50 Years in the Making

 On May 4, 1973 a package was mailed to me from Teaneck, New Jersey.  A brown envelope containing the makings of a wall hanging.  I was ambitious and worked at it diligently, even when I was at home raising my sons beginning in 1977.  In 1980 I finished the center and added the date.  I started grad school in 1985 and I think that is when work ceased.

Fifty years later, I have decided to finish the project.  I am not quite sure what I will do with it when I am done, but wish me luck.  I am more than halfway there.  Thirty minutes a day is my goal.  We'll see how it goes.

Discovering the Family Secrets

Family secrets were much easier to keep before DNA came along.  Especially readily available DNA.

I have over 700 names in my family tree.  Many of course are not direct relations, but people who married into the family.  And relationships are interesting.  The children of one of my second cousins are my first cousins.  No, not a typo.  The second cousin married my uncle.

I have spent hours researching family and where they came from.  I've discovered marriages and divorces I never knew about.  Name changes are enough to drive one crazy.  And I've discovered relatives I never knew I had and some relatives I thought I had may not be close relatives at all.

My Ancestry DNA has ove 14,0000 matches.  I've tried to just figure out who the fourth cousins and closer are.  But there have been many surprises. 

There is a second cousin once removed who I will not put in my tree.  After much sleuthing, she and I figured out that her mother was fathered out-of-wedlock by one of my cousins.  It was war time and I am sure a lot of that happened. Neither of us wants to cause any embarrassment, and she has been asked about it and has been vague in her answers to the family.  I am like a dog with a bone and wouldn't give up until I pieced it together.

OTOH, I found out today that my supposedly second cousin is a distant cousin and may not be a cousin at all.  I have long wondered why a relative who was in America in the 1880's would return to her home in Europe and remain for several years before returning.  She left here with her husband and daughter, but they returned here with a son in tow.  Now, through DNA, it appears that descendants of that child are related on her maternal side only, and distantly at that, if at all.  Did this person bring back an illegitimate child of a relative and raise him as her own?  I guess we will never know.  Family secrets.  If you are gone for more than two years and come back saying you had a child while you were gone, who would know?

Thanks to a distant cousin in Florida, I discovered that my great-grandmother had siblings (we are related though her father's family).  I had the address of a family in Pennsylvania that my mother corresponded with.  One of the those descendants had no idea who we were.  But once I had the name of a sibling, I found her coming to America to be with her sister, marry and have her family in PA.  I am kinda amazed that no one other than my grandmother and mother seemed to keep in touch with them.

There are very good reasons to ask questions and learn about family when you are younger.  One of my Canadian cousins has lived in New Zealand for many years.  She says she remembers me, but I am sure she has me confused with another cute cousin, lol.  We have been sending messages back and forth with her trying to figure out who she visited with in the 1960s in Detroit.  I am pretty sure it wasn't me.  But my memory of old family get togethers gets a little fussy after 70+ years. 

I am not sure there is much more I can learn without hiring an expert (pricey).  It still amazes me how families all seemed to be so close when I was growing up, but now we are spread all over the world.  We see each other rarely, if at all.  Then again, there are some I have no interest in seeing, lol.  Family secrets and all that.

Finding My Roots in the Frigid North

Hey.  I am still here.  I have not frozen yet, though as I sit here typing I must say that my fingers are cold.  The official temp right now outside is minus 9 F.  That is bone-chilling cold.  All the schools are closed, mail delivery has been cancelled and because of an explosion at a gas transmission center yesterday, we have been asked by the utility and the Governor to keep our thermostats at 65 F.  I normally keep mine at 66 F during the day and 62 F at night so, fortunately, I am used to cooler temps indoors.  I haven't left my house since Tuesday noon when I went out to bring the trash can back inside.  And then I nearly froze my face 'cause I forgot to wrap my scarf around thinking it was just a minute to walk to the street and back.  It looks nice out, but truly, looks can be deceiving.

