"Googie's Attic": Time To Hang It Up?

"Googie's Attic" has been a big part of my writing life since the first post on March 9, 2011. This writing marks my 312th piece exploring and sharing the like-no-other experience of being a grandma--"Googie"--to six great kids.

When I started the blog, there were only three of them. Sooby, now going on twelve, was just three and a half. Pooh was two, and Bootsie was just five months old. The blog is a record of the last eight years of our living, loving, and laughing together.

From the start, I envisioned "Googie's Attic" as a place the kids can go when they are older to "rummage through" the trinkets and mementos of a time they will have been too young to remember vividly. For instance, how did we celebrate Pooh's third birthday?  What cute things did Bootsie say when she was learning to talk? The rummaging has already begun, as all three of them now read the blog for themselves.

Then, as I continued to chronicle, three more grandchildren, all boys, joined the subject matter. Beenie, Zoomie, and Heero are now seven, six, and five years old. With Heero's fifth birthday in November, all the kids are now school-age. They are getting old enough to remember the family celebrations we have on their birthdays and holidays. They aren't going to need "Googie's Attic" to do that for them.

As blogs go, "Googie's Attic" isn't very fancy. It isn't monetized with advertising. It uses a standard Blogger template rather than an elaborately designed web page. The first year and a half or so, there weren't even any pictures. It is just a series of writing-heirlooms that I have tucked away primarily for the kids, but always, hopefully, with a sense of the larger audience of extended family, friends, and general readers who also stumble across and follow it.

It was especially with Heero's fifth birthday that I began to think seriously about closing the treasure chest that is "Googie's Attic." I am doing more poetry now, and lake life makes for a rich, full existence. And so, I ask myself, Has "Googie's Attic" run its course? Is it time to hang it up--or, at least, post much less frequently? Is it time to softly close the lid of the chest, turn out the light, and walk away?

No.

Why?

Because we have just learned that, in early October, we are expecting another grandchild. Sooby, Pooh, Bootsie, and Zoomie are preparing to add a little sibling. I know it is not a dream because I have already pinched myself numerous times.

On May 15, I should know whether future posts will be tinted pink or blue. Meanwhile, the saga of the other six continues, and I drift off to sleep smiling every night.

 

The Brunch Bunch

I love it when a plan comes together. Such was the case with a rather impromptu St. Patrick's Day brunch that granddaughters Sooby, Bootsie, and I pulled off several weeks ago.

I use the word "plan" loosely--I have to. The truth is, when our whole family gathers for a meal together, anything resembling a plan has to stretch or contract, like a rubber band, to fit the moment. This makes the whole thing crazy and fun--but, on a positive note, people rarely go away hungry.

When all of us are present, including Mom (our family matriarch), we are thirteen strong. When we are all hungry--and six of us are growing children ranging from five to eleven years old--you can see how we may be talking major amounts of food and considerable effort to get everything ready at once within the confines of our basic household kitchen.

So as a record to refer to for next year's now-annual spring family brunch, I list below our menu items and the amounts of each needed to replicate this year's success. Doing this will help us know from the outset how much food we can expect to consume, and, should you find yourself in charge of preparing a brunch for 12-15 hungry people, it will give you a place to start as well.

Just as important as the brunch ingredients is some attempt at attention to the time schedule and, at the risk of sounding like a math person, "the order of operations." Planning to serve our meal at 10 a.m. again next year, the girls and I will begin cooking the meat about 9.

Here, Sooby tends to a griddle full of bacon and sausage, while Bootsie prepares a skillet full of sausage.

Along with supervising them a bit, I put together a bowl of fruit. With the meat cooked and in the warmer, we could then clear space and recycle utensils for the next phase.

If you are brave enough to try this, assuming you have access to help as great as mine was, here is our menu list and the amounts we are projecting for next year:

• 2 lbs. bacon
• 2 nine-packs sausage patties (or about 1 1/2 pounds if you make the patties yourself)
• fruit salad (2 cans mandarin oranges, 2 cans pineapple chunks, 2 sliced bananas, 1 pt. sliced strawberries)
• 2 cans (8 each) large buttermilk biscuits (dairy case)
• enough 2% milk, flour, and sausage grease for a skilletful of gravy (you are on your own here--I have never measured these precise amounts)
• 2 dozen scrambled eggs (requires two skillets or two rounds of cooking)
• 2 cans of dairy case cinnamon rolls (bake and ice these before you bake the other biscuits)
• 2 1/2 gallons of orange juice
• 1 jar of apple butter (or use your favorite jelly or jam)

There. I am proud to report that our serving line opened at 10:10, only ten minutes late, but everything was delicious. 

With our own kids and now our grandkids, we have come to treasure family traditions marked by the seasons and holidays of our year. We love our Easter egg hunt (coming up this next weekend), our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, our birthday parties, and our fall afternoons roasting hot dogs around the fire pit.

And now we have a spring brunch to add to our list. My mouth waters with the menu I just typed, and I am already looking forward to the next one.