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One grandmother has found a way to help her daughter out from miles away.

This tech-savvy grandma can tell you all about AutoRap and JibJab.

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For Lisa Carpenter, the day her daughter announced her pregnancy was both amazing and heartbreaking.

Lisa was thrilled to become a grandmother and wanted to be in her grandson's life — but her daughter lived more than 800 miles away.  

"They had our first grandson [Brayden] in 2008," Lisa says, "which was fabulous news when they announced the pregnancy but horribly hard on my heart as I simply could not comprehend how I would survive as a long-distance grandma."


Lisa, Jim, and their three daughters. All images via Lisa Carpenter, used with permission.

Lisa and her husband, Jim, settled in Colorado Springs after their wedding 35 years ago.

They raised their three daughters — Brianna, Megan, and Andrea — with the majestic beauty of Pikes Peak as the backdrop to their lives. While two daughters settled close to home, one moved to Arizona and started her own family there.  

As their kids got older, Lisa and Jim faced what so many others have: a family that’s spread out and grandkids who are too far away to see often.  

Brayden, Camden, and Declan pause playtime for a quick photo.

Refusing to let distance prevent her from building a relationship with her grandkids, Lisa turned to tech to bridge the gap.

As part of her coping mechanism, she started blogging about her experience. Eight years later, she's built a community and inspires other grandparents to find inventive ways to connect with their long-distance grandkids.

First, she started with Skype. But when baby #2 was born, the joy of Skype was quickly overshadowed by a basic challenge: How do you get two kids to sit in front of a screen for any significant period of time?

Enter: FaceTime.

"FaceTime is much easier," Lisa says. "Now all three boys can take turns with the phone with Gramma and PawDad [the name one grandson gave his grandad when he got a bit mixed up trying to say grandpa]. Sometimes we see a lot of ceilings as they walk around the house talking, or they don't quite get their faces on the screen and it's an arm or belly we're viewing."

A little FaceTime action.

She gets to pitch in and take some pressure off her daughter, too. "We typically FaceTime while mom's making dinner so it keeps them busy while she's prepping," Lisa explains.

The phone gave Lisa a lifeline to remain involved as a long-distance grandparent.

She receives texts often, with photos of the boys around the house. And it’s not a one-way street: Lisa and Jim use apps like JibJab to make little videos and show the kids that grandparents can be silly, too. She even persuaded 9-year-old James, her oldest daughter’s stepson, to remix "Old MacDonald" with her using AutoRap.

Lisa and James share a sweet moment.

Still, there have been challenges.

"I would like to Skype, FaceTime, just plain talk on the phone more often than works for my daughter's schedule," Lisa shares. "I was first offended by that and it took me a bit to realize I need to be considerate of the time it takes to interact from afar."  

Brayden, Camden, and Declan cheesing during Easter festivities.

Now, instead of being frustrated, Lisa appreciates the time that her daughter puts in to keep her connected with the little ones in between visits.

Hiccups aside, maintaining a digital connection has been incredibly rewarding.

When her youngest grandson was causing mild mayhem during his brother’s baseball game, it was grandma to the rescue. Her daughter let him FaceTime with Lisa, and from 800 miles away, she gave her daughter the break she needed to watch her other son play.

James has a model moment.

But her favorite memory is of a little message her middle grandson shared. He left her a ToyMail message — they call them "snorts" — that said "Hey, Gramma! I hope you're having a good day! Love ya!"

"That was it. And that made my day," says Lisa.

Lisa and Jim get some in-person time with the three boys.

Lisa — and the many grandparents like her — are proof that the stereotype of the tech-illiterate grandparent is more than a little outdated.

"Being able to stay in touch from afar is the only way I survive as a long-distance grandmother," says Lisa. "I know some grandparents who move to be near their grandkids, and that's something my husband and I simply won't do for a variety of reasons."

"Having the ability to FaceTime and text and share this and that via various apps and such keeps me from regretting that decision, keeps me feeling like a relevant — and remembered — force in the lives of my beloved grandsons."

Correction 5/25/2017: Daughter Brianna's name has been corrected.

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Making new friends as an adult is challenging. While people crave meaningful IRL connections, it can be hard to know where to find them. But thanks to one Facebook Group, meeting your new best friends is easier than ever.

Founded in 2018, NYC Brunch Squad brings together hundreds of people who come as strangers and leave as friends through its in-person events.

“Witnessing the transformative impact our community has on the lives of our members is truly remarkable. We provide the essential support and connections needed to thrive amid the city's chaos,” shares Liza Rubin, the group’s founder.

Despite its name, the group doesn’t just do brunch. They also have book clubs, seasonal parties, and picnics, among other activities.