So, what else have I been doing all month?  Finding my roots.  I have made inroads.  An Ancestry member in Australia sent me info from a Polish website and I have traced back to my paternal great-great grandmothers and grandfathers in northeastern Poland.  Finally, after much searching, my cousin in New York (who I never knew about until last year) and I figured out that our grandfathers were born in Zapieczne, Poland - a small village in the Lomza province.  Yes, Lomza, not Lodz as I was told, but one can understand the confusion.  We think they were first cousins based on family lore.  Unfortunately, folks who remember this connection, including my mother who kept in contact with his grandmother, are all deceased.  I am still hoping that an uncle may have some old family records from my grandmother.

My paternal aunt, who is 90, says she never really was interested in family history.  That just is mind-boggling to me.  I have had several people tell me they have no interest in who their ancestors were or where they came from.  To me, that is the epitome of thinking you are the most important person in the room, JMHO.

Anyway, I am making headway.  I found a distant cousin on my mother's side of the family who actually visited Cordenons, Italy to search old records.  Interestingly, he and I are not DNA matches, but I am a match to his brother.  He grew up in Fort Frances, Ontario, where my grandparents went when they came here from Italy (even though we have no Italian DNA, lol).

The search is made even more interesting by names.  Using the same first names for children born in each generation is a real nightmare on the English and Irish sides of my ex-husband's family.  In my family, it is the changing of a Polish first name from Wladislaw to 'Steve', 'Ladislaus', 'Walter', or whatever for example.  Then on the Italian side is the spelling of last names.  The Marius family in the USA is the Mariuz family in Canada.   I am thinking that the use of the letter 'Z' is more in keeping with the Hungarian background we seem to have.

And ages.  We always used to laugh about my paternal great-grandmother's age because no one seemed to know how old she really was.  Her funeral card says she was born in 1883.  If that were true, she would have been eleven when her first child was born.  I think not.  Going through old census records and her three immigration records of her arrivals in the USA (yes, she travelled back twice to Austria), it seems she was likely born in 1874, somewhere near what is now Nadolany, Poland in the southeast part of the country.  But hey, I also found older men who fudged their ages on marriage licenses when they were marrying younger women, lol.

One of my favorite shows is 'Finding Your Roots' on PBS.  Every week I am amazed at what celebrities find out about their past.  Often you hear a celeb say, 'I was told...'  NOT.  So, yesterday I called my sister and asked her where she heard that some members of my mother's family left Canada to go to South America.  She could not remember who said it, but does remember hearing it.  Well, I did too.  But, when I searched immigration records, I could find no evidence to support it.  I did find records showing them crossing from Fort Frances, Ontario, to International Falls, Minnesota.

So, did they go south to America? and not to South America?  Sure seems like it.

I hope to solve more mysteries about my roots.  I find it fascinating.   Already, one of my sons has had his DNA done.  I am thinking of using 23andMe to find more matches.  It is an adventure right on my computer and who knows what lies in store.  We'll see.

Thanks for stopping by and stay warm if you are living under this air mass that has broken off from the polar vortex.

Food for the Family

There was nothing traditional about this family Christmas feast.  But I did enjoy it.  I started with a cold app platter for the grandkids to munch on.  And munch they did.

Then we had hot appetizers.  I purchased small crab balls and made my own aioli, but the real hit was from Pillsbury.  Here is a link to their recipe for a pull-apart tree made with crescent rolls and Boursin cheese.  Not sure why I did not take a picture of mine.  It was really good.

The standing rib turned out very good.  I purchased it at Aldi and this was the first time I had ever shopped there.  I will certainly buy meat there in the future.  No pics of this either.

There was one goof with dinner.  Seems that if you put one of those frozen vegetable bags in the microwave upside down, they do not heat up.  Did not realize that was the likely problem until this morning.   We ended up making them on the stovetop.

And I made Yorkshire puddings for the very first time.  They tasted great with the horseradish mushroom sauce for the roast.

The purchased lemon cake was not appealing to me at all, but we still had cookies.  Here is the recipe for what turned out to be a near obsession with Mackenzie.  These are my Dried Cherry and White Chocolate Oatmeal cookies, pictured on the bottom.

