Grammar Snob - Part 1: Your Unique

Seen on the marquee outside a Bremerton business:

       ALWAYS REMEMBER YOUR UNIQUE,
       JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE

I love the humor in that sentiment, but it has been up there for a few weeks and have the owners not yet realized that it should be "you're" instead of "your"? Or did they do it wrong on purpose so grammar snobs like yours truly would be bugged enough to write about it in a blog?

Another pet peeve of mine is the wrong use of the apostrophe as seen on house signs around town. Not to slam a family I know, but it should be "The Olsons," not "The Olson's"!

A grammar snob walks around with a virtual red pen in her brain. I know this to be true, because I am one. If I were a grammar slob I would put it this way: I know this to be true, because I are one. It don't matter to me if it don't matter to nobody else. I seen the President on TV a few months ago and even he said something about it being Febuary. Why do people leave the brew (bru) out of February? Drink up, and pronounce it right!

I remember back when my middle son was in seventh grade. He came home with a paper from his history class, and the teacher had written 'A' on it in red. As I read through this paper I was appalled at my son's poor grammar, incomplete punctuation and spelling errors. This was not a rough draft but rather the finished product. Without hesitation I pulled out a red pen and began correcting the grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors in his prize-winning paper. I didn't mean to burst his bubble, but I knew the importance of being able to write as well as speak correctly. I congratulated him on knowing the history topic but then challenged him to rewrite the paper in order to receive an 'A' should that same paper be presented to his English teacher.

Then Open House happened. I swear I wasn't the one to initiate this conversation, but I remember my son's English teacher making this statement:

"We don't really teach grammar at the junior high level. Grammar isn't important. What's really important is being able to express your ideas."

No, English teacher, grammar IS important, and I'm glad to have this opportunity to express my ideas about it.

Selfeeties!

Thank you, j, for this contribution. I have to HAND it to you, this is pretty funny. It is quite a FEET when you leave me practically speechless. No further comments necessary.

My First Selfie!

This is the selfie our drinks took at Elletu's granddaughter's baby shower two weeks ago. I was seated at a table with Cool, Elletu and three of her other friends. I was a little self-conscious admitting that I didn't know how to take a selfie, but Cool was kind and encouraged me. I took one of us together, and it turned out great. Of course we don't show our faces on this blog unless we have cucumbers over our eyes, and since there were no cucumbers around at this baby shower, my selfie can't be posted. But then our drinks said, "We want to do it! We want to do it! We want to do it!" (There were, after all, three of them.) So I gave them my phone, and with very little instruction they did it. I thought they did a good job centering themselves.

So perhaps you caught in my first sentence that Elletu's granddaughter is having a baby, very soon in fact. That's right, Elletu is going to be a great-grandmother!!!!!! She's always been a great grandmother, but now she is going to be a great great-grandmother!.

The Bethel Valley Girl Offspring continue to grow!

Back from my sabbatical...

Dear Readers,

Paris was lovely, Venice was divine,
Switzerland was breathtaking----if only in my mind.
Back from sabbatical, eight months abroad,
If I said I was in Europe, I would be a fraud.
The truth is, my computer sadly bit the dust,
It was the end of last summer, yes, it was in August.
Off it went to the computer shop for what was an extended stay,
And when it finally came home, that was a happy day.
Short-lived, however, was the joy in my heart,
For it had to go back--it was a mess!--and again it was taken apart.
This time I went along to show the guy my concern,
And he promised it would all be fixed by the time we would return.
We sailed right through the month of September,
And then it was ready to come home in October.
But we weren't home, we were California-bound
For our grandson's first birthday and our daughter's ultrasound!
Good news there--our first granddaughter was on the way,
And we came home to a fixed computer, fixed in almost every way.
But our Favorites list was wiped out, and I couldn't access this blog,
And with 14 coming for Christmas, my mind was in a big fog.
But before they all came, starting the 20th of December,
Our son moved his family from Hawaii to here in November!
They had eight days with us then moved to their Seattle home,
And my incredible joy can't be adequately expressed in this impromptu poem.
Such a memorable Christmas, all of us together here,
Including our two grandsons and each loved one we hold dear.
Two weeks of joyful times, they just went by too quickly,
And sadly, before they left, we realized we were really sickly.
So January was a time to work hard toward our healing,
Which was hard to imagine, considering how we were feeling.
But by the time the first of February rolled around,
We noticed our good health was on the rebound.
Thought surely in February I would return to my blogging ways,
But I was still cleaning up from Christmas, yes that filled my days.
Then lo and behold, three weeks early, quite a surprise,
Our granddaughter was coming, so we took to the road, not the skies.
Drove to California, hoping to make it straight through,
But we got incredibly sleepy so we stopped---what could we do?
An hour and forty-five minutes, that was the length of our rest,
Then we talked to our daughter, who was holding her daughter--oh, that is the best!
So back on the road, too excited to sleep, and eventually we were there,
Holding our precious granddaughter close and covering her with prayer.
Our time with her and her brother was beautiful, over before we knew it,
So hard to say goodbye, to leave, but we always have to do it.
Then March brought spring but way, way too much rain,
And back-to-back tragedies put us all in so much pain.
A Seattle TV helicopter crash took two lives and devastated another,
And four days later a massive landslide took so many others.
And as April arrived, with Easter just a few weeks away,
We want to be joyful, but still we need to reach out and to pray,
As searchers keep looking for victims hour by hour, day after day.
All over the area people are pulling together to see what they can do,
And we are all reminded that life is fragile, and our days could be so few.
So you see, Readers, these past eight months I haven't been vegging out,
I've been busy and involved in so many things I could easily blog about.
I'm back now for good since I figured out how to get in here,
Back to the blog, ready to write about the BVG's--never fear!
They've been up to their usual, with their usual flare,
So stay tuned for future posts--I can't wait to share!

