Story Worth

https://thebloggess.com/2019/05/07/tell-me-a-story/

Sarah and Liz have mentioned StoryWorth several times. I think Sarah's stepmother, who might be the only parent she has left alive, is doing this as a project for Sarah's daughter Violet, I think.

So, I wanted to mention it here, because I think it is a fabulous project.

Moving plants

It took a lot of effort over two days, but I moved the majority of the grape hyacinth from the back yard to three concentrated areas in the front.

I said “the majority” because I am sure I missed dozens.

As I am planting in the back, if I find bulbs, I will recognize/move them Immediately.

And the ones that still get missed will simply bloom next spring and I will find/move them then.

That will be welcome, because the ones in the front will have already bloomed (more sun) and I will know where I need to fill (next year).

I would guess I moved a several hundred bulbs.

So I am getting a lot of arm work.

We are solid mud here. So much rain. Both days I had to hose myself and dunk the dogs in tubs and pools.

putting old family photos in my red genealogy binders

Yesterday my mom helped me file pictures.

It rained all day, we were not able to move the grape hyacinths as we had planned.

I had a wide variety of photo pages, all archival safe. So pages made to hold 3”x5” vertical and horizontal, 4”x6”, 5”x7”, and 8”x10”. These were left from photo albums. And I was very happy to use them. Although now I need to order more 5”x7” pages.

We sorted pictures, only the ones I had in the computer room, put them in pages and then inserted pages into the corrected tabbed section of the right genealogy binder. So all the pictures of my grandma, are in her section with her papers.

My mother and one of my aunts had labeled almost all the pictures. My mom  and my aunt are both approaching 80.

All of this is because I am the youngest/last one. I am the last one who will know who any of these people are and how they fit together.

We took care of all the pictures I had downstairs. Upstairs is a metal cabinet full of pictures. Going to work my way thru that cabinet too. And my husband is going to have to help because a lot of that metal cabinet is his family’s pictures; all of his mother’s pictures came here when the boys cleaned out her houses. He went thru and scanned and emailed many identifiable pictures to his brothers, pictures of their immediate family. But he has done nothing long term, archival. Because every picture from his family is not labeled, he has procrastinated. That will leave our kids with a mess. And they do not know who many of those people are. My husband is the last one also. (We have the only kids.)

One of the genealogists at the library has two big bins of pictures where she does not know who anyone is. She has older relatives still alive, she scans pictures and puts them on an app where she wants all her extended family to log on and help label pictures. So far no one is participating. I think they are spread across the country so in person labeling is difficult. She needs to get on a plane and go to her oldest relatives, with the pictures.




I have very few pictures of myself as a child.

I have a few of my brother too. Last night I scanned and texted his pictures to my brother, my niece, my nephew. With the exception of his senior picture, my brother had never seen any of them.

And they might all be pictures I took, as a child. They look like a child’s eye. (We are six years apart).  Very candid pictures, just point and shoot. There were pictures of his 1st, 2nd, 3rd birthdays a couple early Christmases, that he did not know existed.

I have a few more that I will scans and send.

I did not hear from my niece but my nephew and his girlfriend thought they were hysterical. And I think scanned photos are more valuable to them than printed photos. (I have an office quality scanner). And it was free. And now his pictures are in a file on my computer.




I have been scanning and loading pictures on Find a Grave also. Relatives and also straggler photos that do not really have a place.

So when I have a random picture, that I do not really care about, friends of my grandparents for example, I scan it and load it to their (person in photo) grave. It gives a purpose to those stragglers.

My great uncle had two daughters and was divorced from their mother when they were very young. I had a picture of the girls together at age 2 and 3. It might be a picture their families have never seen. It is now attached to their graves.

I have been loading family pictures (attached to graves) too.

My red binders

My dark red genealogy binders all looked alike. There are about 20 binders now. Each houses a different section of my extended family. My husband’s family too. There are contemporary binders, my immediate family, my brother’s, my cousins’ families have binders too.

Middle went thru last night and put labels on the end of each one. And we lined them, across the back of the computer room counter.

So now I can tell which is which, and they are easily accessible, I think that will promote filing.

My mission is to have every piece of genealogy material in those binders.

All the papers are already filed. I add more all the time.

I started on pictures yesterday.



Anne just wrote about her own process-

https://altopower.wordpress.com/2019/04/30/2019-research-project-progress-report/

Sedum

I had been hunting for sedum for days. Finally found good supply and bought six. Came home, set the pots where they were to be planted, went back for six more.

Then it rained all day. It stopped when my husband got home from work.

I dug, he planted. And we added the last of the miniature daffodils. Big job.

