Monkey Business & My Funny Grandchildren

A different funny grandchild.

My grandchildren are funny. They get it from their parents, because my kids were funny too. Probably the reason I had kids was because I wanted a steady stream of laughter. But maybe it's just MY sense of humor, so I'll see how you respond. Here is a peek into just a little of what I'm talking about. 

Zac, 5, got a nosebleed the other night, his second since we've been in North Carolina. (It might help if he didn't put his fingers in his nose.) Anyway, he came up with a very good reason as to why he keeps getting nosebleeds – he broke his nose when he was 3 and they gave him a new nose.

And then while he was watching Monkey Business while we were in the car on the way to the beach yesterday, he loudly proclaimed his disappointment with the movie because after watching Monkey Business for nearly an hour, he still hadn't seen any monkeys.

I'm having so much fun!

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Rescued Dog Needs Continued Care

Camie's Painful Face

Camie – look at her skin :(

Camie is in serious trouble. You can tell by the photos how serious her condition is. She has what is called Demodectic Mange. Gloria and her husband, Skip, rescued Camie, also known as Precious Camo, and have been paying for her medical care by themselves.

Camie needs ongoing treatment. She has open wounds all over her body and face and she is in a lot of pain. With your help, Camie can get all of the treatments she needs. Gloria updates Camie's condition on her Facebook page – click HERE to "LIKE" and to read more about Camie.  

You can also visit Camie's DONATION PAGE if you can afford to donate (please click the link). Gloria and Skip are providing loving care for Camie. Their medical expenses are steep. Your donations will help her not only survive but thrive. Thank you in advance for your donation.  

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Where Have I Been?

Nearly every day since I've been in NC I've been in this pool with these two grandsons.

WOW! It just occurred to me that I did not write one single post for My Heart Blogs to You during the entire month of June, 2013.

Why?

Because I have been devoting whatever writing time I have to a different site where I am actually making money every day!

Wait! Wait! Wait! I can already see you wondering, Where? Where? Where? But before you get your hopes up, let me tell you that when I say I'm making money every day, the money I am making is not a lot. But it could be. I just don't post enough material there. If you had time to write and post there, you could probably make a lot more.

To give you an idea of the kind of money I make for the amount of time I can devote to writing, about the most I ever made on Associated Content, which then became Yahoo! Voices, was a whopping $8 a month. As I said, I don't write very often, so when I discovered I could make $20 a month and eventually more – consistently – writing for a different site posting the same amount of material, I jumped on board. Since I joined on February 24, I've made over $100.

Oh, I can see you laughing already – $20 a month? Are you kidding me? Well, I look at it this way: $20 a month is more than I made before. 

The nice thing about this site is that I don't have to write long blogs, though as you can see by even this one, I do tend to write a lot. I just have to post 400 characters! Not 400 words – 400 characters! Do you have any idea how many characters = 400? Let me check from HERE.

From the word HERE above, including the period but not counting the title, this post had 294 words and 1,479 characters. The first four paragraphs, from "WOW!" to "a lot more," had 118 words and 598 characters. Can you write that much? Can you think of that much to say and share? If you can, you can write for the same writing site. Just click the link and join. 

BubbleWS is more of a social site than it is a writing site, and you'll meet people from all over the world and get different viewpoints. Read what others have written. Like what others have written. Comment on what others have written. They may reciprocate. And the benefit? For every view you get, for every comment you receive, for every post you make, for every like – and every dislike – you receive, you MAKE MONEY.

I've seen people post comments on Facebook that could have been posted on BubbleWS where those comments could have made them money!

Now you know why I've neglected this site for so long. I've been devoting my time to BubbleWS. Join me there, won't you? Just click the Submit button and start bubbling!

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No Lemonade Stands For This 8-Year Old Entrepreneur!

Audrey with her little sister, Avery

My daughter and her family moved into a new neighborhood not long ago. Their home is beautiful and they take good care of it, inside and out. Their kids are also very well behaved. In other words, they are a great asset to their community. 

When my daughter and her family moved into this new neighborhood, neighbors recognized their asset-ness and warned them about some of the other neighbors, even though the tattletales didn't really know much about my daughter and her family, except for their well-behaved children and the way they kept their home. 

I like that sense of community. I remember the day I moved into my neighborhood – the one where I now reside. One of my neighbors rushed over to meet me WHILE I was moving in. I learned from her that the prior residents had raucous parties every night and that the police practically lived in my home before the previous residents were kicked out of the community. Happy to hear that the only parties I would hold would be during the daytime and would include multiple young children, my neighbor went home satisfied.