Two Hands, One Heart

Cool's granddaughter was here from Arizona, and after making jewelry together, they honored my request for a picture of their hands. How awesome that they thought of this pose! Emma was with us when we celebrated her grandma's 60th birthday at Il Lucano in Gig Harbor. After lunch we took a little field trip, riding a trolley down to downtown Gig Harbor and back to the Park & Ride lot where we had left our cars. This wasn't my only time to see Emma while she was here. She was at church too, and after church a bunch of us always go for coffee at Cutter's Point. This time we planned ahead and each brought four quarters and I brought the ever-popular game, Left Center Right. It's a mindless game, and it is oh so much fun. When people play it for the first time they always look at us as if to say, "What a dumb game--I don't want to play." The fun is seeing the change in their attitude once we get playing, and Emma was no exception. I ever heard her say, "I like this game." Sorry to say she didn't win, but her grandpa did, so here's hoping he took her out for something special and spent his $10 in earnings on his granddaughter.

Grandchildren are a special kind of BVGO (Bethel Valley Girl Offspring). In fact, I'm going to make up a new category for them, right on the spot. They shall forever more be known as BVGOO (Bethel Valley Girl Offspring's Offspring). There are nine BVGO's, and there are 16 BVGOO's.

Alas, there are only four Bethel Valley Girls, and between us we have eight hands and one gigantic heart.

I heart the Bethel Valley Girls, and six hours from now we will be together at j's house, sipping, supping, smiling and supporting. Can't wait!

SMG's (BVG's: The Next Generation, Part Two)

Please refer to my post of February 5, 2013 for BVG's: The Next Generation, Part One. I was just looking aimlessly through past posts, got to that one, read it and knew I had to do an update, given the fun news my daughter shared with me last night. I wrote back then about her and her friends Nicole and Katie who live by her in San Mateo, CA. Since then, Nicole has given birth to her twin daughters, Genevieve and Mabelle. Nicole and her husband moved from their place in San Francisco to a darling Victorian just two blocks from my daughter and her husband. How fun it is for my daughter to have her dearest friend live so close with her two adorable twin girls, who are eight months younger than my grandson. Meanwhile, their friend Katie who I also wrote about back then shows no inclination to remarry or have children. But no worries, because something even more wonderful and amazing is happening.

First of all, let me shout it to the rooftops---because it's safe to do so in this private blog---that my daughter announced to us a week ago that she is pregnant again! We're not supposed to tell anyone because she isn't telling her brothers until they are all together in Hawaii next month. But they don't read this blog, in fact they don't even know it exists, so unless this blog suddenly goes viral, this 'secret' is safe. I'm thrilled, of course. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of me becoming a grandma for the first time, and my new motto is, "Keep those grandbabies coming!"

But there is something even more exciting to this story. Last night my daughter told me that her good friend Nidhi is also pregnant! They announced their pregnancies to each other at the same time. How fun it will be for them to be pregnant together. But the real kicker is the fact that Nidhi and her husband are looking for a place to live in San Mateo! They have a small apartment in the city (San Francisco), but now with the pregnancy and all they are choosing to move to where my daughter lives and where Nicole lives.

And I have a beautiful vision of the future, when my daughter and her two friends are at the park with their five (or more) little children. They will celebrate birthdays together, do preschool together, go to school together, and hopefully they will all play together on the tee ball team my daughter is going to coach.

And before they know it, in the blink of an eye, those children will be all grown up, off on their own, having their own children, and the SMG's (San Mateo Girls) will be sipping their wine and asking, "So, what's the latest on your grandchildren?"

May the SMG's be as close as the BVG's.........

Ode to Cool on Her 60th Birthday

Jokes about age can be kind of cruel,
And we could never do that to Cool.
This is the day that she turns sixty,
But truthfully, she doesn't look a day over fifty.
She still has dark hair--dark hair to DYE for--
And she has no afflictions--that she doesn't have medications for.
She still goes off to work each day in a hurry,
Anxious to put together yet another jury.
She's a wife, a mom, and a loving grandmother,
She's a friend, she's a sister, she's just not a brother.
She's the life of the party, so full of fun,
And when she smiles at you, you feel like you've been kissed by the sun.
She's not anxious to be the one that you laud,
But rather to hear you sing the praises of God.
So Cool, it's God we thank today for you,
And pray all His dreams for you will come true.
To be your friend is truly a pleasure,
And the bond of our Sisterhood is an incredible treasure.
So enjoy this sunny day and the hugs that are due,
With all our love we wish Happy Birthday to you!