For Aaron

Thought for the day:  The most precious jewels that have ever been around my neck are the arms of my grandchildren.

Because I wrote the past few posts prior to the holidays, this is the first one written since the new year began, so Happy New Year, y'all!

We spent the Christmas holidays with our older son and his family, and it was fantastic, as always.

Have you ever baked cookies with four grandchildren and three dogs? Um, not that the dogs actually did any of the cookie-making or baking, but they were definitely a presence. To say it was a chaotic and joyful experience would be a gross understatement.

While we were there, the kids asked me which of them I loved the best, so I did what any grandma would do. I told each of them, "I love YOU best, because..." followed by a list of wonderful things that makes each of them special.

Reminded me a little of when a bunch of my cousins had a reunion a few years ago. An older cousin said she was the only one of all the grandchildren that Nana ever allowed to spend the night with her. Then the rest of us piped in about all the times WE'D spent the night. Nana had a LOT of grandchildren, but somehow, she managed to make each of us feel like her favorite. Was your grandmother the same way? What a wonderful talent to have.

During our visit, our eight-year old grandson Aaron asked me why I call Grandpop Smarticus. Turns out, he's been reading my blog. (!) (Which, of course, means he has impeccable taste. HA!) He lamented that when he Googled his siblings, he found links to my blog, but when he Googled his own name, he came up with a lot of pictures of some old guy with the same name. So this post is just for Aaron. By tagging it with his name, hopefully, he'll find himself when he does a Google search next time. Along with some fun pictures.

Check out all those curls! This is a pic of Aaron from Thanksgiving of 2012.

Also from Thanksgiving of 2012, here's a pic of our son with his whole crew. The children, from left to right, are Aaron, Jaiden, Devyn, and Kymber.

Aaron, in August of 2013. What a smile! He looks like a professional model, doesn't he?

The cutie crew, Christmas, 2012.

Also Christmas, 2012. Who can resist Devyn's smile? (I can't.)

First day of school, 2015.

July, 2015. We all went to the premiere viewing of Minions. (Loved it!) The cutie between cool cat Aaron in those snazzy sunglasses and his sister Kymber is their cousin McKenzie.

Christmas, 2015, and the Minions are still the best thing ever... both for Aaron and Grandpa Smarticus.

Christmas, 2015, and even Grandma has a pair of Minions softies. Smarticus and I are still big Minions fans, but alas, the kids have outgrown them. (Hmmm, not sure what that says about US...)





Now for some pictures from this Christmas...

Kymber & Devyn

When I asked Aaron to stand still so I could take his picture, he wanted to know if I was gonna put it on my blog. (Which gave me the idea to do this post for him...)

You've gotta love a gal who not only wears Elf pajamas, but happily poses in them so her goofy mother-in-law can take a picture.

Jaiden was thrilled to get a compound bow for Christmas.

Smarticus putting said bow together. (HA! And he thought his putting-stuff-together for Christmas days were over...)

Kymber was sooooo excited to get an adorable little hamster... and just a tiny bit apprehensive.

Leo and Troy were also very excited about the hamster. So was Stormy, but she was temporarily exiled for being a wee bit TOO excited. I'm sure it didn't mean a thing that Troy (the Huskie) kept licking his chops while observing the little critter...

Books written by two fellow bloggers provided great reading material for Aaron and Kymber.










Okay, y'all. Thanks for indulging me so I could make Aaron happy.


We saw the new year in with our friends in Tennessee. We stayed up waaaaay too late, but we had a terrific time. Lots of games, lots of laughter. The PERFECT way to end one year and begin another.

Before Christmas, I posted this cartoon on Facebook, which initiated some funny comments from our Tennessee pals, suggesting Smarticus and our buddy could maybe benefit from a similar air freshener...

I must say... the fresheners didn't work, but they did make for a great photo op...

So again, Happy New Year. Let's hope this year doesn't stink.










                                         Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

                                                          Grandparents are just antique kids.

Fun in the Sun

Thought for the day: If there is magic on the planet, it is contained in water. [Loren Eiseley]

There's something about the beach, about its salty scent, cawing gulls, and constant soothing rhythm of the waves that centers me and gives me peace.

There's also something about our grandchildren, about their boundless energy, giggles, smiles, and overall silliness, that does the same.

Put them together and you have a little piece of watery heaven. If only I could bottle that feeling... I could call it... Happiness.