It is suppose to be mild and rain the next three days. So I really wanted to get it all in now. I had to take the hose to my shovel and boots, that is how muddy it is now, everywhere.

My grape hyacinth is nearly spent, but still findable.

Soon, moving it (all) to the front of the sedum/miniature daffodils area. With it all in one place, it will really show.

sorting and storing the little holiday stuff (so that I USE IT).

The Christmas stuff is in red and green bins in the attic. Decorations do not need to be see thru bins, because they have been sorted and I USE everything that is in them. My husband can easily find them, they are red and green.

I have a huge fall piece and a huge Thanksgiving piece that are in the attic too. I will show you when I get them out for those seasons.

And the big plug in pumpkins are also in the attic.

The hanging holiday stuff (like for the kitchen picture rails and the hook on the backdoor and my bathroom), are in a couple places (basket in living room and oldest's closet and my closet). This is because of size and weight.

The rest of the holiday stuff, including the pieces I use on the counters, in the bathrooms, are in the top of the cupboard under the stairs.

I culled a few things, but mostly, I took a hot mess, that felt like it might come down on ones head every time the doors were opened, and divided it into categories.

As each season rolls around, I will evaluate what I have and where I use it. And if I am not going to use it and I don't particularly like it, it is going. Like there are a lot of things in the Halloween box that are definitely going.

The pumpkin on the top shelf, with the blue tape, needs rewired. I have extension cords that can be used. My friend's husband will be here in a couple weeks and will be able to do that for me.

I had all these boxes in my garage. I use this specific size a lot for things around the house. I pretty much wiped out my stash of this size. And my husband had to get a ladder and move the top shelf down one level, but I am very pleased.

Girls helped me get photos in albums and extras in boxes

So I am caught up on contemporary/kids albums again, I think.

We have photo storage boxes where the extra pictures go. We caught those up too.

Middle sat down a year or two ago and divided up the old pictures of the kids. Duplicates of what are in their albums or ones that just did not make the cut in the days of film. They are in tidy storage boxes. 

We don’t really have bad pics, because with digital, no more problems. Thumb in picture, closed eyes, photo bombing, made contrast/lighting are all things of the past now with digital. But even still, I end up with extra pictures.

Those extra pictures go in storage boxes by child. And there are a couple boxes with extended family. So they are neatly organized.

I still have the old old old pictures to organize. But I have a plan for those (photo album pages in my red binders). So one day they will all be organized too.

Mrs Wilson on PBS

I really enjoyed it. So did my husband and mother.  True story. It is on pbs website for a short time and then it will be gone. Three parts.

Books with clean-out topic

Outer Order, Inner Calm (audio book)  by Gretchen Rubin came out a few weeks ago.

When a new season of a TV series comes out, especially if there is a long break between seasons, I often rewatch all the previous seasons before the newest one. So I get a lot of bang with a new season. BBC seasons for example might only be 4-8 shows long. Just watching the new season is a flash in the pan. Watching all of the seasons in order, refreshes my memory, gets me in the groove, creates anticipation, and makes it an event.

I did the same thing with Gretchen’s new book. I relistened to all the previous books from her happiness series first. When I finished all the old ones, I listened to the new one. I REALLY re-enjoyed all the old books. The new one too. It was short, but good. It was a bit like a longer podcast.

Then I listened  The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō. I had watched the series on Netflix, but had not read the book. It was good, but I wondered about her childhood the whole time. OCD? I realize it is a different culture, but it seems like something was not quite right. There are good suggestions in both the TV series and the book. I disagree with a lot of things she says, but in a mild way.  Both (book and TV series)  are good, worth the time, but I spent most of my thought process (of the book) in the psychology rather than the tidying.

Then I listed to The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter Book by Margareta Magnusson. Also good. Written by an old lady whose has cleaned several family homes due to death or downsizing. I did not dwell on the psychological. I enjoyed the pace and the stories.

It might be an age thing, or the fact that I did not have to clean out either grandparent set. And I have no messes in my future. My husband and his brothers did their parents. My brother will do my father. My mother has already done as much as she can. Things that go to other people are already to them.




I listed to all these audio books as I walked dogs, cleaned the kitchen, sewed. Ear buds thru my phone.

The cleaning aspect of these books - I enjoyed all of them in a low key way.

BUT they all pitch way too much.

I wish they would have used the terms rehome or recycle or repurpose 100% of the time.

There is very little that actually needs pitched.

The post office cubbies, re-purposed.

I had forgotten this picture.

The cubbies were not big enough for most that I tried to do with it over the years.  If they had been wider, so useful for gaming stuff.






Now -

(My husband made a base with feet, for it, drawers from the $ store. So handy and functional.) 

Easter egg trees

Someone made me one as a child.

