Diary of a Grandmother Who has Lost Her Mind

How was your weekend?  I won't say mine was exhausting but I am sitting here on Monday evening thinking it should be Friday night. 

We started on Friday with a Family Game Night. My granddaughter's school offered a "family game night" and when she went to sign up, you could only bring one family member.  She didn't want to choose between Mom, step-dad or brother and was very disappointed. Crazy gramma invited the family to my family game night instead. 

I looked out the back window when they left and saw this. 

And when we left in the morning to pick up two more grandchildren whose brother had a basketball tournament, this is was our road trip. 

Our granddaughter left with her parents for a girl's high school basketball game. It was the final four and they won! They will be playing for the state championship on Friday. 

Meanwhile the three boys played legos, wooden trains, and hot wheels in every room of my house. We had a taste test of chocolate chip cookies after lunch. 

By then they were totally stir crazy so we took a road trip to look at the baby chicks. 

No, we are not buying baby chicks.

We regained the granddaughter after the the game and, because it was Saturday, we played school. 

For dinner some had chicken nuggets and some had spaghetti.  Because I run a diner. Grampa had left over pizza and Mimi had left over fish sticks. 

There is a fourth child hiding somewhere in there. 

We put sleeping bags in the living room (since the guest room is full of bathroom supplies) and watched movies. The last one did not fall asleep until 11:30 pm . . .   And at 3 am Mimi gave up sleeping in the recliner and went to bed herself.  But they were up by 7 am for breakfast! 

They seemed a little tired, but perked up after donuts. 

We built some forts. 

We went back to school. 

We all got a little grumpy , but had lunch. 

And we went to see our local high school production of Shrek! 

Where we met up with more cousins for the 3pm performance! Nine seats, front row balcony where no one fell asleep or got fidgety despite the fact that the production lasted over three hours. Next year I would like a heads up if a school play lasts over three hours. 

We filed out as soon as the curtain went down so that we could drop off others and drive the two weekenders home. We left town with some happy meals and were on the formerly snowy route above, but with no snow.  My car (the one we were riding in) texted me this. 

It wasn't flat, but was worrisome. We finally came to the village before theirs and bought some air. Note: Air is $2.50 and you need a credit card.  It brought up the pressure in that tire.  We took the kids home and by the time we were going through that village again, the car texted me again. $2.50 for more air. 

We got home at 8:00 pm and I started work on the eight Lego costumes my granddaughter had promised to the music teacher for the play this coming Thursday.  I guess the teacher asked who had a toy costume and she volunteered that I had made one for her brother at Halloween that she could wear. Then she told her friend I would make her one, too.  Then we needed four so I went and bought supplies. Then four turned into eight and I had to make another trip. 

Finished them around 11:30 pm Sunday. 

Got up, made breakfasts, put one on a bus, took one to preschool and dropped off my vehicle (which had a totally flat tire when we got up) at the tire place and went to get our taxes done.  Then went back to the tire place because I left our tax folder in my car. 

We made it to our tax guy who charged us for the privilege of informing us we needed to write a check for $1200 to our crazy government.  

By then our car was ready for pick up with a repaired tire (a piece of metal was in the tread).  We christened today How Much Can We Spend Monday and drowned our sorrows in chocolate milk shakes at the ice cream stand that just opened. Because, although it snowed on Saturday - it was almost 70 degrees today. We wanted to go out to lunch, but all the restaurants in my town are closed on Monday (all two of them), so we got a hamburger, too. 

We came home, watched the stock market crash. I had withdrawn my investments and put them in a high yield certificate of some kind at my bank but my silly husband still has his rapidly shrinking account. 

I had my church meeting where the theme was people with mental illness struggling with life and then came home to make the next recipe challenge in my goddaughter's recipe contest. 

It's a Big Mac Wrap! Mr Merry about had a heart attack when he thought I was putting pickles on a burrito, but when he tasted it, he loved it!  It was a fast and easy recipe and we will make it again. I think next time I will fold them into a square and put them in my panini press to melt the cheese.  

In my facebook memories was this picture from 2016.  I guess things don't really change much, LOL. 

