When I was a kid my grandmother was not what you might say would be a fine example of a contemporary woman. She was old school. She grew up on a farm that had an outhouse for a toilet, and the kitchen stove was fueled by wood they had to cut or gather for themselves. In fact, that old wood cook stove and oven combination heated most of their house. Now I grew up with microwave ovens, VHS tapes and designer sunglasses. My grandmother is a little passed 90, but she is still going strong. When she turned 75, she started to get into fashion and technology.

So, my grandmother about 15 years ago decided to color her hair, get a little botox, start wearing makeup and got a cell phone and a computer. Now at 92 she is net savvy, orders online about once a week, has never fell for a phishing or Nigerian prince email scam, and she wears designer sunglasses and carries a designer purse! She can run circles around her great grand children’s knowledge of Virtual Private Networks and social media security risks, and they come to her to prevent committing fashion faux pas.

Don’t get me wrong. Grandma has always been smart, she just was slow to adopt newer things back then even though she worked for one of those government agencies that have a name you say with three letters. She retired with honors, and even had some field experience taking down bad guys by pointing guns at them. When she retired was the time when computers were really getting into daily use at her work. She easily assimilated their use, but she fell away from that stuff when she retired.

Then ten years into her retirement she got bored. That was what fueled the transition of grandma. Boredom got her interested in not only botox, colored hair and designer sunglasses-that she says helps hide those crow’s feet-but she got interested in travel too. Right now she is somewhere in Australia leasing a place for us and the kids to visit when winter begins to rage in this northeastern state where we live.