realize that I recognized every song and knew the words to most of them.

My brother, however, still takes a firm stand against country music. He’s only a baby of 57. It doesn’t hit until 60, so he has a few more years to listen to Top 40 hits (or whatever it is he listens to). Our children think it’s just another sign that we are steps away from assisted living.

But, while I cringe when I listen to the Top 40 hits that Maggie Faith plays while she cooks, I have – to date, anyway – refrained from asking her if this is moosik.

And, for your judgement…..

 

Mr. Moon: Just Passing By

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For the past few months, as people have been talking more and more about the total eclipse which much of our nation watched yesterday, I have ignored the excitement. Eclipse-schmeeclipse, I thought to myself. Because if I haven’t grasped anything else about getting old, I EXCEL at being crabby.

When friends of ours told us they were driving to Podunk, Nebraska, (not a real town, so stop googling it) and paying as much for a motel room as one would pay to stay at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City at Christmastime, I nodded and said wow, that’s awesome, but thought to myself wow, that’s stupid.

The media started getting more and more excited as the event neared. For the past three weeks, our local NBC station has been hawking their own branded eclipse glasses. Go to your nearest Grease Monkey and get your glasses, they would shout. Otherwise you will miss out; otherwise be stupid and look in the sky without these glasses and go blind.

Whatevah, I would think.

Until about three or four days ago, when it occurred to me that I might not see another total eclipse of the sun because who knows how crabby I’ll be by 2024  when the next total eclipse will occur. I may even be too crabby to go outside. All of the Grease Monkey glasses had been swooped up by then, of course. As the hours, then days, ticked by, the likelihood of obtaining the necessary blindness-preventing glasses diminished, until the possibility was as little as that pinprick-in- the-cardboard option they were offering us losers. One night, my telephone dinked, indicating a notification from our neighborhood internet group. I immediately – IMMEDIATELY – looked at the notification and saw it was from one of our neighbors saying he had four spare pairs of glasses. I immediately – IMMEDIATELY – clicked on his email link to request the glasses. He responded, telling me the glasses had been claimed practically before he hit the send button.

On Sunday night, our local NBC station was nearly in histrionics over the event. Remember the old game when we were in college where you would watch an episode of The Bob Newhart Show, and drink a shot everytime someone said Bob? Well, I was wishing I had a bottle of Fireball whiskey and a shot glass and could drink a shot every time one of them used the phrase zone of totality. It didn’t matter whether it was the local news, the weather news, or the sports news. Everything was linked to the zone of totality. Of which we were in the 92 percentile.

Dang. I wasn’t going to be able to see the historic event. I was going to have to resort to looking through that damned pinprick. So I sadly mentioned that fact to Maggie Faith Sunday when I dropped by to deliver my guac and chips. Come to our school with Mom, she said. They have tons of those glasses. Which is what I ended up doing because 9-year-olds are way smarter than 63-year-olds.

Jll and her mom Lynne and Bill and I checked in at the front office of Magnolia’s elementary school around 11:30. Do you happen to have any spare glasses, we asked tentatively. And Maggie was right; they had tons of them. Enough that we each got a pair, and there were very many to spare…..

We, along with all of the grade schoolers who were so very careful and grown-up about using their glasses when looking at the sky, enjoyed an amazing event……

Maggie, along with all of her fifth grade pals, watched the solar eclipse.

Bill, Lynne, and I watched as the moon passed in front of the sun…..

As did Jll and Maggie Faith…..

But my favorite photo of all: I’ve fallen and I can’t get up…..

As it turns out, I couldn’t be happier to have witnessed this scientific phenomenon. It was fascinating. The air actually cooled down as the moon passed the sun, blocking its heat for a brief time. The temperature dropped from 85 to 77. Mostly I was happy to watch the kids of Maggie’s school seeing the amazing work of God.

Cole got to witness the hand of God as well at his school, though he looks like he’s not sure what to think…..

And, I leave you with this, Baby Boomers. Don’t Bill and Lynne and I look like we are straight out of the 1950s at one of those early 3D movies?

It’s Under Here Somewhere

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I stopped over to the McLain’s house yesterday afternoon to drop off some guacamole and chips. Though I would like to say that I was just being nice and had made the quac especially for them, that, unfortunately, is not true. The reality is that I had made the guacamole the night before when Court and his kids came for dinner, but completely forgot about it until we had finished eating and were settling outside on the patio to watch the kids play a bit longer and the sun go down. I’ll send it home with you, I said, and then forgot to do that as well.