A small branch with many off shoots, painted white, stuck it in a cottage cheese container with plaster of Paris. And I have the idea/memory that the collage cheese container was somehow on Easter colors. So either the company had an annual tradition, or it was decorated.

That year, with the tree, I think somebidy blew out real eggs and dyed them. And hung them on the tree. I think the tree made it several years.

And I loved that tree. Probably this was when I was preschool age. We moved when I was in the middle of first grade, and I think it was long before that time.

And I may have made a tree when my kids were little, or maybe I just thought about doing it.

I sort of rediscovered my wire tree. It used to hold necklaces in my bathroom. Now it is on the island in the kitchen.

And I am looking for seasonal things to hang on it. Not every season, just some.

Clearly wanted to find small/lightweight eggs for an Easter tree.

(I found smaller type hanging eggs at JoAnn’s. I paid $17 for 36 eggs. They were on sale 50% off plus I had a 20% coupon. Shockingly high prices on their hanging plastic eggs. Nice colors.)


Very pleased with it.

I really like Easter egg trees. Very glad to have one again.

Gretchen and Elizabeth book club - Dani Shapiro's Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love.

https://gretchenrubin.com/podcast-episode/207-go-to-the-doctor

That link will take you to the podcast where this book selection was announced. And the show notes will also give you the dates for their activities including an author visit.

I listened to  Dani Shapiro's Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love on Audible.

It is non fiction. Read by the author. And very well written. Really enjoyed it.

In process, I have steadily been cleaning/sorting

The computer room, in the background, looks bad, maybe even worse, but it is not. A lot of what is sitting on the counter now is actually empty. I had to get nearly everything out, to see and to sort. I think I will be back to an empty counter shortly. It is moving along steadily.

Also in process is the DVD clean out.

We are all visual. If I put it all back in a cupboard, it will never get done.

The box on the left contains the DVD's that we are selling.

The piles on the right are the ones to watch. The big pile in the back are the ones middle has to watch. The little pile in the front is my husband's. If it were up to me, they would all go in the box and be out of here this afternoon. . .

So far my husband has watched one, The Usual Suspects, and then it went in the box.

The pile of VHS (farthest right) needs watched also. (I found a friend with a VHS. And we are going to borrow and then sort thru them.)

We suspect most/all of them are left from when we used to records TV shows to watch later. That was mostly at the old house I think.

One of the those tapes is labeled. It is the final of Voyager (Star Trek) which aired in 2001. That was a prized tape in its day.

The DVD's we are keeping, at this point in time, are all in these baskets (below).

That has been a process also. Because this is where it started - - -

It was not easy figuring out what to do with the hole where the TV used to be. It was a BIG hole. And I wanted the space to be useful.

It was not possible to get two more matching doors to close the top (like the cupboard on the bottom). 

Between lumber and baskets and paint, it was about a $200 project.

This is a list of kid skills. It is a good list. Great summer project. Great family time.

I am not sure how often this happens, but at least once this week

Middle is traveling with a friend. Flights were yesterday.

They did carry on only.

When they arrived at their final destination, and were getting their carry ons out of the overhead compartment, someone had taken middle’s friend’s Case.

They were both on wheels. They were both purple. But they were not identical.

Friend’s had a luggage tag on it. The one that was left, no tag.

So there are two lessons right there.

1. Put a luggage tag on everything, even if you are not checking it.
2. Tie something unique on the handle of everything. Ribbon, bandana.

I know they turned wrong case into airlines. I know they filed claim for missing bag.

I know that by the end of the day they had the correct bag. I don’t know how they connected with the other passenger.

This might happen all the time, but it was new to me.

We put bandanas and tags on checked luggage. But not always on carry on.

And this absolutely could happen to me because if I am flying by myself,  I usually stay in my seat until other passengers have unloaded and left. Then I get my case out of overhead.

I am assuming this is exactly what happened yesterday. The person who grabbed her case was probably one of the first off the plane.

And we are usually traveling with solid black pieces, like most everyone else. So if this happened with PURPLE, could absolutely happen with black.

Gentle Leader

This is for the neighbor's pup, who is a Golden. She will be ONE in March. About 65 pounds and very solid.

She likes to tug. Tug of war with a rope. Pulling anything with her chest. Urge to TUG is strong in her.

She would be an excellent service dog pulling someone in a wheel chair.

It has turned cold in Indiana. We have had snow on the ground. We have ice patches.

As you can imagine, after having a very bad brown lab knock me down (last fall) and having my knees come thru with no problems (miracle). And with all the arthritis diagnosis -  I am very afraid of falling.

Youngest lives with a dog that also is very strong and has an urge to tug.

That dog has a Gentle Leader.

