GOOD MORNING ☀️

How are you today? I've been sending this email out for about 13 months now. It's been quite a challenge but also so rewarding to meet so many other grandmas.

I hope you're enjoying it - here's to the small joys of life. God bless!

​9 Ways Your Grandkids Transport You To A Different Time (In All The Best Ways)​ Have you ever looked at your grandchild and felt transported to a different time? No, it wasn’t just your imagination... ​See Article

​The Coziest November Reads to Share with Your Grandchildren - I Love #4!​ While you cannot go wrong with anything you read with your grands, I wanted to share a few of my favorites that make for the coziest November nights. See The Books

❤️ TODAY'S SPONSOR: ZQuiet ❤️

My husband's snoring sounds like a freight train going through the room some nights. So, when I learned about ZQuiet, it goes without saying he had to give it a try.

It's just a simple mouthpiece that so happens to bring back peace, quiet, and actual rest. And right now, you get free shipping on any order over $25. Savings and sleep? This is speaking my language. 😂

🗨️ CONVERSATION OF THE DAY

Ask your grandchild: how's your friend, (insert name), doing lately? Anything new with him/her?

📚 STORY OF THE DAY

Title: Last on the Swing

In the waning light of a gentle afternoon, nestled in the corner of an overgrown park, a lone swing creaked. It was a relic from a different time, painted in cheerful colors now faded and chipped. The park, once the heart of laughter and childish yells, was silent, save for the rhythmic sighs of the old swing.

Maggie, wrapped in a shawl against the autumn chill, made her way to the swing each day. The other grandmothers in her circle clucked their tongues, puzzled by her attachment to a place no longer visited by the echoes of children. But for Maggie, the empty swing wasn't a symbol of absence but a vessel of stories, of joy once shared.

Years ago, it was on this very swing she had lifted her granddaughter, Ellie, into the air, pushing her towards the sky as if she could touch the clouds. "Higher, Gran!" Ellie would squeal, and Maggie, with a laugh, would oblige.

Today, Maggie sat on the swing, the cold metal a stark contrast to the warm memories. Ellie was grown now, living in a far-off city, chasing dreams that stretched beyond the reach of this old park. The distance was a quiet ache, a space of unspoken longing, filled only with brief calls and hurried messages.

Closing her eyes, Maggie leaned back, feeling the gentle sway of the swing. She whispered to the breeze, a silent message of love and hope, imagining it carried away to brush against Ellie's cheek, a phantom kiss.

A sudden weightlessness, a feeling of being lifted—Maggie's eyes snapped open. The swing was moving, pushed by a stranger—a young woman with a familiar gleam in her eyes. "I've missed this," the woman said, and Maggie's heart stuttered. Ellie. It was Ellie, standing there, her hands pressing the swing, closing the distance of years and miles.

The surprise visit, a spur-of-the-moment decision after Ellie had found an old photo of the park, was a balm to Maggie's soul. The afternoon stretched into evening as they talked and swung, the years peeling back to reveal the unchanging bond between them.

As the sky darkened, Ellie wrapped her arms around Maggie. "I didn't realize how much I missed this... missed you," she whispered. In that embrace, on the last swing in the park, the silence was broken, not by the return of childish laughter, but by the shared tears of reunion, a mingling of past joy and present happiness that watered the roots of their enduring connection.

And the old swing, witness to the passage of time, creaked a lullaby of continuity—a reminder that no matter how far we go, the heart always swings back home.

📷 PHOTO OF THE DAY

An old shoemaker shop from many years ago. The shoe repairman was a stable of most towns for so long.

📅 ON THIS DAY

(1976) The classic movie from 1939, Gone With The Wind, made its broadcast view on NBC. 65% of all TV viewers on those two nights watched it!

🤣 BAD JOKE OF THE DAY

My husband hated his beard at first.

But it's growing on him. 😂

Why you received this email: You are receiving the Devoted Grandma newsletter because you signed up on Facebook or the Devoted Grandma website. Thank you for supporting me as I try to bring a little brightness to your morning.