Monday Morning Grandma: Someday Is Here

We all have things we plan to do, or places we plan on going to “someday.” For my husband and I, someday came last week. In 2009, a foot/bike ribbon bridge, the longest in the US, was built across Lake Hodges. 

The trail goes under the freeway.

 If you look near the foot of the mountain below, you can see the water line.

Okay, dear reader, I know this doesn’t look much like a lake, more like "Forrest Hodges," but we’ve been in a drought here in S. CA. It does fill up, and will with the next El Nino year. In fact it is said, this may be such a winter. But that’s beside the point of this post.

Since 2009 we have planned on hiking across it. We finally did it.

My challenge to you is to make this week “someday.” It doesn’t have to be a big “bucket list” item. This wasn’t, but I had a feeling of accomplishment besides a beautiful hike.

Make the time, you’ll never “have” it. 

Monday Morning Grandma: I'm back!

Oh how much we rely on computers! At this moment, I’m specifically thinking of the Internet.

As I write this, my computer is working fine. The Internet? Not! Our modem went out. We knew it was going, and planned on making the “upgrade” our service provider told us was coming whether we wanted it or not. We waited as long as possible, and had planned on making the change a couple of weeks from now. We waited too long. That’s why I’m posting this on a Wednesday. We have been without Internet for almost 2 weeks.

I don’t have a smart phone, so I can’t check e-mail or Face Book. I have a stupid phone. I call it a stupid phone, but it’s really an amazing innovation that I take for granted. Today, for instance, I was at the grocery store, and needed to ask my husband his preference. All I had to do was call.

When I was growing up, we had a party line, and a 4 digit phone number 2228. We lived in the San Bernardino Mountains where they had such numbers into the early 1970’s. I had to call my sister, and when I gave the operator her 4 digit number and town, she kindly said the number had to have the 3 digit prefix. I told her to try it. She did, and was silent when my sister answered the phone. It wasn’t long after that they upgraded. Upgrades, constant upgrades. I’ll save that rant for another day.

Back to what I was saying before I went off on a tangent. If I wanted to look up anything, I had to go to the library when I grew up. Often I had to wait for books to come up from the main library in San Bernardino.

The library was in a garage about a half a block from the elementary school. A school library? I never heard of it.

Enough of my rambling thoughts. I’m back on-line. Please be patient if you have sent me an e-mail in the last couple of weeks. At this moment I hate to think of how full my in boxes are going to be. I’m going to post this before I even check.

Monday Morning Grandma: Good Friends

Good friends are the best. Sorry I missed posting Monday. I was busy doing things with some dear friends we’ve known for 47 years. Well, I’ve known them that long. My husband has known his friend since junior high school.

They’re going to be here 2 weeks: One week down and 1 more to go. People may wonder how we can spend that much time together. We just get along, and do things we did in the years when our husbands were students along with new adventures: Play Rook, go for a walk, cook and eat. 

We are also doing some tourist type of things like visiting the Mt. Soledad War Memorial, 

Midway museum, 

Mormon Battalion Visitor’s Center,

 and more. Tomorrow—Julian, CA. We read scriptures together and attended the San Diego temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

There is nothing in the world like renewing old friendships. Gotta go—time for more fun.

Monday Morning Grandma--Puzzle Fun

Today I’m going to demonstrate a cheap fun way to entertain children. Print out a picture he/she would like—one of themselves, or someone close like parents or grandparents.  Cut it into pieces to make a puzzle, if you have scrap booking scissors all the better. Naturally fit the size of pieces to the competency of the child.

For strength, apply to clear contact paper on both sides. This makes it harder to stay together (with the fancy scissors), so try it first, and know your child’s ability to deal with frustration. For the cost of a picture they will have fun playing, and maybe learn some fine motor skills.

There are places that will make puzzles out of pictures, but why bother spending that much money. Maybe for a special occasion, but I think they would have just as much fun with the homemade ones.

Since I have several grandchildren, I decided to use a picture of my husband, their grandfather.