Oatmeal, Dried Cherry, & White Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients:

2/3 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

2/3 cup light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour  (you make also use 1 cup flour with 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour)

1  tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

6 ounces dried cherries

2/3 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:

1.  Cream butter and sugar with electric mixer until well-combined.

2.  Add eggs and thoroughly mix.

3.  Add flour, oats, salt and baking soda and mix well but do not beat.

4.  Fold in cherries and chips.

5.  Refrigerate dough for one hour.

If baking immediately, preheat oven to 375 F.  Cookies can also be scooped and frozen for baking at a later date.

Scoop cookies using a tablespoon sized scoop or make balls about 1 1/2 inch diameter in size.  Place on parchment lined cookie sheets, two-inches apart.  Bake for 8-12 minutes.  All ovens vary so check after eight minutes.  You do not want to burn the bottoms.  They should be just barely firm to the touch when done.  Let cool on cookie sheets.

I hope you had an enjoyable day if you too were celebrating friends and family.

Wishing You a Merry Christmas

It wouldn't be a holiday on my blog if I didn't post my menu.  And share a few pictures.  The menu is as follows:

Veggie, grape and cheese Christmas tree

Crab balls with aioli

Crescent cheese tree

Standing rib with horseradish sauce

Pastitsio

Green beans with bacon and onions

Roasted carrots and squash

Popovers

Lemon cake with raspberry sauce

Cookies

One thing I have learned this holiday is that starting decorating early really relieves some of the hustle and bustle stress.  I also purchased frozen crab balls and the lemon cake.  As I get older I have tried to simplify my kitchen chores.  

I took a few pictures; the bookcase corner:

The Santa wreath:

And an early delivery from Santa:

Charlie reminded me that I needed to open the chimney (after he tried to look up it) to make sure that Santa could come down.  

It should be a fun day.  I hope yours is too.  I am just wondering how my grandparents ever managed Christmas with their family of seven adult children, eight grandchildren, plus assorted aunts and uncles.  As a kid I never realized how daunting it had to be to feed and entertain everyone.  There are things I remember including making kielbasa, egg noodles and pierogies at Grandma's house.

Merry Christmas

Pondering Before the Christmas Feast

Today is my day to do nothing more than vacuum the house.  Tomorrow I will bake the cookies I've stored in the freezer and do some food prep in advance of Tuesday.  It also is a day when I can sit here and think about the past year and all the stuff I did not blog about.

Like roundabouts.  They are going to construct another one here.  I hate them as many of you already know.  Most of the drivers in my community apparently cannot read and if they can they do not understand what 'yield to all traffic' means.  They think it means that if they pull out right in front of you and do not get hit that they have done okay.  I could go on, but why bother.  Although I have yet to figure out how you can have fewer fatal accidents at intersections where you never had any to begin with.

Two years ago around this time an elected Republican told me that I shouldn't worry too much about the newly elected POTUS as the party would rein him in and control him.  I'm still waiting for that posse with the horses and reins to appear.  What's up Shelley?

Climate Change.  Yeah, the climate changes.  Has been doing that for millions of years.  But I fail to see how folks can bury their heads in the sand and not think our way of life has something to do with it.  Nuf said.

On a more personal note, I said little or nothing about my yoga injury one year ago.  After much pain, tests and therapy it all comes down to degenerative disc disease in my spine which I have had for at least the last 20 years.  Started in my neck, but now is throughout the spine.  In the last ten years I have lost one and one-half inches in height.  Unfortunately, the associated weight does not just disappear, just compacts.  So, in the new year I will try to follow my Weight Watchers plan a little more closely.  Wish me luck.

