Life with Nin

About

My name is Carol, although since I’ve become a grandmother, I’m called Nin.  Please read my opening blog post, What’s in a Name, for that story.  I started this blog for a variety of reasons.  When we only had one granddaughter and she and her parents had an apartment, I was fairly faithful about keeping a journal for her of all the small milestones and memories of her as a little one.  After we combined our households and a second granddaughter arrived, I found that being a full time grandmother with a daughter who works 40 hours a week left precious little time for writing anything.  I love being involved and available to the girls for most of their waking hours, but memories and milestones were piling up for both girls.  No one had time to document them.  And then there are all the photos, thanks to digital cameras.  Friends and family, most of whom live at least a thousand miles or continents away – my son-in-law is from New Zealand – were missing everything.  Letters and e-mails are left unwritten as instead I read stories, play legos or try to get meals on the table, laundry washed and life’s minimal maintenance done.  I hope this blog will fill in some of those holes.

But I don’t only intend to write about the joys of being a grandmother and the wonderful things the girls are doing, although sometimes those are the easiest posts to write.  My life’s journey to date has taken me to 43 of our 50 states and I’ve lived for three or more years in six of them, from the Middle Atlantic to the Pacific Northwest, Midwest to the South and, hopefully, before too many more years, New England.  I’ve spent over three months tethered to one tiny life in the NICU 26 years ago and moved my over 90 year old Mother first into assisted living (6 years ago) and then to skilled nursing for as many years as we are granted.  I homeschooled our two children through high school, following a child led approach usually termed unschooling (see link for a good introduction to unschooling; I’ll be posting some of my articles about unschooling as time permits), and am beginning that adventure again with my grandchildren.  I write, sew and quilt, knit and crochet, bake bread from scratch, make soap and candles, paint fabric, cross stitch and try to walk softly on the little piece of earth in my sphere of influence.

Next up is starting a business and learning to spin.