Family tree

I have been researching my family tree for a while now and with the help of some distant cousins I've found on line I'm a lot further along that I thought I'd ever be. It can be quite surprising what you find doing this though. I always knew we didn't talk about my dad's family. It was just something you didn't talk about. Whyever not? After all they were family, right? I loved all the relatives I knew. They were all on my mom's side. We had wonderful times growing up and I always knew they loved me. I loved getting together with my cousins at the holidays and having Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma & Granddad's house. Weren't all families like this? When you're a kid you think the whole world lives just like you do. Life wasn't a complete bed of roses, my dad was an alcoholic and things could get pretty tense at home. But...my extended family was always there for me. They taught me about God, showed me what a happy home life looked like and how happily married people treated each other. They were always my safe place to go. I know I wouldn't have survived the teen age years without them. When I told my mom I was searching daddy's family she said I wouldn't get farther that his dad Fred. Well, I did. Lots farther. Fred was a character, without a doubt. I've learned to find birth records, death records, marriage records, and military records. The last one is the start of a new dilemma. I got my dad's army enlistment record. He enlisted June 10, 1942 in Sacramento, CA. Here's the problem ....on it it states he is a widower! He married my mom in 1943, 6 weeks after they met. I am now on the hunt for a marriage record and a death record. My dad's father Fred had a sister Millie that he kept in touch with over the years so I have friends out there helping me with this search, and we will find it! The real search here is for the daughter it is rumored my father had with his first wife. The story goes that my dad and his wife had a bad automobile accident that killed his wife and almost killed him. They had left the baby with her parents that day and after the accident her parents kept the baby and raised her. None of this was EVER mentioned in my house. I might have a sister out there that I don't know? She would have been raised to think she was an only child. We've missed an entire lifetime of knowing each other. How sad :(

Love my friends

I just love going to church on Sunday now. Well, I always like church, but this time of year is special because each week I get to see another friend I haven't seen in 6 months. Yesterday was great! A lot of good friends back and several more choir memebers. I was especially glad to see Judy Waud. She lost her husband Larry a couple of months ago suddenly and we were all stunned. He sang a solo on the Christmas tree last year. They are from Canada and I wasn't sure she would be able to come back, but her children helped her get down here and all set up for the winter here. She asked me for a copy of the music :). God bless her children for supporting her and being there for her. Family is so important.

Speaking of family .... my aunt and uncle are arriving from Oregon this week for a visit. This is the time of year when people actually want to visit us. John has a list of fix-it's for my uncle and Audrey is hoping my aunt will help us make new curtains for her 5th wheel. Of course, they do have plans of their own. Their real reason for coming is to get dental work done in Mexico. We have an excellent dentist in Mexico that we all go to and the fees are way less than in the states. Dr. Cruces actually lives here in Yuma and has his is lab here but his office is in San Luis. I recently had to have a root canal, yuk, and he did x-rays, the root canal, a filling, and cleaned my teeth for a grand total of $275.00. Anyway, we'll all have some fun and eat too much I'm sure. I know John and Jay will get some golf in and Cecilia and I will have to do some shopping. I love my family and I am so happy when any of them can come for a visit. John told me last night that Don might be here sometime this week too. I guess I better get my rear in gear and do some house work.

Happy Monday everyone

What a Guy!

I'm stunned. He came home, rode his exercise bike, made a toddy, and sat down and read the manual for the new remote! He didn't ask me how, he READ THE MANUAL. Wow!! He got it all figured out in record time. Now I am well aware that he is a very intelligent man and can do anything he sets his mind to but usually that doesn't include stuff like this. What does this demonstrate? It demonstrates his determination to have total control of the TV. For any of you that have visited us, you know he is KING of the remote. If I want to decide what to watch on TV, I go to the bedroom and watch that one. The good news ~ he is quite happy with the new DVR. His only question?....was I sure the old remote wouldn't work the new machine? The moral to this story .... it's hard for a man to part with his remote.

Last Rites

We said good bye to Tivo today and hello to a new DVR. Since we have our service with Direct TV, we have to use their DVR. I have been punching buttons this afternoon, familiarizing myself with this thing. Now, you have to understand....Tivo was very SIMPLE to operate. Amazingly simple! As electronic gadgets go, this new one is not difficult but it is different. I have it figured out, no problem. John, however, is going to hate it. I can already see the writing on the wall. I will have to be within earshot at all times. We are talking about a guy that can't figure out how to get on the internet at home. He can do it at his work because apparently his screen has some kind of link he just clicks on and he's into his email. However, most of them he forwards to me because he can't figure out how to print them out. So....I print them out for him. Now he has a new remote to learn to use. He doesn't like change. I guess none of us really like change very much. Then again I guess he and I make a good team. We work well together. He takes care of me and I take care of him. I'm glad God put him in my life.

THE CAT!

For some reason, I saw the picture of this cat on "Cute Overload" and I immediately thought of Sam. I guess it looks like Sam's kind of cat. I bet Daisy would love him too.