And also personal, we had a death in the family last week.  An uncle who was 94 finally succumbed to old age.  That meant a trip to the funeral home for me, something I do not enjoy.  It also meant running into folks I had not seen since the last funeral on that side of the family - well, actually, my father's brother married my second cousin on my mother's side, so it's really both sides of my family.  Anyway, I had not seen their son since the 1960's.  Long story, but suffice it to say that he lives overseas and is no longer an American citizen.  You all should be very proud of me for not slugging this cousin, who I never liked in the first place, while I listened to him rant against Teresa May, Angela Merkel, Macron, the European Union, the Democrats and to cap it off telling me why we need to build a wall.  He said that folks need to have a job before they enter out country and I pointed out to him that none of our ancestors did.  Waste of time.  He also informed me that if European countries had not gone into Africa and conquered those countries, people there would still be living in huts.  That's when I decided it was time for me to leave.  I am sure they were just as happy with their huts as our Native Americans were happy living in tents and rock walls.  Conquering was never about making life better for the natives, but don't get me started.

And then yesterday, a call from American Express to tell me that someone had tried to make three purchases with my card.  A card that I keep at home and only use for online purchases.  Thank you American Express for your diligence.  I mean really?  Someone tried to purchase a Zoosk.com membership.

It is another gloomy day here, but today we will have more light than we had yesterday, which makes me very happy.  I have not gotten out my camera and taken any pictures yet, but Charlie has so here is one of the Christmas tree.  A little blurry, but not bad for a four year old.

Hanging in There

To everyone who wished that I would get better, Thank you.  Unfortunately, good wishes do not always work and I am still dealing with this sinus thingy.  We are now trying to knock it out with steroids.  Of course, the rainy weather is not helping and my trying to clean up the yard is not helping either.  It rained nearly everyday in October and more is coming tonight.

On the upside, I have had plenty of time to read.  If I finish the book I am currently reading, 'The Good Neighbor', it will be my 100th book this year.  Well, I am a fast reader. 

I got back to working on the ancestry of my ex-husband's side of the family.  Seems that the Harding clan, three brothers, came to America in September 1623 from Northamptonshire, England.  It was a Harding ancestor who married someone who descended from a Mayflower family and I have yet to find the right connection.  And then a Harding married a Hammond, but I need access to English records to find any more info on that.

And Ancestry.com let me know that they have refined by DNA results and guess what?  I am not Italian at all!!!  80% Eastern European, 8% Baltic states, 8% German and 4% French.  That is just hilarious.  We always joked about how well my mother cooked Polish food..  Well, maybe it was inborn since it seems her family likely came from Hungary and at some point moved to northeast Italy. 

Halloween came and went and not one neighbor kid rang the doorbell.  I think I will not even bother next year.  Here are my two little Halloween monsters:

 

And this was quite the surprise at Charlie's school:

Oh no.  Two Darth Vaders!

I have been adjusting myself to standard time over the last few weeks so I am not complaining about the time change on my blog.  I just complained on other blogs, lol.

I still have more of my trip to blog about.  Next up is Taos Pueblo.  Take care.

And Where Did You Come From?

As some of you know, I have been busy on Ancestry.com doing family history research.  My side of the family?  Well, pretty much done.

On my mother's father's side I got back to 1845 in Italy with the birth of my great-grandfather.  I do have the name of his father, but no dates to go with it.  On her mother's side, my second great-grandfather was born in 1808.  But all of these ancestor's lived in a country that did not unify as Italy until 1860.  Good luck searching records.

On my father's side of the family, his mother was born in Pennsylvania with both of her parent's immigrating from Polish Russia (no date established) and Polish Austria (1888).  I found my great-grandfather's and great-grandmother's parents somewhere around 1850, but no exact dates.  On the paternal side, my great-grandfather was born in Polish Russia around 1860.  There is no info further back than that.  My grandfather arrived here in 1913.

When I got to my ex-husband's family, what a revelation.  Now, my only interest in this is for my three sons.  I had a great relationship with my mother-in-law that continued even after my divorce from her son (which irritated my ex no end).

Once when we were talking she gave me some old family photos.  We got to discussing her family coming to America from Ireland, her father in 1888 and her mother in 1890.  Her parents married in 1901.  She mentioned that her mother was a distant relation to Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy and I have yet to work on that connection.

But, she also mentioned that my husband's father was related to President Warren G. Harding through his grandmother Barbara Capitolia Harding.  And so, that has been the connection I have spent hours trying to sort out.  Do you have any idea how many Hardings are out there?

