Boomerbang

. She was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, under the watchful eyes of her young granddaughter, as she'd done many times before. After she applied her lipstick and started to leave, the little one said, "But Gramma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper good-bye!" I will probably never put lipstick on again without thinking about kissing the toilet paper good-bye...

2. My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, 62. My grandson was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, "Did you start at 1?"

3. After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. Finally, she threw a towel around her head and stormed into their room, putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she left the room, she heard the three-year-old say with a trembling voice, "Who was THAT?"

4. A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like: "We used to skate outside on a pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods." The little girl was wide-eyed, taking this all in. At last she said, "I sure wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"

5. My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I mentally polished my halo and I said, "No, how are we alike?'' "You're both old," he replied.

6. A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather's word processor. She told him she was writing a story. "What's it about?" he asked. "I don't know," she replied. "I can't read.."

7. I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me and was always correct. It was fun for me, so I continued. At last, she headed for the door, saying, "Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these, yourself!"

8. When my grandson Billy and I entered our vacation cabin, we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in. Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, "It's no use Grandpa. Now the mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights."

9. When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, "I'm not sure." "Look in your underwear, Grand pa," he advised, "mine says I'm 4 to 6."

10. A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, "Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today." The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool "That's interesting," she said, "how do you make babies?" "It's simple," replied the girl. "You just change 'y' to 'i' and add 'es'."

11. Children's Logic: "Give me a sentence about a public servant," said a teacher. The small boy wrote: "The fireman came down the ladder pregnant." The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. "Don't you know what pregnant means?" she asked. "Sure," said the young boy confidently. 'It means carrying a child."

12. A grandfather was delivering his grandchildren to their home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog's duties. "They use him to keep crowds back," said one child. "No," said another. "He's just for good luck." A third child brought the argument to a close."They use the dogs," she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrants."

13. A 6-year-old was asked where his grandma lived. "Oh," he said, "she lives at the airport, and when we want her, we just go get her. Then, when we're done having her visit, we take her back to the airport."

14. Grandpa is the smartest man on earth! He teaches me good things, but I don't get to see him enough to get as smart as him!

15. My Grandparents are funny, when they bend over; you hear gas leaks, and they blame their dog.
SEND THIS TO OTHER GRANDPARENTS, ALMOST GRANDPARENTS, OR HECK, SEND IT TO EVERYONE.

Labels: blog, comedy, grandchildren, moms, parenting

you need to remind me to keep this up to date. Remind me to tell you about the wrongful death action, an update to the fireplace issue as well as looking at spas. There are many good lawyer stories involved!

I'd like to invent a flipbook of messages to other drivers. There is a saying I heard that goes something like "no one knows how to drive - everyone going slower than me is an idiot and everyone going faster is a maniac".

Seriously, there are some dangerous freaks driving out there. Here are a couple of the personalities I've noticed:

The road hog. This person is in a lane and stays there at his own speed no matter what is going on around him/her. there are several variations. There is the one that drives 45 in the fast lane on the freeway, never moving to let faster motorists pass. There is the one that drives their own speed in the right lane oblivious to traffic merging off and on the interstate. This merge/yield maneuver can get pretty hairy. When you have someone who has decided that he was on this road first and fails to allow incoming merges, you get brake lights that create a domino effect of slowing and potential rear-end collisions for miles, both on the road itself and also on the access lane.

So last night we skipped the gas fireplace because Nick ended up with a slugger headache just from the short time we had it on. So he turned on the heat, closed all the vents except downstairs and in the bedroom. Within minutes the House smelled like the basement. Why we keep the catbox next to the heater I do not know. So this weekend will be a change the filter, clean out the vents and move the cat's litter box

The cat must be "missing" the box or something. That never happened before and he's like 12 yrs old or something. Maybe he's just getting old. He does seem to not keep his coat up like before. We have to brush him to keep the tufts at bay.

So now we are still thinking about - how can we best and least expensively convert the propane non-vented fireplace to a wood burning fireplace. My new question is how will it affect the home value.

WE know that home values increase with the addition of a fireplace, but what is the relative difference in value between a gas fireplace and a wood burning one. If I spend $4k on a wood fireplace, when the gas would be more desireable should we decide to sell our home I would not be happy. I'd rather get a hot tub.