The footer

Ok, I think I got rid of that. Yep, it appears to be gone. Now if I can get rid of the box around the smiley and maybe make it smaller? That would be good.

Smileys

My new project is to get the smileys on this page. I couldn't get them on the email I was trying to write. Oh look! A Donkey!! Yea!!! I wonder if the post is going to show this annoying ad bar at the bottom of the page? I hate that.

The passing of "Tivo"

Alas, our pal "Tivo" croaked today :( For those of you who don't know, Tivo is a DVR and also our Direct TV receiver. A Tivo is a wonderful thing. So easy to use, even I can figure it out, unlike it's predecessor the VCR. I never could get that thing set up to record something when I wasn't home. And setting the clock?! That simply served for YEARS as a flashing night light. But Tivo...now that is truly amazing. I had it mastered in minutes. I have programs we like, that are on when we are not home, set up with a "season pass" which let's it automatically record the program every time it comes on. We had noticed lately that Tivo was not acting quite right. It was getting slow to bring up programming, sometimes getting stuck on fast forward, losing the satelite signal. Did I mention that Tivo lets you pause live programming? What a great feature! I guess you can tell where I'll be at 9 am tomorrow. Yep, the Direct TV store.

I got a lead at church this morning on a "sweet" donkey. I'm going to go pay it a visit tomorrow and see if it is calm and sweet. I even have to go right by the Direct TV store to get to the donkey's house. What luck!!

It's Saturday :)

We love Saturdays. It's our day together. We get to sleep in a little (as much as the dogs will let us) and kick back. I am recovered from nearly killing myself cleaning the neighbor's house. I am thankful for that. Today we are going down to Algadones Mexico for the day. We live about 20 minutes from there and it is a fun little town. Lots of stuff to look at and the people are very nice. We have a favorite restaurant there where we are looking forward to having lunch. We thought we'd beat the winter visitor rush. A month from now the place will be packed. I like to be able to leisurely browse and the weather today is perfect for it. It is only supposed to get up to 82 today. That's my idea of the perfect temperature. We don't get the fall leaves and colors that you get in the north, but we do feel the change in the air and after a hot summer it really feels good! I am also excited to break out my fall and winter clothes. I'm tired of the summer ones and it makes me feel like I just got a new wardrobe. I can't get the fall leaf colors, but I can get those colors in my wardrobe. Yep, I'm sure people will look at me on Sunday and think of a beautiful fall maple tree. A SMALL maple tree.

Happy fall weekend everyone. I'm off to Mexico

Another Spike!

O boy, I got it, another learning curve spike! Check out the Cute Overload link. You're gonna love that one.

The neighborhood is really picking up. My next door neighbor from Montana, got back yesterday and another one 4 doors down returned. One of the added benefits of the returnees is light! Yep light. We have no street lights out here where I live and everyone puts wall lights on top of the brick walls that are in front of every house. When they leave for the summer they turn off their power, hence no wall lights. It can get pretty dark around here. Of course it's easy to pick out our house at night. When I turned down our street last night coming home from church, it hit me how many lights were back on. Nice.

John and I take care of a house 2 down from us. The owner is 95 and in a nursing home. His family wants to keep the house so we look after it and rent it out for them. It comes completely furnished and I mean completely. You need only bring your clothes and personal items. It is a real cute little place and last winter I had a nice couple in it. When they moved out, we put the 4 rent sign up and rented it to a man who said he wanted it for his mother and he wanted to sign a 12 monthe lease. He wanted to pay rent all summer?! Yep. It has a covered RV port on it and he said he wanted to park his big boat under it for the summer. Great. Well, to make a long story short, he turned out to be a con, it cost my friends $3000 in attorney fees to evict him. While they did get a judgement against him, they will have to find him. Believe me we've all tried. He told me he had a housekeeper coming in every 2 weeks to clean. Yea right! What a PIG!! I spent all day yesterday cleaning that house. I had to scrub floors on my hands and knees to get the crud off them. He took the bedding so I had to go out and buy new, although as filthy as he was I probably would have anyway. Now, those of you who know me, know I have a housekeeper because it is very hard for me to do that kind of thing. I had her give me a quote to clean the house and I just couldn't bring myself to ask these people to pay for what I feel was my error in judgement. So.....I did it myself. The end result ~ the house looks great again ~ I can hardly move today.

You all have a nice day, I'm going back to bed!

The Learning Curve

My learning curve had a spike in it when I figured out how to get a photo on here but now it has flattened out again. I am trying to add to my side bar links to blogs of friends or other interesting sites and that isn't coming along to good. I've gone back and forth, to and from the "help" directory and, while I'm sure I'll eventually figure it out, it seems that the older I get the easier I confuse. I am determined not to become my mother! I recently spent 2 hours just trying to teach her how to use email. She is 87 and she was once a very intelligent, intimidating woman. She was a CPA when women didn't do that. They were bookkeepers and assistants to CPA's. After I returned home from my visit with her, I sent her several emails, as did other family members. I never got any response to them. Finally I called her and asked her if she had checked her email lately. Her response? "I haven't turned on the computer since you were here." After a little more conversation, she decided she shouldn't be paying for broadband service she doesn't use and maybe she will give the computer away. The once intimidating woman is now intimidated by a computer.