First let me tell you that my ex-husband and President Harding were third cousins twice-removed.  And that is where the difficulty lies.  So many irrelevant names to search through.  But finally, after much perseverance I found the common ancestor, Amos Harding 1766-1839.  Among his many children were two sons, George Tryon Harding b. 1790 was my ex's 4th great uncle.  His brother Benjamin Franklin A. Harding b. 1802 was my ex's 3rd great-grandfather.

Three generations later:  Warren Harding is born in 1865 and my husband's grandfather is born in 1880.  And here he is, William Frank Hammond, Sr.:

In trying to find this connection I found the Harding relatives who fought in both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.  And apparently they originally came over on the Mayflower.  I have the Harding ancestor back to 1681, my ex's 7th great-grandfather, Stephen Harding, who was born in Providence, Rhode Island.  But then I found some conflicting dates and conflicting wedding records so I need to do some more careful research on his ancestors. 

I have to say this is absolutely fascinating.  My in-laws were separated when my husband and I started dating, so I really never spent much time talking to my father-in-law when we visited in Chicago.  And I know that he never got on with his older sisters so I am not sure how much info he would have provided about family history.  But interesting that my mother-in-law had some knowledge.

I just wish I had spent more time talking with my ancestors when they were still around to tell me stories of their early lives, though my Polish grandfather never did want to talk much about it.  I really should start writing down notes of what I remember and keep it with the family tree.

Have you ever researched your family?

P.S.  I just read that there are over 35 million descendants of the folks on the Mayflower.  Wish me luck, lol.

How's This for Dorky?

You know that I have been busy with finding my ancestors.  Now that I have about 320 in the tree, I have started putting names and faces together.  Now, there is no way I am scanning 70+ years worth of photos.  Just a select few for the tree.

But in looking through the old photos, sometimes you just have to sit back and laugh.  Here is a picture of my sister and I on Easter Sunday 1956 with my Dad in the background.  I do not remember that dress, but I remember the hat.  Dad is keeping a straight face, which is more than I can say for my face when I found this picture.  Go ahead, laugh.  It is good for your health.

July 3, 1969 London, England to July, 4 Detroit, Michigan

Shar and I left Vienna and flew to London together on Qantas Air.  I still remember the stewards in their tuxes serving tea from carts with silver service.  Oh my.

In London, Shar headed home and I stayed to find George.

First I had to get to a hotel.  Not so easy as there was a transit strike.  No busses or underground.  The line for taxis was long and folks were sharing.  I do not remember where I stayed other than that all the restaurants in the area served Indian food.

I had George's sister's phone number and I was able to reach her and explain who I was.  She invited me to her home.  That meant finding another taxi.

George and I met and I explained what had happened.  He and I went out to a pub in the area.  Believe it or not, this was not just a ship board romance.  George eventually came to America, he and Shar married, and when I read her death notice from 2014 I saw that they were still together with their children and grandchildren.

The next day I flew home, July 4, 1969.  Detroit was in the midst of a horrible thunderstorm.  Our plane had to circle for nearly an hour before we could land. 

I had sent my parents a telegram telling them when I would arrive. Unfortunately, my father had gone fishing in Windsor, so my mother had to call a Windsor relative and ask them to go to the river to find him and tell him to go to the airport.  Somehow it all worked out and he was there when I arrived.  On the way home, not only were the roads flooded, but so was our basement when we arrived.  What a welcome home! 

Expenses for the last two days were $75.87.  Flight arrangements, taxis, hotels, meals.  It was an interesting end to my trip.

Aftermath to follow.

Reasoning with a Four-year-old

We all know how hard it is to reason with some folks.  They are truly delusional in their beliefs and ideas.  And I find that I avoid those who do not agree with me cause I am just too old to spend my life trying to reason with idiots.  So, I spend three days a week with my four-year-old grandson Charlie.  I mean, I should have a good edge in the discussion, right?  Well, maybe not.  Here is a transcript of Monday.

Nana:  Charlie, your ear is red, your face is red and you are hot.  You need to take some Tylenol.