Our long weekend with our older son and his family was absolutely glorious, albeit much too short. The Gulf Coast was oppressively H-O-T, but the water... aaaaah... the water was perfect. And therapeutic. We spent most of our time playing in it, but I did came out long enough to snap a few pictures when they started playing in the sand.

 Aaron is our unabashed Sheldon Cooper-like smartie. When we were back at the house, he and I played some of the new games purchased at the going-out-of-business sale held by Toys r Us. The games were new to him, but he learned them quickly, and had absolutely no shame about beating his poor grandmother.

Kymber's a girly girl who has already been in a beauty pageant. (Once was enough for her, though. She's done with all that, she says.) She's a smartie, too, and very wily. Definitely knows how to get her way.

Smarticus... the biggest kid of all.

Looks like Jaiden is about to run back into the water. No surprise there, because he's quite the waterbug. That little cutie to his right is Devyn, who's the youngest of the crew, but also the boss of 'em all. She's going to rule the world someday, the little stinker.

 Here's Devyn again. I reckon she was probably ordering the water to Calm down! Even the smaller waves had a way of catching her in the face when we were out in it.

Smarticus grabbed the camera and I grabbed Devyn so we could get at least one pic... almost... of her face. You'll have to trust me. She's adorable. Not that I'm biased or anything.

Our son and his lovely bride. (He's got a helluva lot of nerve having gray hair, doesn't he?)

Our son scooped up a small jellyfish in a bucket so the kids could get a closer look. In the bucket, it wasn't nearly as menacing-looking to them as the ones we encountered floating in the water. This little guy's tentacles were very short, too.

That's it. That's all the pictures I took this time around. What can I say? It's a lot more fun having fun than it is to waste time recording it for posterity. HA! Profound, eh?

P.S. The header picture was from an earlier visit, when we went to the Gulf so Grandma could get her feet wet. The kids got soaked. (Not my fault!) So we had to buy them all dry outfits before we could continue on to the museum in Pensacola. Lesson learned! We all wore bathing suits this time around.

                                     Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

I'll Fly Away

Thought for the day: What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly. [Richard Bach]

[image: morguefile]

It'd be kinda cool if we could eat and eat and eat until we're too fat to move, and then sleep for a while, only to wake up transformed into a beautiful creature. With wings!

Yeah, not gonna happen. With my luck, I'd morph into a cockroach. (shudder)

Anyhow, July 21 - 29 is recognized around the world as National Moth Week, so I thought this would be a good time to take a little flit around the Lepidoptera family with you. Although moths make up from 89 to 94% of this family,  most of us are much more familiar with butterflies. Why? Easy. They flutter through our gardens during the day and their brightly-colored wings are usually very beautiful. We associate them with flowers and summertime, and in general, most of us like them. Moths, on the other hand, tend to be rather drab and do most of their flying at night, and we associate them with devouring our trees and snacking on our favorite woolen sweater. (They really do need to get a better PR team!) However, like butterflies, moths also play an important role in plant pollination.

[image: seniorark]

Other differences between moths and butterflies:

• Butterflies have antennae that are club-shaped with a long shaft, while moths have feathery or saw-edged ones.
• Moths fold their wings in a tent-like manner to cover their abdomens, while butterflies raise them vertically over their backs.
• Moth larvae develop in silk cocoons, while butterflies build a more hard-shelled chrysalis.
• Moths have a gizmo called a frenulum, which couples their wings, allowing them to work in unison. Butterflies do not.
• When you were a child, did adults dissuade you from handling butterflies and moths by saying they wouldn't be able to fly if you dislodged some of that powdery stuff from their wings? Not true. They actually shed that powdery stuff naturally. It's more like scales than some kind of magical flying dust. 

How about some spiffy pictures and fun facts?

[image: wikipedia]

The lime green luna moth has a wingspan of about four and a half inches, and it glows in the dark! (A built-in night light!) These critters are indigenous to Georgia, but I've never seen one. 

[image: wikipedia]

This hairy-looking guy is a buck moth, and he clearly demonstrates another difference between moths and butterflies. Moths are generally stout and fuzzy, while butterflies are slender and smooth. The larvae of this  Ewok-looking moth have hollow spines, which are attached to a poison sac, and their sting can cause itching, burning and nausea. This moth is also a rebel. Unlike other moths, this guy prefers to fly during the daytime.

[image: wikipedia]

Another day-flying rebel moth is this brightly-colored urania leilus of South America.

[image: wikipedia]

But the biggest rebel of all has to be this Castniid moth of Australia and Indonesia. Not only are they day-fliers, but they have clubbed antennae and brightly-colored wings. (Half of 'em, anyway.)