But.....don't write off the senior citizens who prefer the manual way of doing things. I recently read a series of books by Terri Blackstock, the first of which is called "Last Light". In this book something happens with an exploding star that causes everything electrical and electronic in the WORLD to stop. Permanently. Cars won't start, watches don't work, no electricity, TV, phones, no communication at all. Everyone is thrown way back from the civilization they once knew. Most people had no idea how to survive. The old woman in the neighborhood showed her neighbors how to dig up their yards and plant vegetables, dig a well for water, compost what they could and bury the rest of the trash. There's way more to the story but it is very thought provoking. The banks couldn't open, people couldn't get their money. I don't even get paper bank statements anymore. I know I would be scrambling along with everyone else if it happened. Older citizens had to teach the younger people that they could survive and have a life without all the "stuff" they were used to, and you had to WORK to survive. I highly recommend the series.

Well, it's time to hit the donkey trail.

On with the hunt?

While I should be recruiting more people to sing in the choir, I am going off this morning to interview a couple donkeys. I need that special donkey. The one who doesn't mind being groped by lots of kids, 22,000 flashing lights, loud music, fire, traveling, etc. He will also need an owner willing to let him play the role of Mary's donkey. Who wouldn't want their beloved donkey to get to carry the mother of the Savior of the world?! I'm going to take my camera so I can show you all pictures of the candidates, now that I figured out the picture thing.

Last night was fun. After a very quiet summer in the neighborhood, things are picking up and it is great to have our friends come back. We all ate too much but that was our intention. I'll be stopping off for my workout at Contours before I visit my first donkey. Really though, I'll probably be doing a lot of walking on my search so maybe I could skip the gym? Yea, probably not. I'll probably just walk from my car to the corral fence and gaze into the pen at the critter.

Back to last night ... while we are very happy to see out friends back, you should see the dogs! My three dogs are thrilled to have Beau back. And to top their evening off...their pal Scruffy was walking his daddy by and got to stop and say hi too. They all were so excited. We could all learn a lesson from the dogs. They are oblivious to the fact that they are all different breeds and colors. They just don't notice. Too bad people can't just see each other as the brothers and sisters we really are. After all, it all started with Adam & Eve.

Sweet Success!!

Whoopee!! I did it. I'm so excited. I'm going to get my camera out and start taking pictures to play with. This is the mighty Thor as an 8 week old puppy. Can you imagine naming a little cutie like this "Thor"? You know that wasn't my pick. Yep, John wanted him to have a macho name. I guess that is his substitute for having a macho dog like a Rottweiler or something. He has grown into the name though. He is now 5 pounds of determination and rascal.

Now that I have mastered this task, I can turn my attention to the dinner I should be working on. We are having our neighbors over for a tri-tip barbecue later this afternoon. It will be the first block party of the season. Monday I'll have to get back to the gym routine. This neighborhood likes to eat and the season is upon me. It's fun though.

Pictures?

How hard can this be!? I am trying to get the picture thing down. I uploaded one but now I can't seem to find it. Where do you suppose it went? Think about it. It left my computer. Boarded the bus for an internet blog. It said it arrived but which stop on the way did it get off on? Maybe it is over browsing in Amazon.com. Hmmm.

Better late than never!

Well, I am certainly catching on to this fast! It's only been just over a year since my last post. :) I won't bother with a narrative of everything that has transpired in a year. It has finally cooled off here and the winter visitors are pouring in. It only got up to 92 today. The good news is that with the influx of people, my Christmas choir is growing. I'm half way there with 35 people, I need 70. It's going to be a great program this year and it certainly is keeping me out of trouble. Maybe. I am on the hunt for a lethargic, calm, unspookable donkey for the program. This year I have Mary & Joseph sitting at a campfire, on their way to Bethlehem. Now, we all know Mary rode to Bethlehem on a donkey so I figure I need one standing in the background for reality's sake. I just don't want it to freak out when the choir starts singing and 22,000 lights start flashing. I want it to snooze through the whole program. Maybe I can find one that is about 25 years old. John and I saw one standing in the desert right by the road the other day and I thought about stopping and picking it up. It looked pretty dull witted standing there all alone. Then again, maybe it was too hot to move. It was 118 that day. I've got the camp fire part all figured out too. The RV'rs around here all have those little portable propane campfires they travel with and I'm sure I can BORROW one. I could buy one but borrowing would be cheaper.



Stay tuned for donkey updates. I plan to stay more current with this. Practice makes perfect, right?