NYC Brunch Squad curates up to 10 monthly events tailored to the specific interests of its members. Liza handles all the details, taking into account different budgets and event sizes – all people have to do is show up.

“We have members who met at our events and became friends and went on to embark on international journeys to celebrate birthdays together. We have had members get married with bridesmaids by their sides who were women they first connected with at our events. We’ve had members decide to live together and become roommates,” Liza says.

Members also bond over their passion for giving back to their community. The group has hosted many impact-driven events, including a “Picnic with Purpose” to create self-care packages for homeless shelters and recently participated in the #SquadSpreadsJoy challenge. Each day, the 100 members participating receive random acts of kindness to complete. They can also share their stories on the group page to earn extra points. The member with the most points at the end wins a free seat at the group's Friendsgiving event.

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Education

3,700-year-old Babylonian stone tablet gets translated, changes history

They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.

via UNSW

Dr. Daniel Mansfield and his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia have just made an incredible discovery. While studying a 3,700-year-old tablet from the ancient civilization of Babylon, they found evidence that the Babylonians were doing something astounding: trigonometry!

Most historians have credited the Greeks with creating the study of triangles' sides and angles, but this tablet presents indisputable evidence that the Babylonians were using the technique 1,500 years before the Greeks ever were.

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Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Van Gogh’s Starry Night.



Van Gough never got to enjoy his own historic success as an artist (even though we've been able to imagine what that moment might have looked like). But it turns out that those of us who have appreciated his work have been missing out on some critical details for more than 100 years.

I'm not easily impressed, OK?

I know Van Gogh was a genius. If the point of this were "Van Gogh was a mad genius," I would not be sharing this with you.
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Christine Kesteloo has one big problem living on a cruise ship.

A lot of folks would love to trade lives with Christine Kesteloo. Her husband is the Chief Engineer on a cruise ship, so she gets to live on the boat pretty much for free as the “wife on board.” For Christine, life is a lot like living on a permanent vacation.

“I live on a cruise ship for half the year with my husband, and it's often as glamorous as it sounds,” she told Insider. “After all, I don't cook, clean, make my bed, do laundry or pay for food.“

Living an all-inclusive lifestyle seems like paradise, but it has some drawbacks. Having access to all-you-can-eat food all day long can really have an effect on one’s waistline. Kesteloo admits that living on a cruise ship takes a lot of self-discipline because the temptation is always right under her nose.

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Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Women do better when they have female friends.

Madeleine Albright once said, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." It turns out that might actually be a hell on Earth, because women just do better when they have other women to rely on, and there's research that backs it up.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that women who have a strong circle of friends are more likely to get executive positions with higher pay. "Women who were in the top quartile of centrality and had a female-dominated inner circle of 1-3 women landed leadership positions that were 2.5 times higher in authority and pay than those of their female peers lacking this combination," Brian Uzzi writes in the Harvard Business Review.

Part of the reason why women with strong women backing them up are more successful is because they can turn to their tribe for advice. Women have to face different challenges than men, such as unconscious bias, and being able to turn to other women who have had similar experiences can help you navigate a difficult situation. It's like having a road map for your goals.

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via Pexels

Millennials are now old enough to seriously reflect on life.

It seems like only yesterday a millennial was a college kid that baby boomers chided for being entitled and Gen Xers thought were way too sincere and needed to learn how to take a joke. Today, the oldest millennials, those born around 1980, have hit their 40s and have lived long enough to have some serious regrets.

They also have enough experience to take some pride in decisions that, in hindsight, were the right moves.

The good news is that at 40 there is still plenty of time to learn from our successes and failures to set ourselves up for a great second half of life. These lessons are also valuable to the Gen Zers coming up who can avoid the pitfalls of the older generation.

A Reddit user who has since deleted their profile asked millennials nearing 40 “what were your biggest mistakes at this point in life?” and they received more than 2,200 responses. The biggest regrets these millennials have are being flippant about their health and not saving enough money when they were younger.

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A woman giving a stern warning.

Over the past few years, women named Karen have taken a lot of heat in the media. The term "Karen" has been used to describe a specific type of entitled, privileged and often middle-aged white woman. Typically, "Karen” is depicted as demanding, self-important and constantly seeking to escalate minor inconveniences to authority figures, like demanding to "speak to the manager."

Identifying the folks who create unnecessary drama in our world is important. But calling them a “Karen” isn’t the best way to solve the problem. There are many reasons to have an issue with the “Karen” stereotype. First, it’s terrible for people named Karen, and it’s also a connotation that many feel is racist, sexist and ageist.

Further, according to a new study by Trustpilot, the stereotype isn’t accurate. A recent survey by the online media site found that the people who leave the most one-star reviews aren’t female, and the women who do it the most aren’t named Karen.

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