Charlie:  I don't need no Tylenol.

Nana:  The Tylenol will make you feel better.

Charlie:  I not sick.  French toast will make me feel better.

Nana:  Okay.  I'll make you French toast, but you still need to take some Tylenol.  You have a bug in your tummy.

Charlie:  (looking at Nana like she has lost her mind)  I not eat any bugs!

Nana goes off to the kitchen trying to contain her laughter and makes the French toast.  She comes back with French toast and some Tylenol liquid in the syringe.

Nana:  I made your French toast.  Open your mouth.  (Nana squirts the medicine into his mouth and tells him to swallow.)

Charlie:  (laughing)  You tricked me.

Nana:  (smiling)  You'll thank me for it.  Eat your French toast.

Fever was gone in about 30 minutes.

Charlie and his hero, Chewbacca

As Our Kids See Us

Recently I received an email about how our grandchildren view us.  It was quite cute.  What is more interesting is how our children perceive us.  I have been cleaning out closets and boxes of  'stuff'.  I must say it seems to be a never-ending task.  I have some folders where I used to save my children's stuff.  You know, the kinds of things boys, especially, do not bother with - certificates of achievement, congratulatory letters - and also personal info like vaccination records. 

I was going through the folder for my youngest son so that I can hand it off to him and amongst the old school papers he had written and I had saved, I found this item from probably first grade.  It is a cut-out of a woman and I am guessing it was done for Mother's Day.

The teacher had written on the front of the cut-out my son's description of me:

My mother is someone who is ...
20 years old
weighs 50 lbs
a good cook
likes...
playing outside in the park
to clean house
doesn't like..
sneak out cookies
Godzilla!

Now let's see, I was 34 when I had him and probably weighed 50 pounds in grade school.  He was a picky eater and hardly ever ate what I cooked.  Cleaning house has never been on the top of my list and likely I took him to the park to avoid doing so.  'Sneak out' cookies must have been the usual child theft from the cookie jar.  And I am not sure where the Godzilla reference comes from.

Truly his first work of fiction, LOL.

The Day After the Feast

Whew!  It must be old age.  Every year it seems it takes me longer to do less cooking.  Or, perhaps I have just learned how to space everything out so that it seems longer.  All the prep work.  I definitely need a shopper and a sous chef.  Anyway, I enjoyed the meal and I hope everyone else did too.

Recently, I have been looking at new construction in my area and all the homes and condos have the very much desired 'open floor plan'.  Now, I too have an open floor plan, but my kitchen is back in the corner and while it is visible from the front entry, it is not visible from the living areas, if that makes sense.  So, I took some photos of my home before and after the meal. 

Here is my view as I sit and eat:

And here is the view from the other end of the table:

That wall in the above photo separates the dining room from the kitchen.  I was told by a rep at one of the homes that no one wants a formal dining room anymore and that the china cabinet, which would have no place to go in the new home, was not something anyone used anymore either. 

Now imagine that the wall disappears.  My view stays the same.  Everyone else?  Well, behind the wall is the stovetop:

Doesn't look too bad cause the pans are already in the dishwasher.  (and yes, that is a TARDIS cookie jar) On the other counter is this:

I forgot to take a photo of the peninsula with all the hot food.  Now, I ask you:  'Would you want to look at this mess while you eat?'

I just do not get the fascination with a large open area with the TV, furniture for lounging, kitchen, a dining table and of course, the fireplace all in one room.  Who are these super neat cooks?   Or do they just order pizza?

I think I will keep my galley kitchen and peninsula.  Yes, you can't have everyone helping in the kitchen, but that has never been my problem, lol.  It is bad enough to know that you have to finish eating and then put leftovers in the fridge and do the dishes without having to look at the mess while you are eating.  OTOH, if it is only a pizza box....

Too much food?

Future Chef of America

 A nice cold glass of water to start

 Stir..

 And stir some more

 Lookin' good

Hey, Nana, I can see the zucchini in these muffins.

A Sunday Garden and a Grandson

Last year I blogged about my garden on every Monday.  This year I plan to blog on Sunday, but not quite as extensively.  I mean, really, how many flowers can one person look at?  Don't ask, LOL.