I'm not sure how the small country community of neighbors reacted to what my granddaughter did the other day in her new neighborhood, though. I can only assume that the idea my granddaughter devised came from a present I bought her brother, my grandson, for his birthday last year (or was it the year before). I had ordered for him a bunch of plain white masks from a school supply company. The masks came with all kinds of markers, crayons, and stickers he could use to decorate the masks. It was a cute project and my grandson invited some of my other grandchildren to decorate them with him, allowing them to keep the masks they created.

The other day, my 8-year-old granddaughter told the neighborhood kids they could buy a mask from her for $.25. Surprisingly they all ran home to ask for quarters to buy her masks. But the masks weren't the masks I'd purchased for her younger brother. They were masks she cut out herself from ordinary paper, complete with hand-cut eye holes. 

After the neighborhood kids paid her, she gave them their plain paper masks and told them to color them. One little 6 year old (who just happened to be one of the kids the neighbors warned my daughter about) was appalled at the holy paper he held in his hands. With mouth agape, he glared at my granddaughter and shouted, "What a ripoff! They're not even real!"

I couldn't help but laugh about what I thought the neighbors might think when, after hearing that their children had just bought hand-cut paper masks for a quarter – that they had to color themselves – what else these new neighborhood children would try to sell them.

But I also couldn't help but be inspired by my granddaughter's entrepreneurial spirit. Both of her parents own their own businesses. I have a feeling one day she will too (probably not selling hand cut paper masks though).

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Still Don't Have That Perfect Mother's Day Gift for Mom or Grandma?

Consider this blog your one-stop-shop for Mother's Day gifts.

I've written two articles about Mother's Day gifts for different types of moms. And in this blog, I'm including ideas for Grandma. Just click the links to read the articles already written:

1) BEST Mother's Day Gifts for Moms of Small Children

2) BEST Mother's Day Gifts for Moms of Adult Children 

3) BEST Mother's Day Gifts for Grandma (the blog you are now reading)

What is the best gift for Grandma? Not flowers, not candy, and not jewelry – time and memories.

As a grandma, one of my favorite gifts for any occasion is photographs. I would dearly love for all of my kids to get together and present me with a photo album filled with their favorite photos of themselves and their children (and their children). Pictures on my wall are important too, so framed photos are treasures.

But the best gift of all is time spent with my children, my grandchildren, and my great grandchildren. You can't wrap that in a box and mail it, can you? Phone conversations are nice, and Skype is even better than phone calls, but the physical presence of my loved ones around me is the greatest gift of all.

Still feel that you have to actually BUY something? How about a photo mug or a laptop? Say whaaaat? If you insist on buying something, get the whole family together and buy Grandma a laptop. Don't forget to teach her how to use it – and Skype – if she doesn't already know how.

Grandma probably already has everything she needs, but you could treat her to a massage, a manicure, a pedicure, or even a total makeover if you think BUYING her something is necessary. Other than that, keep in touch with her. Share your time. Don't be concerned about what to talk about. Tell her what you're doing and what your kids are doing, and ask her what she is doing. She won't care what you talk about. She'll only care that you cared enough to call.

She wants your presence – not your presents.

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Tender Moments With an Eighteen Month Old

In the past couple of days before the storms hit, the weather had been warm enough to take Avery to the park. But it had also been very windy.

After we played on the trampoline and tried to blow bubbles in the crazy wind, I had to tell Avery it was too windy to blow bubbles, so I walked over to her back step and sat down. Avery joined me.

I pointed out the clouds that were moving quickly and the branches on the trees that bent in the wind. All the while I was helping her wipe her hair away from her eyes. At one point when the wind was blowing so wildly we could barely see each other, Avery reached up and tenderly brushed the hair away from my face.

One little gesture, but it just about melted my heart.

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My Funny Grandchildren

Every once in a while I look back over my blogs to remind me of the fun and sometimes funny times I've had with my grandchildren. One of those previous blogs reminded me of this situation:

Recently one of my grandchildren (whose name I cannot reveal) took a big ball and rolled it toward Avery (nearly 18 months old) and said, "Avery, let's play Indiana Jones." I couldn't help laughing at his ingenuity.

And what reminded me of his comment?

This blog: My Grandma, The Bug.

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