Every thirty years

One of my husband’s uncles was a family genealogist like I am. 

At least thirty years ago he organized his materials, typed/copied/distributed his research work. 

In those papers, one page talked about the contemporary family. It was first name and birth year only. 

At the wedding in Chicago in October, one of the oldest members of the family asked for that one page to be expanded/updated. 

I volunteered. 

It was been quite the project. Frankly it would never have occurred to me to do this. But it is an extremely valuable collection of data. Consider the records a family would have if every 30 years someone updated/recorded. 

There are now 58 members on this side of the family starting with my husband’s father and two uncles, and including their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and all the spouses. This 58 does not include the short term spouses of two of the 11 cousins. Both guys are embarrassed by these marriages. I was willing to let them go, a marriage of just a couple months with no children, okay. 

I am including full names, birthdates/locations, parents names, spouses full names/birthdate/location/parents names/mother’s maiden names, wedding date/location, and educations for everyone. I have everyone’s high school name/location/graduation year. And I have everyone’s college name/location, degrees and graduation years.

As I gathered information and typed, I sent screen shots to the specific individuals to proof. 

This is all rolled into a pdf to send to the extended family. 

This project has also updated my address book greatly, which added names to my holiday card list. So we are better in touch with extended family. 

Shutterfly policy change

 I received an email from Shutterfly, last week, warning me of an important policy change. 

This is very major for me. Shutterfly is one of my backup photo storage places. 

Instead of getting irritated, I did my photo holiday card from start to finish on that Friday. And my plan is to order from Shutterfly every year, so I have an automatic order every 12 months. 

I ordered 120 custom 5”x7” cards with envelopes with free shipping. They should arrive today.

I think, this is the least I have spent for the most amount of cards. 

I did not special order rounded corners. I did not special order photo/print on the back. I did not special order off white stock/envelopes.

Having a total of four photos and very limited text on the front was helpful. I had to edit my text very tightly to convey our year in about 105 total words, including greeting and signature. 

I embraced the editing challenge and am very pleased with the card order. 

Using the $5, not spending more, not adding clutter

We do our Amazon returns at Kohl’s. Each time we return something we get a $5 coupon. 

I know the Kohl’s marketing plan is give customers a $5 coupon and they will wander the store looking for something and end up spontaneously buying all kinds of things. 

I do not fall for that. 

But I take advantage of the $5. 

The gift wrap section is right next to Customer Service at my Kohl’s. It is also a store location that is very easy for me to use/close to my house, with a good/safe/not busy parking lot. 

This is what I buy with my coupon each time. 

It uses up most of the $5 without going over. I buy a generic print and color each time, not event specific. The girls and I use the tissue paper with gift bags. 

The transaction adds very little time to my trip, like under five minutes to grab two packages of tissue paper and check out. 

Someone not wanting tissue paper could use this same philosophy with socks or hair accessories or greeting cards. 

Marine vinyl

We have a large window in our living room that the puppies love. 

Early on, I bought marine vinyl to protect the cushion on that window seat. The cushion protects the wood from the puppies’ nails. 

Marine vinyl is the stuff used to make seat cushions on boats. It is thick/sturdy, water proof fabric. I bought it at JoAnn’s. I bought enough length to cover the window seat plus a little extra on both ends. 

We then spent months straightening the marine vinyl that was just wrapped around the window seat cushion loosely. 

Finally, a few weeks ago, I took the matter in hand. 

I laid the vinyl on the floor, right side down, and put the cushion on top of it. I then carefully wrapped the vinyl around it to see just how close the two edges were to touching  in the back. It was shockingly close, like just a 4-5” gap. 

I added about an 1” to my calculations and then went to hunt for something sturdy in my sewing supplies to bridge the gap. 

I found a long piece of canvas and cut a 10’ x 5-6” strip. I can’t remember the exact numbers. 

I was able to sew through the vinyl fairly easily. The only difficulty was the awkwardness of the huge volume of stiff vinyl fabric on my little sewing table.  

Youngest was home, so after I sewed the vinyl into a large tube with the muslin filing in the gap, I flipped it right side out and started feeding the cushion through the long tube. Youngest stuck her arms up into the tube and pulled the cushion while I guided it from the other end. The vinyl is slick, it slid in surprisingly easily. 

I did not sew the ends. We just tuck them under. 

This was a very quick project. And it is very nice to have the cushion stay tidy all the time. As long as we have dogs, the vinyl will stay in place. If I was ordering cushions now, for another house, I would use marine vinyl. It is very sturdy. 

I still have to adjust the vinyl, but now it is just every few weeks. 

The canvas/gap fill started out in the center bottom/underside of the cushion. The puppies, jumping up, nudge it every time they jump up, so the canvas/gap fill slides to the front over time. 

Then I flip the whole thing to put the canvas on the bottom against the window wall. When I start to see canvas peeking out the front edge, I flip it again. It takes several weeks.