Spring is coming early and with it the rain.  Yesterday it rained and then the temperature hit 78 F at my home.  That is ridiculous.  But, it did make the flowers pop up.  Now I just have to pray we do not get a frost.

I actually have a lot of clean-up all ready done, but I am far from through with it.  I've decided to remove one of the large spruce trees that I have been trimming every year thanks to needle-cast disease.  After 44 years in the soil here it is going to come out because by the time we trim off all the dead branches we will end up with a tall trunk and branches on one side only.

So, now a few pictures.  Did I say we have had a lot of rain?  I still have puddles in my yard.  Charlie wanted to go outside and play one day and I told him it was raining.  He put on his jacket and I told him that wouldn't work 'cause it was raining too hard.  So...

he went and found my umbrella.  He still didn't get that Nana was not interested in splashing in the puddles, though we did splash when the rain stopped.

And speaking of Charlie, he is learning yoga, all on his own.  I am amazed at how he gets into positions.

Table position with leg lift and twist.
This past week he had a birthday, number 3.  Can you say excited?

Anyway, onto the flowers.  Right now all that is blooming are daffodils and squill, and not much of either.  One clump of daffs has no flowers at all!

Other plants are emerging nicely, but I still don't know how much I have lost.  Several hostas have crowns that are torn up by varmints.  Here is the bleeding heart which just flew out of the ground virtually overnight:

And so did this peony:

When I look out of my front door I can see flowering trees in the neighbor's yards:

Last year I always took a picture of the north garden from the view of the front gate.  This year I am going to do that again, but now with the view from the bridge in the back.  Here is what I am seeing this morning:

If I look at the garden from this area I do not see all the moss that I need to remove from the beds.  And I need to do it soon as the spores are forming already.  work work work.  A four-letter word if there ever was won.

Have a great Sunday.

Good Help is Hard to Find - or Not

It's the time of year when everyone is stressed - especially women who are trying to get the cleaning and cooking and shopping done, seemingly all on their own.  I saw this quote on Pinterest last night and I laughed out loud.  Yep, I remember those days.

I have never had household help other than someone to watch the kids if I had to go shopping (I hate screaming kids in the grocery store and yes, even the best behaved will scream at some point).  Once a babysitter cleaned my son's room while she was here.  I laughed and told her that was a complete waste of time, but thanks.

If you have raised kids, you know how difficult it can be to get them to do any chores.  But Charlie is on the right track, all of his own initiative:

Have a shower that needs cleaning?  Need to give the dog a rinse?  No problem.  Master Charles will take care of it.  Not sure how he got this idea 'cause he has never seen me clean the shower and my son says they do not have a squeegee.  

Somehow I doubt that when he is a teenager he will be interested in wiping down the shower walls.

Have a loose screw (or a screw loose)?  Charlie will take care of it with his handy-dandy plastic screwdriver.  Must be those episodes of This Old House I had on TV.

If you are cleaning leaves or weeds from the garden, Charlie will bring his little wagon for you to load.  And then dump it out after you fill it.

Don't cry over spilt milk Gramma (actually he calls me Bubba, which is just too funny), I've got it under control.

Hey, I heard all about how your Mother-in-law would check for dust when she visited.  I'm on it. These swiffer dusters are great!

This has been my little respite from holiday chaos.

Time on My Hands

This is something that does not happen very often - I actually I have nothing I need to do for the rest of the day.  Christmas-wise anyway, cause I could always clean out a closet.

I suppose if I were a person who kept a weekly schedule of chores, I would have something that I always did on Mondays - like dust or laundry.  But I do not believe in that kind of regimentation.  I have a  friend who told me that the only women who ever kept those kind of schedules are women who never worked outside the home.  But I didn't have one even when I was a stay-at-home mom for ten years.

But, back to today.  I had three phone calls to make this morning - one to schedule furnace maintenance, one to schedule my car for maintenance, and one to my broker to ask what a letter I received meant - and he had no idea - wonderful.  And that didn't take long.

