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Grandma's Briefs

for grandmothers and others

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Grandma's Briefs is for grandmothers and others. Bits on the good, bad, humorous and heartwarming of being a baby boomer, grandparent, parent to adult children, wife and writer. Features include lifestyle articles, reviews, recipes, grandma profiles, and more.

November 03, 2023

Since I last wrote

November 03, 2023/ Lisa Carpenter

Hello friends!

I hope everyone is well and enjoying fall, my favorite time of year.

Since I last wrote, a fair amount of this and that has happened for my family and me.

March 31, 2023

March gladness

March 31, 2023/ Lisa Carpenter

Ordinary moments — dare I say, mundane moments — marked March 2023 for me. Ordinary moments for which I’m all the more grateful and glad to have had in light of this month’s heartbreak and loss for so many in the west, in the south, and, especially, in Nashville.

Moments like these:

January 20, 2023

Easy peasy penguins

January 20, 2023/ Lisa Carpenter

With weeks (and weeks) of wintery weather remaining in many parts of the country, many a grandma may be racking her brain for ways to keep grandkids engaged indoors during visits. This easy, peasy penguin activity requiring minimal prep* may cut down on the cabin fever. For a little while, anyway.

September 06, 2022

Scenes from Summer 2022

September 06, 2022/ Lisa Carpenter

Welcome back! I hope everyone enjoyed their summer, making memories and more with loved ones.

I was blessed with memorable moments with many a loved one since pressing pause on Grandma’s Briefs for the season.

March 18, 2022

Gramma's Snow Cream

March 18, 2022/ Lisa Carpenter

March and April are typically the snowiest months in Colorado. This past Thursday was a typical March day in Colorado in that it snowed. A lot.

It was also a typical Thursday in that Benjamin and Robert spent the day at my house.

Having gobs of snow outside and my two grandsons inside provided the perfect opportunity to introduce Benjamin and Robert to snow cream.

March 19, 2021

Rockin' PawDad's party

March 19, 2021/ Lisa Carpenter

The recent weekend in which my family was all together—a relatively uncommon occurrence even in the best of times—featured not only Robert’s baptism, as I previously shared, but a milestone birthday celebration, too. That milestone being Jim’s sixtieth birthday.

The birthday festivities, organized primarily by Megan, revolved around a rockin’ theme as …

March 11, 2021

Take me to church: Small steps toward normalcy plus baby Robert’s baptism

March 11, 2021/ Lisa Carpenter

Jim and I have attended Holy Cross Lutheran Church for about 35 years. Not every single Sunday during that time but certainly more often than not.

That all changed in March of 2020. For exactly one year we didn’t walk through the doors of church one single Sunday. Or any other day, including my pre-Covid monthly volunteer shift in the food pantry.

Thanks to Covid—and my immunocompromised status thanks to my MS medication—our church attendance was restricted to …

January 21, 2021

Pic of the week: Huggable hope

January 21, 2021/ Lisa Carpenter

Hard to believe time flies as it does, but Robert, my youngest (and final) grandchild, will be two months old on Saturday.

This is two months.

December 31, 2020

Pic of the week: 2020 blessing

December 31, 2020/ Lisa Carpenter

No doubt about it, 2020 was a bad year in countless ways.

Still, there were a few blessings to be counted. At the top of the list, this …

November 30, 2020

Baby Robert

November 30, 2020/ Lisa Carpenter

Welcome! I hope your Thanksgiving was memorable … and blessed.

As I mentioned last week, I had a new grandbaby on the way. Well, he …

Grandma's Briefs

Grandma's Briefs is for grandmothers and others. Bits on life's second act and the empty nest: the good, bad, humorous and heartwarming of being a baby boomer, grandparent, parent to adult children, wife and writer. Features include lifestyle articles, movie reviews, recipes, product reviews, auto test drives, grandma profiles, and more.