You know how life sort of catches up with you. That happened this week.

Hello everyone.

Sorry for not posting for a while, my life has been a little busy.

3 weeks ago my doctor decided to try a new drug to help with the pain of Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Well, new to me anyways.

Nothing else he had tried worked and gave weird side effects. So I started getting shots once a week. This week I learned to give them to myself.

This isn’t as good as it sounds, I’m terrified of needles. Since I always managed to not look as the needle went in I was ok with the shots. Now I have to watch the stupid thing go in and next week I will do it at home. Not fun.

I figured why should I go to the clinic where there are sick people sitting breathing all over everything. I would probably get what ever it was they had. So will do it myself at home. Heck what can go wrong, stick myself too deep and have a bruise for a while, or stick myself too shallow, and have the stuff run down my leg. Well I hope that is all that can go wrong.

Got up the day after the shot and went outside after an ice storm and tried to feed the birds. Its April and we have ice, you have to love living in Northern Ontario. Right then the neighbours cat ran out from under the utility trailer, hit my feet and down I went. Knocked myself senseless for a few minutes and could not get back up, so there I sat wondering what to do. My neighbour came home and I managed to get her attention, she got me on my feet and into the house.

Thank heavens for neighbours, since my husband had worked a night shift and was sleeping. He is also deaf, so even if he was awake he wouldn’t know I was hurt and would continue to work at his computer. Remember in Anne of Green Gables when Miss Cordelia kept saying ‘Just like a man’, well that is how I felt that day. Just like a man to not be handy when he is really needed. Oh well I survived it and was stiff the next day, but able to move and do a few things.

Fortunately for me, the shots are working and now I’m knitting for my grandchildren again. I started a month before Christmas making Barbie Doll clothes for my granddaughter. She is 5 and has decided to be a girl again. She didn’t want to be a girl because boys got to play with better toys. Glad she changed her mind because she let her hair grow back after cutting it herself, and she has beautiful hair.

Like I said I started knitting barbie clothes, so my granddaughter has quite a nice wardrobe for her 3 barbies. Her other grandmother bought her a new barbie, and we had sent 2 plus a Ken doll. With so many barbies, I asked her if she needed more outfits. She said not really, unless I really really wanted to make more, in the tone of voice that means they Really, Really want it, but are trying not to be greedy.

I told her I wanted to do it, and she promptly informed me that Barbie”s favourite colour was pink. After making a few more pink things for her birthday in February, I was addicted to knitting little things. And I do mean little. I made panties, socks, hats dresses skirts and tops of all sorts in all different colours and yarns. Little girls can only use so many of these so I have been knitting lots of extras and will donate them to the toy drive next Christmas.

One dress takes a golf ball size ball, now every knitter I know saves me the ends of the yarn once they’re done with their big projects. If I don’t keep up with the knitting I am going to have to move to a bigger house. Luckily for me the site I found the patterns on has lots of different ways to make similar things different or it could get  boring.
If anyone is interested in knitting or crocheting for barbie here is the site.

The reason I mention the knitting I am doing is because it is one way I try to stay in the lives of my grandchildren. Being a long distance grandma is not easy for me. I would much rather have them close enough to bake them cookies and hear their tales every day, or at least every week. But the 2 boys and one girl live 10 hours away, and the little girl you see featured in my  son’s part of the blog is in China. We’re in Northern Ontario Canada.

I see the youngest one on the computer a lot, since each of us have skype. I sing songs to her and talk with her a lot and it helps most of the time. Sometimes though I think it is that much harder than not seeing her, but I would not enjoy not seeing her at least once a week. She now recognizes my voice and it is fun to see her sweet smile as she tries to find me on the computer screen.

My eldest grandson Sean has his own web site. It amazes me the things he does, because he is only 10 and I keep thinking in terms of when his father was 10. He knew how to use computers, but I don’t think making web sites was around or at least as easy as it is now only 25 years later. Technology is wonderful and becoming more so.

My youngest grandson is 4 and into trucks. Well trucks that talk are his favourites right now. One year we bought him a talking dump truck, and last year we got him the talking garbage truck called Stinky. Finding these new toys is kind of an adventure in itself. We live in a small mining town, so have to go to the city for toy shopping. We hit a store and asked if they carried a talking dump truck. No luck with 6 different  stores that time. For Stinky we lucked out at the first one.

Then it was on to finding Barbie stuff. What an assortment they had, but no clothes. That is when I decided to knit them. finding patterns was so hard until I thought of online things and found that great site which has the added benefit of being free. So its a nice hobby, a great present and cheap. What more can you ask for?

The eldest likes to read and enjoys books on mythology. This years Christmas buying has already started at a great used book store. I found an adventure story with mythological figures. I read it and I think he will enjoy it a lot. I hope so anyways, since next week when we go back I will buy a couple more by the same author. Books I understand since my husband and I read constantly and brought up both boys with a love for books. Used to have to kick them out of the house because they would rather read than go play with their friends more often than not.

If anyone has more ideas on how to stay present in the lives of your grandchildren I would love to hear them. As you can read here I love mine and miss staying in touch with them on a regular basis.

What do you do when they come for visits or when you visit with them?

How do you interact with your childrens wives or husbands and not step on toes or feelings?

How do you deal with political correctness when you are around the younger generation?

These are questions we have to face and I will try to answer some of them with my experience which sometimes is not correct.

As I said life sometimes catches up and sometimes passes us but I will try to keep writing here on a regular basis and make some new friends with doing this.

Have a great day and talk with your grandchildren maybe even their parents.