January 17, 2019

Throwback Thursday: 10 life lessons grandchildren help us remember

January 17, 2019/ Lisa Carpenter

Dear readers: As my three grandsons from the desert will be visiting PawDad and me (and the rest of our Colorado family) this weekend, I thought it only fitting to share again one of my all-time favorite photo-filled posts featuring Brayden, Camden, and Declan. I hope you enjoy this #TBT feature, which originally published here on Grandma’s Briefs February 10, 2015. Thank you for reading my rerun.

With all that we do for our grandchildren, they do for us so very much more. Things such as reminding us of important lessons we've learned yet often forget to put into practice. Things such as these.

December 12, 2018

Grandma Christmas crafts matter

December 12, 2018/ Lisa Carpenter

The year my husband and I were married, his stepmom, Diane, whom I had never met and Jim hadn’t seen in years, sent us a lovely joint Christmas stocking she had made for us. She also sent an adorable handmade one for baby Brianna, who was born soon after we married.

Diane sent another precious stocking the following year, when Megan was born. And another two years after that for our baby Andie.

When Megan and Preston married and…

July 24, 2018

Gramma goes tubing

July 24, 2018/ Lisa Carpenter

Despite having been born in Minnesota and living in the Land of 10,000 Lakes the first decade of my life, I'm not big on water sports. To any degree. I still don't know how to swim... even after having swim lessons as a child and again at 40 years old.

I'm not deathly afraid of water, but I certainly don't seek out splishy-splashy fun in water over my head. Not even water up to my chest, to be honest.

So it should come as no surprise that I've never whiled away hours in an inner tube on a lake. Nor have I engaged in tubing…

July 20, 2018

Flashback: The know-it-all grandma and her acts of ignorance

July 20, 2018/ Lisa Carpenter

Dear readers: This flashback feature originally appeared on Grandma's Briefs July 24, 2014. Thank you for reading my (updated) rerun.

I'm often asked by family, friends—and sometimes even strangers—for answers and directions on a variety of topics. I'm happy to say that I can usually give them what they seek. My husband often jokingly calls me Google; my daughters consider me one of the best researchers they know.

Which makes it difficult to not fancy myself a know-it-all at times.

To keep things in check—meaning, to deflate my occasionally oversized ego and obnoxiously large noggin'—I need only recall one or more of the times I was clearly not in the know. At all. The times I didn't know what the heck I should have known, whether I pretended to know it or not.

July 17, 2018

Disrupt aging: Today's grandmas smash the stereotype... even when embracing it

July 17, 2018/ Lisa Carpenter

Disclosure: This post made possible with support from AARP's Disrupt Aging. All opinions are my own.

When I first started my blog in 2009, one of the "editorial guidelines" I set for myself was that I would not post photos of myself on my website. At that time I had been a grandma for a little over a year, and in those twelve-plus months, when I shared my grandma status with strangers—retail clerks, random folks encountered while out and about, friends-in-the-making, and so forth—I was more often than not met with the comment, "You don't look like a grandma."

As a goal for my blog was to establish myself as a go-to guide for all things related to the grandmother lifestyle, I determined that—based on such comments—posting pictures of myself might…