And now I am going to bed. 

Time for Tea

We were cordially invited by the preschool to a tea party! My grandson told us that we were to dress "fancy".  I found lots of costume jewelry, one of my vintage hats and carried a small black velvet vintage purse that belonged to my great aunt. Grampa was told to wear a suit coat and tie with his jeans. 

Here is the class photo straight from the dress up box. 

They could not have been more adorable, especially with the good manners they had been practicing.

We were served a lovely luncheon of tea sandwiches, vegetables, fruit and cookies.  We all had cups of tea. 

 

Our grandson loved the tea.  Especially since he could add sugar cubes. 

The teacher had an ingenious way to make sure the children tasted each food item.  You should always try one bite to be polite. We then added a face sticker to each item pictured on the sheet to show whether we liked it or not. 

For after lunch entertainment, the three year old class has been hatching eggs in an incubator! 

This is our last nursery school student and he will "graduate" in the spring. The teachers asked how many of these tea parties we have attended (I'm not sure) and told us they know we will miss all the school activities!  I know we will miss it a little, but we have attended nursery school with five children and ten grandchildren and I think we have served our time. 

What A Monday

I traded my Thursday in the charity office for Monday because we have a nursery school tea party in the middle of my usual shift. The recipe challenge this week was stew in a crock pot so I thought this would work and took a shortcut.                              

Unfortunately we didn't get to the stew until almost 8pm.  By then the peas had lost color and the homemade biscuits in the recipe became Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. 

In between my work shift and our early evening activity, my middle son and his sons came over to help move the supplies for the new bathroom in to my spare room to get to room temperature. 

The middle box is the mirror cabinet. 

This box explains the whole project. I visited the bathroom department so frequently that we are now personal friends. And this sink and countertop were labeled by my first name.  This is the same box that was missing in action and had to be reordered. Reordered by me in person standing there pointing to the Carrera Marble countertop that I was splurging on. Spoiler Alert. It is not Carrera Marble.  

So I spent four hours last week uttering some terrible language. Pouting. Ranting (all in the privacy of my home because I am not that person in public). What came is still marble. Actually a little more expensive than the one I ordered. And the same color scheme of the bathroom.  

I had to have a long talk with myself. In my head I was designing this pristine, clean bathroom with a white marble countertop. In real life I have ten grimy grandchildren washing their hands and mud caked toys in that sink. Maybe God thought I needed a gray sink.  Here is the color of the new counter top.  I am keeping it. 

Any way.  Here are the shower walls and a piece for the flooring. 

The shower pan is sitting on a huge pile of mattresses. 

I can't remove enough packing material to show you the color of the gray cabinet and mirror frame. 

I believe the time table is waiting on the weather since the removal of the unit we have needs to go through a wall of some kind? Now I'm thinking and that doesn't make sense. But demolition has not started yet. And while today is actually 61 degrees, I think our high temperature for tomorrow is 28. 

After moving this stuff in the room, we attended the nursery school open house and art show where this guy sang a solo. 

And we had a special delivery from my niece in New Orleans for Fat Tuesday!  

My youngest grandson was very disappointed that his mother's slice had the "baby" and she gets to have good luck! 

Other than the actual eating of the King Cake, all that happened on Monday and that is why I wasn't making homemade biscuits at 7:30 pm at night for dinner. 

Disheartened and Disappointed.

Disheartened and Disappointed. And too heartsick and terrified to say more. The loss of our European Allies is something I never thought we would have to face. 

I have received the recipe for Week 4 of my god daughter's recipe challenge so I figured I should quickly share Week 3 which was last Saturday's dinner.  The cut of the week was sirloin steak and keeping our new quirk of two different interpretations, I followed the recipe and made a steak salad with homemade dressing and Mr. Merry ate his dinner "deconstructed", steak and lettuce separated and no berries on the salad since he doesn't believe in mixing food groups. 

My steak salad which was superb. 