Then I made up a large tray of cookies for the staff at the spa where I do my yoga.  I meant to take a picture of it - and forgot.  When I got back home after dropping it off, I realized that I forgot to put the chocolate covered apricots on the tray.  Guess I'll have to eat them myself.  While at the hospital I planned to check out the gift store, but it was closed - for maintenance - after a pipe froze on the floor above it and apparently caused quite the mess.  I am still wondering how a pipe freezes in a large hospital?  (it is 13 degrees F here, but still)

Obviously, I do not have Charlie this week - or next.  But I am used to doing my chores on the week-end, so today does not feel like Monday without him.  I did a fair amount of running around this weekend.  My gifts are all wrapped except for one that is being delivered today.  I have the train under the tree, but still have the village to set up.  Charlie will be here Thursday afternoon, so I will put it up after he leaves.

I have one more run to the grocer's to pick up the fixins for the salad.  I surely have forgotten something really important.  Or maybe this is how it works when you start all your Christmas stuff right after Thanksgiving - a first for me.

Christmas cookies 2014 - nope, I did not make this many varieties this year.  As a matter of fact, I only made the molasses cookies from that pic.  Later this week I'll make the lemon drops in the lower left corner.  If I make 20 dozen cookies, I want to eat 20 dozen cookies.

The Lost Plates

I mentioned in a previous post that I had some Christmas plates and that I had misplaced them.  I found them in a cabinet in the basement last summer (when I was complaining how hot it was, if only...).  After I wrote the post, I decided to go looking for them.  And they weren't there.  It was obvious that I had brought them upstairs, but for the life of me I couldn't remember where I stashed them.

Of course, something is always in the last place you would think to look which is why I found them in the bar cabinet under the cheese plates.  No idea why or when I did that.  Anyway, here is a pic:

The plates are from Lillian Vernon .  They are labelled Carrigaline Pottery, County Cork, Ireland.  As I recall (go ahead, laugh), I received a free plate after purchasing so many dollars in merchandise.  I will not even attempt to remember what I purchased from her.  I do remember receiving their catalog - long before I had a website to peruse.  And I am guessing that since they are dated 1978 and I put them away in 1980, I must have used them at least twice.

I enjoy having dated items.  My Christmas tree has a dated ornament for every year back to sometime in the 1970's.  I always say I am going to photograph them but then there are so many thing to do that it just doesn't happen.  I did take a few pics this year:

 1983, the influence of children in decorating

Perfect for the family cook

One of several glass ball ornaments that were issued each year.  This one is dated 1994 on the back.  I have seven of these for different years.

These are two from the same year, 1979.  I must have really been in the Christmas spirit.  Son Mark was 2 1/2 and Jason was 1.

Some years I could not find a dated ornament I really liked which is why this little mushroom house says 1978 on the bottom.  And then I have the complete dated Hallmark collection of the rocking horses - all 16 of them plus the special issue in 2013 for 40 years of memories.  Charlie loves rearranging these on the table as I obviously am not doing it right.  More pics when I have the time - lol.
And, I also figured out why the colors on my photos were always 'off'.  It seems that I inadvertently changed the setting a long ways back.  Sometimes I could correct in the editing program, other times I just gave up.  Here is a pic of my front arrangement that is more true to life:

So, Christmas is one week away?  Are you ready?  I always say if something doesn't get done, no one is likely to notice but you.  Then again, my kids asked if I was making my lemon snowball cookies and I said no.  Guess who is baking more cookies later this week.

Tree Number Four

I just realized that this year all four Christmas trees are in the same room.  The last one is up and Charlie found the ornaments interesting.

I still have enough ornaments to decorate another tree.  And that is after clearing out many of them a few years ago and donating them.  I was quite spartan with the ornaments though this year.  I wanted each of them to stand out on their own.  Now, I get to enjoy the decorations for a few weeks.
The only thing left to do is put out the village.  But that will go on the table where Charlie has his train, so it will have to wait until my babysitting ends for the holidays.  I have a train to put under the tree and can't wait to see his face when he sees it.