[image: wikipedia]

Recognize this? It's a tent caterpillar nest. These moths are more sociable than most, and build and share huge silk nests. Where I grew up in Maryland, they were very prevalent, with nests in almost every tree, and bazillions of the caterpillars lumbering all over the place on the ground. I used to kinda like them, until the boy down the street smashed several of them on top of my head. I never felt quite the same about them again...

The largest moth? That would be the Atlas moth, whose wingspan can be as great as twelve inches. The smallest? The appropriately named pygmy moth, which is a teeny 3/32 of an inch. Barely noticeable, right? Not so of this Atlas monster:

[image: wikipedia]

With wingspans measuring an average eleven inches, Birdwings are the largest butterflies. This chart shows males on the left and females on the right.

The smallest? Blues, which are between one quarter and one half inch in size. And, um... they're blue.

[image: wikipedia]

One of the coolest butterflies... and the queen of camouflage... has to be this dead leaf butterfly. Amazing, isn't it?

[image: wikipedia]

When its wings are open, it shows it true colors.

[image: wikipedia]

This is a gypsy moth larva. For a very brief while, our older son had one of them... as a pet. Larry the larva.



In the early seventies, my mother and aunt came down for a visit, and while Smarticus was at work, we went to Lake Lanier for the day. The place was absolutely swarming with an army of official-looking khaki-clad fellas, but we didn't bother them, and they didn't bother us. In the meantime, our son found the colorful larva and like most little boys, wanted to bring it back home. Well, (ahem) it turned out that those men were on the look-out for gypsy moth larvae... so they could kill them, because the little boogers are extremely destructive. And we, um, brought one home with us. Let's just say the holes we punched in the jar lid had verrrry sharp edges, and Smarticus, being the friendly fellow he is, yelled "Helloooooo, Larry!" to the larva quite often... while, um, shaking the jar vigorously. (What? The rude little guy refused to answer!) And that... was that...for the dearly departed hairy Larry.

I can't resist sharing this video with you. It's another one of the giant Atlas moth. I mean, what kinda person would let a moth do this...?

                                     I would NEVER! But a butterfly? That's a different story...

I'm flitting off to spend some time with our grandchildren, so I won't be responding to your comments right away. Trust me, I will not let our kiddos capture any larvae in a jar.

                           Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

In Flew Enza

Thought for the day:  Grandparents are just antique kids.

We've returned home from a wonderful Thanksgiving week visit with our son and his family in Florida. Unfortunately, everyone but Persephone had the flu while we were there... and the flu hitched a ride home with us. Now we reeeeeally feel like antiques. Sick ones. (Yes, we did get our flu shots.)

If you're wondering about the title of this post, it refers to a punny joke my elementary school principal told my class back in the dark ages. It was about a parrot named Enza, and that title was the joke's punch line. (And yes, I do use the term joke rather loosely.)

So, I'm just gonna post a few pics, and then crawl onto the sofa to recuperate. Next Wednesday will be the Insecure Writer's Support Group post, so I'll seeya then. (I'll even let you comment!)

Such an energetic crew.

(Chloe, Atlas, and Ella)

Even the new puppy Cletis wasn't feeling very peppy.


(Olivia)

Our daughter-in-law said Atlas (AKA Bud) doesn't like to have his picture taken. Coulda fooled me! I've got lots of pictures of his smiling face... even in this pic of the girls. (I guess that makes him a photo-bomber, eh?)

(Atlas, Ella, Persephone, some fat old broad, Chloe, and Olivia)

One day, Smarticus and I took still-healthy Persephone out of the sick house, and we drove over to the Gulf. Perfect weather!

We also went to a terrific seafood restaurant in Cyprus Keys while we were there. A little background: a couple months ago, I bought a can of Tony's clam chowder at the grocery store. It was a little pricey, but the label touted it as being award-winning stuff. It's fabulous... but as luck would have it, the next time I went to the store, the soup wasn't there any more. (Dontcha hate that?) Well, would you believe the restaurant we went to on the Gulf was... Tony's... the place that actually makes the chowder! How cool is that? Without a doubt, the chowder they serve in the restaurant is the best we've ever tasted. We weren't at all surprised that it's won multiple international clam chowder competitions. So... we had no choice but to buy a case of their canned stuff and bring it home with us. Life is good.

The day before we left, Ella was starting to feel better.

So hopefully, Smarticus and I will feel better soon, too. For now? The sofa awaits.








Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.