Hot Tub is a whole other subject.

All this stuff has to follow paying out college loans anyway. We still have 3 more years of taking them out, with one of the years taking two out. Thats 4 more loans to take in the next 3 years while we pay the 4 years back from kid #1.

Ah, I got Nick to light the propane fireplace last night. It was so warm and nice, but smelly and the heat went straight to the ceiling.

Its such a pain because we have to turn on/off the gas valve in the basement. It should be ok to leave on all the time, but if we do, the house smells like propane. So we keep it off until we use it.

We had it on for about an hour and it nicely took the chill out of the whole family room and kitchen area from about the waist up - to the ceiling.

Thinking about putting in a wood stove, I realized we really are fire bugs and like to tend the fire and see it, so a wood stove would just be silly and block out the view. Now we're thinking about converting the whole gas thing over to a true wood burning fireplace. Wonder what that will cost.

Meanwhile, down in the basement the breaker for the septic pump keeps tripping. We don't have high level, so what's up? We did get 9 inches of rain over the weekend and haven't seeen the sun since, with 2 more inches supposedly over last night into this afternoon.

So - call in the septic guy I guess. Cha-Ching again. THis is giving me panicked reminders of the time that the well pump got struck by lightning and it cost us 4 days without water and $4,000 to replace - Happy Father's day that was.

The joys of living in the country.

I'll write more about that another time, because there truly are some balancing joys.

We have this propane gas fireplace that just sucks the oxygen out of the air when we light it. It does a tremendously great job at quickly heating the entire downstairs, but we then end up opening the door for air.

Because we really hate that fireplace and propane is going to be astronomical this year, we're wondering if we could find an inexpensive way to convert the gas fireplace to a wood burning fireplace. We know that the gas one does not have a flue, but we do have a false chimney on the outside for aesthetics, so possibly one could be built.

Perhaps we could put in a woodstove and vent it out through the gas fireplace. I'd really rather set it in the opening instead of having a big stove sticking out into the room. Wonder if it can be done inexpensively. It would save us so much money this year. Living in the woods, we have wood at our immediate disposal and no where to burn it. We even have a couple of stashes of firewood stacked from some of the trees that we've had to take down or cut up.

Only a month has passed since our recent OBX vacation. I'm looking back with memories of relaxation and pristine summer weather.

Simple idea to conserve energy, lower gasoline demand, ease traffic and highway construction and rehab costs and Taxes!

How many of us travel everyday to an office where we sit and talk on the phone, do business over the internet and via email. Then get into our cars and fight the traffic home again. How many of us do this in a commute of 20 -30 miles or more one way? I'll bet it doesn't take only 20 or 30 minutes out of your day either. How many days do you literally, not talk to another person other than on the phone or email?

Realistically, there are times when you need to be in your office in case someone needs to walk into your office to see you, but wouldn't it be better and more efficient for business, if project meetings were scheduled regularly and not bumped around all day?

Back to the idea. Let's offer corporate American an incentive for not only allowing telecommuting, but encouraging it. Help me with some ideas here. Perhaps, states could waive the unemployment amounts they pay for telcommuting employees. Maybe the federal government could subsidize benefits corporations pay to employees such as the high cost of medical coverage. In general, employees who have lower stress levels because they have lowered their expense on gasoline and gained back a couple of hours a day, will need less medical care anyway!

Technology should be our friend. There are many many jobs that do not require daily face to face contact or daily interaction. Equipped with a laptop and cell phone (which most of us qualifying here already are) people such as finance analysts, sales analysts, IT professionals and similar workers can perform these activities from the comfort (and often more productive quiet) of home.

I'll be checking out if any studies exist to see if home workers are more productive. I was a home worker for a couple of years. I made a once a week 130 mile round trip to my corporate office where I met with associates based on topics and schedules we set ahead of time. I found that I was able to accomplish a great deal more in the quiet comfort of my own home. I was even "at work" earlier and often later and on occassion, on the weekends, because I was able to efficiently and effectively manage my time and tasks, both personal and professional. Byt the way I was also able to earn my MBA online, increasing my value to my employer.

Help me think of some of the incentives that might work to alleviate the congestion on our highways, save gas and reduce stress. Help me figure out who to share my ideas with to push this idea into fruition. I think its a good one - do you?