It is a figure 8. Two loops. One around neck. One around snout. They are connected in middle under her chin and that is where the leash clips.

Pup is very fluffy. So the loops aren't as big as you would think.

Youngest walked our neighbor's pup one time and said - needs a gentle leader.

What the leader does is take away the tug feeling.

When they pull against the leader, it simply turns their head toward you.

They end up looking at you. And their head is pointed the wrong way for the walking forward feeling. They don't like it. They stop pulling. Actually they never really get started pulling. It is highly effective.

And we have noticed they LOOK at you more, looking for cues.

No, they are not a fan of having something on their face. And have to fit properly or they will rub their face against the ground and pull it off.

It does not interfere with their panting. They can drink with it.

We do not leave it on, we put it on with a leash for a walk. We take it off as soon as we get home.

We leave her regular harness on her. They are the same color.

Dolls

I think there are ten dolls all together.

As in - We have ten. American Girl of course has many more than ten. And most of ours are stamped Pleasant Company on the back of their neck. Original company. American girl is Mattel.

They all live at my mom's right now. Year round. She sews for them.

My mom makes each one a new outfit for Christmas.

Notice that they are in period appropriate clothes. The modern girls are in modern clothes. The historic girls are in clothes from their time-ish. Sometimes these are copies of clothes AG (American Girl) sold for them. Sometimes they are patterns (McCalls, Simplicity, Butterick, etc). Sometimes my mom drafts her own patterns.

So the dolls each have their own wardrobe. Felicity, Josefina and Samantha (who all belong to youngest) would NEVER wear clothes that belong to each other or to the modern girls (Lanie, Chrissa, Kailey).

And on Christmas day, she (my mom) and our two girls have a very good time playing with them. They all get dressed up in their new clothes. Shoes and underwear are admired as much as the outer layers.

I take pictures.

My mom especially gets a kick out of the fact that the girls are 20 and 24. When she talks about this with friends and acquaintances, she is quick to point out - these are not little girls.


The retired dolls are here
https://www.americangirl.com/shop/ag/archives


The current historic dolls are here
https://www.americangirl.com/shop/ag/historical-characters-brand




Addy

Josefina

Felicity

Jacket and hat are AG (ebay), my mom made the skirt. 

 Kit

Kailey

Molly

Kirsten

Spoon and bag are AG (ebay), mom made rest. And we are still looking for the right red stripe for an apron. 

Samantha

Lanie

Chrissa

2018

Added a plate rail

This is a civil war era cabinet made by one of my relatives, paternal grandmother's side.

It has been sitting in the same spot in the kitchen for many years.

I took this picture today, but it looks just like previous pictures.

The three little chairs are always on top. The three little trees are always to the side. (And at Christmas the three little penguins are added on the chairs.)

When I was getting ready to graduate from college, I asked for it. So very glad I did. This piece has always meant a lot to me.

Previously, it was in my grandmother's basement with about 14 coats of paint on it. Probably from the days when spring "cleaning" meant putting a new coat of paint or varnish on walls and floors. This would have been a kitchen cupboard, so it would have been in the same category. Scrub it down with a brush, and put another layer of paint on it.

My grandmother had it stripped for me. 1983. And I refinished it.

I am not sure anyone but the antique's roadshow would argue with redoing it. In its painted state, it was really dreadful.

And honestly, in its refinished state for 35 years now, it looks old.

The antique's roadshow would also be horrified to know I had the wooden panels taken out of the top doors and glass replaced. Also 35 years ago. And I am not sorry about that either.

The plate rail groove cut into each shelf, is very far from the back wall of the cabinet.

Yesterday my husband added a second rail to each shelf by going up, not down. He added a trim piece, painted to match the stain (I had the paint) and held in place by 5 tack nails. This allows me to put a second row of plates in the cabinet.

And absolutely you cannot tell this is a new addition. It looks like the second rail is original to the cabinet.

The original rail is cut fairly deep and on an angle. So there is a slope. The added piece sets right at the top of that slope.

This need to store more plates originated when I sent my husband up to the attic for what I thought was three boxes of china. This tea set, my mom's old china, and my grandmother's old china.

He came back with ten boxes. Glassware, serving pieces, ice buckets. ALL kinds of things packed at the old house and put directly  in the attic at this house.



 It took me several weeks to get thru it all.

Nothing went back in the attic.

It was sold, given away, put away in my pantry, or put in this cupboard.

Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Series included on Amazon Prime.

I was first attracted by Barbra Streisand music. 

Enjoying it hugely. 

The Romanoff’s

Amazon Prime.

Each story is independent, loosely related theme. Characters and story line do not repeat between episodes.

We really liked most of them. Very well written, in our opinion.