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I spent a lovely morning visiting friends – old and new – at the Ultimate Blog Party 2013, like
- Glenda who shared with me about Edith Schaeffer’s passing away. Another spiritual mentor who we both appreciated, it was sad news but yet joy-filled news, knowing she is now safe with our precious Lord.
- Sarah Avila of My Joy-Filled Life – I was already following her at Pinterest because of her resource-full homeschooling pins. I’m thrilled to meet her at her site as well – and guess what! She has some great iPhone apps to share with us too! 🙂 And her Pinterest site led me to the coolest “Brain Hat” – a hat our grandkids can make when they are learning about the body, and especially the brain, as all the parts are labeled. I also added it to my Pinterest Homeschooling board – – Do check it out. It’s just plain COOL! 🙂
- Frugal and Focused was a new-to-me site where I discovered such cute Scripture cards printables, along with a grand list of even more cute printables including JOKES which all my grandkids love – near and far. Whether we pack our grandkids lunch boxes or tuck them into a box or purse, these will be fun and timesaving for all of us grandparents! 🙂 My second youngest granddaughter LOVED this one in particular, from Darling Doodles Design – Why did the cookie go to the doctor? He was feeling CRUMMY! 🙂
- Wandering Further Afield Thanks to Frugal and Focused and a link they shared, I discovered a new site NOT at the party but ALL ABOUT THE BOYS. With half of my zillion grandkids being boys, that’s a grand find indeed! 🙂 And THEY have even MORE cute jokes for ALL our grandchildren. 🙂
- You’ll find even more grandparents and caregivers in the comments over the last couple of days. Do pop in and say howdy to all, won’t you? 🙂
Then I closed up the computer and my senior mom and I went on another road trip. This time, I tried out one of the state apps I discovered when I just typed state names into the Apps Search. They weren’t perfect BUT they did give me great ideas to check out in some of the surrounding cities. I then went to each city’s website, typed in the sight-seeing locations and names I got from the apps, and voila – I came up with a nature park, a local arboretum, and a historical map of one of the city’s buildings. Enough for the day and two more trips, all new to us, AND all fairly close by!
We had a delightful afternoon getting lost, getting found (may I say again, I LOVE the new-to-me MapQuest app, complete with voice directions!), enjoying lovely country sites – daffodils – and babbling brooks (which my photos don’t do justice to but still quite delightful for our memories) and the very tasty Chocolate Extreme Blizzard we ended the day with.
Then I headed back to the computer for more Ultimate Blog Party and Grandparents and Sunday visits. An hour or so later, I heard my senior mom calling for help! It turns out she had some nasty leg cramps, going all the way up her leg. Those things hurt, don’t they! I gave her a banana (the potassium does help) and, thanks to lessons learned eons ago during Lamaze classes for my pregnancies, I reminded her to NOT point her toes down (like a dancer) but instead bend the toes up to her head. After that, counter-intuitive though it seems, I helped her up to walk the cramp out. I know it feels impossible to walk on them, but it’s one of the best ways to get rid of them. I would never have known about either of those tricks wihtout my wonderful Lamaze teacher but they are just as handy for us boomers and seniors as they were in our 20’s and 30’s when we were having our sweet kids!
We ended the day on a double high note, since I finally got two months worth of grandkid photos off instagram (via instasync) and onto my mom’s iPad. I took it into her room to cheer her up. An hour later, she came out feeling much better and with a huge smile on her face saying, “This iPad was worth EVERY penny!” She had enjoyed such a lovely time looking at the photos of her grandkids playing, doing school projects, and practicing their various instruments. It was especially nice since she had been able to chat with several of them earlier in the day.
It was definitely a grand day for our Sandwich Generation family! How was your week? And YES, if you have any other tips for dealing with those awful leg cramps, we’d love to hear them! 🙂