Oh well, I thought when I discovered the guacamole sitting in my refrigerator yesterday. Addie always says her favorite food is guacamole, so yay for her. The other upside is that I got a chance to see the paint job on Dagny’s and Maggie Faith’s bedroom. Teal and white stripes on the wall; a gray ceiling. God bless Dave and Jll. I will tell you, however, that the room actually looks nice. Who knew a gray ceiling could look so good?

As Jll walked me to the door, she talked about how one of the benefits of painting (or any remodeling effort) is that it forces us to move things around and throw things away or into a Goodwill pile. She went on to mention a house in her neighborhood that is occupied by full-out hoarders. Gulp, I thought. Hoarders. Just one flower vase more than me.

As I have mentioned, we are in the middle of a remodel job this summer. And when I say we, I of course mean Bill. I am just quality control. You-Missed-A-Spot is my middle name. Bill loves my help. Anyway, in our family room, we (there’s that we again) removed cabinets from above the bar area. The cabinets were getting on my very last nerve because I am the poster child for If-There-Is-A-Space-I-Will-Fill-It.  And they were filled with glasses and knick-knacks and liquor and dishes that hadn’t been used since the Reagan administration. So we removed all of them from the cabinets (a tedious job which actually DID include me) and put them on the dining room table to contend with at a later date.

And there they sit, getting dustier and dustier as Bill continues the installation of hardwood floors. If there is even half as much sawdust in his lungs as there are on my tables, well, I just hope there isn’t….

At some point, I will have to get serious and begin putting most of those things in a box to take to Goodwill. But here’s how I already KNOW it’s going to go: Gosh, I’ve literally NEVER used these wine glasses. But they were a wedding present from a good friend who it’s true I haven’t seen in 25 years but she got them in Germany. Sure, they are way too small for wine and way too big for port. But they were a WEDDING PRESENT. 

Bill will try to hold my feet to the fire, but quite frankly, he’s every bit as guilty as I, just for different types of things. His mother hated throwing things away, which is why every time we went to visit her, she sent me home with plastic kitchen utensils and old Christmas decorations and every single thing we ever gave her as a present over the past 25 years of our marriage. And now that’s Bill. He is reluctant to throw certain things away.

There are a pile of dress shirts that he used to wear every day when he worked as a professional lobbyist/lawyer. Just as he told me at the beginning of our marriage that he doesn’t cook, I told him I don’t launder and iron shirts. So he would wear a shirt, and when it was dirty, he tossed it in a laundry bag. When the bag was full, he would take it to the dry cleaners. A few days later, the shirts would come back clean, starched, and carefully folded just as he liked. Nowadays, if he practices law, it’s in his home office wearing his sweats and moccasins. But about 20 shirts are still in that laundry bag, needing to be cleaned. Or given to Goodwill, I say. But here how that conversation goes: The shirts are in perfectly good shape. I might give them to one of my sons. You never know, I might need them some day.

Watch for our show on TLC. Denver Housewives and Hoarders. Take that, Atlanta.

This post linked to Grand Social.

Saturday Smile: I Heart Vermont

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Bill and I have nine grandchildren. Seven of them live near us in Denver, so we see one or more of them nearly every day. Two, however, live far away in Vermont. Though FaceTime brings us closer than we would be without technology, we still feel far away, especially on birthdays.

Our two Vermont boys couldn’t be more different in many ways, but you don’t have to be around them long to recognize they are brothers. It’s the love and the loyalty they feel for one another.

Joseph is 8, but is as smart as a kid twice his age. He told me the other night that he is now interested in Greek mythology. Good, I told him. You can teach me about it. But he went on to explain that he is actually interested in two things – Greek gods and Pokémon. Whew, I thought. Underneath all of that incredible intelligence, he is just a kid. He’s the kid who would get tears in his eyes if I told him I didn’t feel good.

Now Micah, well, he’s a spark plug. Plain and simple. He has a smile on his face all of the time, and is always on the go. He loves music – all kinds of music. He doesn’t hold still until he finds something that grabs his attention, and then he will be attentive. He’s always ready for a bike ride or a run with their dog Merlin.

And Micah had a birthday this week. He turned 5….

Happy birthday Micah!

Our Vermont boys make me smile.