It was an interesting Thursday at the charity office with a family whose mother is on unpaid sick leave, an adult son on SSI and a father who has trouble managing money on a good day. Losing half of the couples income is a struggle. The second family includes a tiny baby with a stay home mom. Dad was fired from his job and they have zero income for this month. It's not their first rodeo. The third client was a young man of 20 who lives alone with no family support. He has been ill with one or more of those viruses going around and missed two weeks of work (no sick pay).  This was his first time in this circumstance and he was convinced he would have to live in his car. I assured him that would not happen if I could help it and I came up with a plan of places to visit to help with the missing funds this month and I will call him Monday to see where he is and how much more he needs. He will be fine once he is caught up. 

Bathroom update: in anticipation of a possible project, I cleaned the spare room, took down one of the beds, put remaining holiday decorations away and the husband moved the supplies into the spare room to acclimate to the temperature indoors.  I cleared a bookcase in my bedroom and emptied the linen closet, medicine cabinet and shelves in the bathroom into the book shelves. This means every time I step out of the shower there is no towel to reach for. I believe I will remember to take one with me approximately 2 days before the project is completed. 

It was a busy week and maybe I will catch up with more soon but I did want to share the latest cast my grandson received at the orthopedist this week. And how jealous I am that I did not have a cast like that when my arm was broken. 

He may only be in this cast as few as two more weeks. And I am insanely jealous over how quickly those young bones can heal!  I know he is looking forward to joining his indoor soccer league before the season ends. 

 

Field Trip Friday

This week I went on my own Friday Field Trip. My friends from high school and I have had to cancel several lunch dates starting in late November due to illness, roads, spouses health, our health, grandchildren. We finally made a date! And one friend's GPS sent her to the wrong address. We finally got to the same place and I ordered the world's biggest Monte Cristo sandwich. This picture does not do justice to the size of this sandwich. 

That dish of raspberry compote was the size of a large soup bowl! 

My friend just purchased an embroidery machine and practiced by making us each a personalized "rug mug". 

Isn't it fabulous! 

After two and a half hours of conversation, we parted and my car accidentally stopped at the cancer thrift shop on the way to the grocery store (I have another recipe challenge for this weekend). 

I spotted some items in this photo from their Facebook page. I have about 4 Beatrix Potter figurines from Boswick that I have collected over the years. It looked like there were some in this cabinet. 

These are the 18 new figures I bought to go with my collection of four. They were ridiculously under priced and I couldn't leave any behind. I think 2 are Royal Doulton but I am not holding that against them. I am behind in love. I actually left about a dozen behind and I am tempted to go back.  The volunteers told me a woman had collected them for years and when she passed, her 90 something year old husband was going to assisted living and sent them to the shop. There are also a trillion other Beatrix Potter items from dishes, to tea pots, to books to paintings. 

Here are some things I didn't buy. 

My hands were too full to take more photos. 

Just a selection of eggs from my farm lady this week. I try to keep the smallest ones (normal size large) for baking because the others are too large for recipes. 

I met my friend Susan about nine years ago. She was at an event I attended and told me this horrible story about her son-in-law who was, at that time, active military having served two terms in Iraq who was fighting military burn pit exposure illnesses and getting no help from the military health services. 

I first took this with a grain of salt because I could not have had a more positive experience with my father who I was transporting to a VA hospital with leukemia. The facilities and the staff were exemplary. He then had a massive stroke and I moved him into an assisted living unit and eventually a nursing home, both located in a VA home.  Every interaction (and I was there most days) could not have been kinder, more helpful and warm. 

But then I paid more attention to her son-in-law's plight. The families of these victims of the military use of burn pits had found each other on social media and were pressing our government for help. They even did a session on 60 minutes. 

These young men and women were developing fatal illnesses and receiving no help from our military. 

Through the efforts of these families, congress members they enlisted, and even advocate Jon Stewart, they were able to get the Heath Robinson Act passed to award benefits to the dying soldiers and their families. Susan fought this battle to the end, even though Heath died before her own family could benefit.  Susan's daughter Danielle was a guest at the State of the Union and little Brielle has the pen that it was signed with. 

Last night every Republican member of the Senate, including senators who had championed and fought for this legislation when it was passed, vote NO on funding it for the future.