My little grandson Jasper had a birthday last week.  Being we have so many people in the family, nurses who work weekends, and there is a bit of distance between us all, we don’t do big things for birthdays.  They usually include a video call and a poor rendition of Happy Birthday by the group message callers and that’s about it.

I decided to make the day for Jasper a little more special by going down and visiting my daughter Kayla, his mom, and Jasper.   Our day included going out to eat…

…and some thrifting.  Jasper doesn’t mind thrifting.  In fact, he does a good job as a shopper.   There were no incidences of crawling under bathroom doors to save him as we had with his cousin Georgia a few weeks ago.  You can read that story HERE if you missed it.

I thought I would show you some of the thrifty goodies I found when I was out and about.

I got some packs of used markers.  Gannon, my grandson is WAY into markers and drawing.  He is often found with a pencil in his hand either writing his name or coloring.  The problem, he’s not the best at putting caps on the markers so we get some dry out.  One pack was 50 cents and the other was 25 cents.  I was happy with that deal.

The deal I was most excited about was this… …

A Birthday For Jasper and Some ThriftingRead More »

Saturday was a Grandma day for my daughter Kelli’s kiddos.  My daughter Kalissa’s kids were supposed to be here too but they had runny noses and we’re trying to keep each bunch of kids as germ-free as possible.

Georgie, my granddaughter, was a little sad but then I cheered her up by giving her a new pair of pajamas.  She ended up putting them on and having a pajama day with me.

Georgie is like me when I was little.  I just LOVED dogs.  Most of the pictures of me as a kid include a dog.  Lefty, my foster pup, is the perfect size for her and he’s an older pup so that makes them a pretty good combination too.

My apologies for too many pictures of Georgie and Lefty but I just couldn’t pick my favorites…and a good portion of the day the two of them were together.

She told me that Lefty “we-welly” (REALLY) wanted to watch television with her.

I asked her to look at me so I could see her eyes…she did this.

The next thing I knew Lefty was “so sick” and needed Doctor Georgia to get him all better.  He was so sick, he had to have his blood pressure taken.  HA!!

Then the assistants were called in.  Eli and Emmett thought it was great fun.  Lefty was so cooperative.

I stepped in and said that I was the most experienced doctor and was sure that Lefty needed some bed rest.

Within minutes our patient Lefty was resting comfortably in his bed.  HA!!

We had a lot of fun with him…and Lefty loved the attention too.

He’s such a good pup.

The boys were all about tractors.  I have a few tractors here but am wondering if I might need a few more.  Both of them wanted tractors…and two the same age wanting the same things is never fun.  They prefer the small ones like Eli has in the picture.

Here, Emmett has them all lined up on the bottom of my baker’s cabinet.

Kelli’s twin boys have never looked the same.  No question…they are fraternal twins.  Emmett is on the left and Eli on the right.  Can you see how much taller Eli is than Emmett?

…and I wonder why the glass in this door is always so dirty!!??

Kelli and I ended the night with a little bit of cross stitch.  Emmett was getting tired so we ended up quitting, packing them all up, and pointing them toward home.

It ended up being a busy day but a good day.  After they left I did some more cleaning up and then I headed back to my stitching spot and put in some more stitches.

Friday Janet Orr had called me to see if I would be able to go to the cross stitch get-together that was organized at the Waverly Iowa library.  I couldn’t as hanging out with these guys was on my schedule.

Kelli has a few others that help her with the kids.  She works the overnight weekend package so getting regular childcare isn’t really an option around here.  She has a few of us and we all take a day when she needs us.  One of the other helpers had a schedule change that has left Kelli needing help with the kids on Saturdays.  My day used to be Mondays… I am on the clean-up crew and step up and take the kids when others can’t so Saturday has gotten to be my day for Grandma care.

I wouldn’t have missed this day with the kids!!  My priority is always my family- both my adult kids and my grandkids.

Because of that priority, I can’t be the organizer of a cross-stitch group or any other group.  My attendance will always be sketchy as my family always comes first.

I’ve heard some grandmas say, “I raised my kids.  I’m not raising their kids too.”- meaning their grandchildren.  Not me.  I’ll put my stuff aside and jump in anytime they need me.  My mom was that way and I loved it.  I want to be that way too.  Anything I have to do can happily wait.  Nothing is pressing.

I raised my kids.  I know that kids get to a point when grandmas and moms aren’t quite as cool.  Before long these grandkids of mine are going to be teens and hanging out with the grandma isn’t going to be near as fun. So I’m taking this time and soaking it in while I have it.

 

When my parents passed away and we were left to go through the house, my sister and I started sorting through the pictures.  What a daunting task.  In the end, I said I would take the negatives naively thinking I would just make prints of stuff back as we did in the old days.

I was so disappointed when I learned that making photos from negatives we so 1970 and not only was impossible to find someone to do it, it was expensive.

The negatives got put in a box and I left them.  I had hope that someday I’d figure out a way to do something with them.

Not too long ago while I was scrolling through Instagram I saw an app called FilmBox by Photomyne.

Supposedly you can take a negative, put it in front of a clear light source, take a picture of it with the app and it will turn into a picture on your phone.

Hmm.  That sounded interesting.  I watched the advertisement for the app many times.  I am super skeptical of things and don’t want to be ripped off.  So, I didn’t get the app.  I was afraid there was some hidden something so I left if be.

Then one-day Kalissa was at my house and I showed her the app.  She said let’s try it…so we did.

There is a free 3-day trial and then you are charged $29 a year.  I think there was a $ 7-a-month option too.  I did the $29 for a year.  I have my immediate family negatives I’d love to go through too.

Kalissa and I went through a few negatives from our family and then a few days later, I pulled the negatives from my parent’s house and started working on a few of them.

I just adore old pictures…and my brothers were so cute.  Here are… …

New App: FilmBoxRead More »