Flip Book

I belong to a creative crafts club, and we sometimes get the chance to test new products for companies. Recently, I tested something called a Flip Book. I had to have a digital camera and computer, and know enough to take a 30 second video, then download it to my computer. I decided to take a short video of Lady, the family dog. After I downloaded it and replayed it, I was concerned because the TV was on, so there was a lot of extraneous noise. Then there was me, trying to get Lady to look up at me. She looked at me once, saw the camera and started looking anywhere but the camera. I signed onto the company's website and followed the simple instructions to download the video to their site. Because I was testing the product, there was no charge to me,but the cost for one Flip Book is $8.99, plus shipping, total is around $11.98.

I wasn't totally sure exactly what I would be getting, but I didn't need to worry about the noise, at least. What they were testing was the process of making your video, downloading and ordering. I wrote a review for the company. This week I received my book. It's about the size of my cellphone. It's got the cover I ordered. They take your video and break it down, picture by picture. You just flip the pictures quickly, and there's your video! No power or battery to run out. You can carry it in your pocket. It's really quite fun. They also offer greeting Flips books, 4 for $19.95. I'm assuming that these are shorter versions, but haven't seen them yet. This seems to be a new company with a cute idea. Only time will tell, if it's a hit.

Royalty, That's Us.

I think that I wrote once that we were not descended from William the Conqueror, but were descended from his half brother, Richard. Richard went with William and fought in the Battle of Hastings. For his reward, he was given much land and many titles. He took the name of Earl of Clare, and the area he ruled in Ireland was names county Clare in the family's honor.

I was working on another line of our genealogy, and discovered we are descended from the first King Henry of England. He became king after his father, King William, the Conqueror. So, we are directly descended, after all. This points up a discovery I've made, in my researches. Most of the royals were related to each other at least in one line, and often, in several. The nobility seemed to want to keep the titles, the lands, and the money, as much in the family as possible. They made alliances with other families, but there was just a lot of inter-marrying.

We're also descended from Henry the second. His family was the Plantagenants, who produced many of the English Kings and Queens. Henry II wasn't the son of Henry I though, different family. Don't get excited about being related to Richard, the Lion-hearted though. He and his brothers, Prince Geoffery, and Prince John were from Eleanor of Aquitane, HenryII' wife. He set her aside, and imprisoned her in a castle in France, then took up with Rosamond, who gave him a son, in his old age named William Longsepree. He is the one who is our ancestor.

In any case, we're also related to several Scottish Kings, including Robert, the Bruce and several early French kings. I'm sure you notice, however, it doesn't do much to improve our current lives. I've always loved studying earlyhistory,so now realising there were some of my ancestors living that history,has made it seem a bit more real to me. It's fun, anyway.

Updates

I haven't been posting so much lately. I actually worked all this last weekend for our now quarterly promotion, A Taste of Sam's. This time it was called A Taste of Spring. Of course it snowed, but then it was LDS Conference weekend. Storminess is pretty much a given. This next Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I work to sell people things for Easter. I guess people still have to eat, and for our Catholic members, it's the end of Lent. They're probably hungry for something besides fish by now.

We had some nice days on Sunday and Monday. Today, we went out and enlarged some flower beds and nearly got blown away! It's raining now. That's okay, rain is good. Over last week, Snowbird got 14 feet of snow. Pretty nice. Sure glad it mostly stayed in the mountains.

Another thing that keeps me occupied is genealogy. It can almost get to be an obsession. What will the next century bring? How many kings are we related to. When you get back before the year 1000, it seems that there's a king behind every bush! Of course, there's so much inter-marriage, that it gets confusing. On the Peck side,(Mom's Grandfather's side) we go back to the Normans and the Vikings. On that line we aren't directly decended from William, the Conqueror. We are, however decended from his brother Richard, who became Richard De Clare. Imagine my surprise when I was doing the Scottish line to find out we are decended from William through his son Henry who became King of England after William. Then there all the Scottish Kings. There really was a MacBeth. He killed one of our royal Scotts ancestors with the help of the English king. Of course, these people were killing each other off right and left, even though they were all family. Sometimes, midevile times can seem romantic, but there were some real disadvantages. Even the richest of them would have not had a comfortable bathroom, or even one with much function

Oh, and we're related to French kings and German royalty, as well. It's quite amazing, but I guess there were a lot less people then, plus many of the royalty kept concubines in the 4th and 5th century, and it seems thier children were accepted. Probably they wanted huge families as a power base. Even so, it sure shows how connected we are to each other.

I've got kind of discouraged on the Haggerty line. The Irish don't have much of thier info online yet, or even on microfilm. They also charge for a lot of the information. I still haven't made the connection from Elias Haggerty and his father who was born in Ireland yet. I'll keep plugging away though.

More Geneology

Here is the Haggerty Crest. As you can see, there are 2 gs in the name. I think the extra one was dropped with my Grandfather Gilbert, or perhaps his father Silas Sharp( the first). I have been in contact with someone who is also researching the Haggerty line. His family name is Watt, so a cousin. It's been kind of fun comparing notes and stories.

One of the questions he had was about the change in the spelling of the name. He had heard stories that there had been a falling out over a family business that didn't go well,and part of the family dropped the extra "g" in protest. I suspect in had to do with the county in Ireland that the family came from. The Northern counties in Ulster, were more often protestants and spelled thier names with one "g". Those from farther south like county Cork were more likely Catholic and used the 2 "g" spelling. It could have been something else, as well.

I had already seen the family crest, but I was able to get a download from an Irish website. There's a website for Aran sweaters. Each family has their own design for an Aran sweater. The Haggerty design is really pretty, but $250 is a little steep for me right now.

There's also an Irish connection through the Peck line. My Grandmother Jefferies maiden name was Peck. It seems that she has, so far, the most interesting lineage. It can be traced way back bcause she was desended from royalty, making her easier to trace. The Peck line went back into the 1100's as Peck, then became Provost and finally, the names were with titles so every one was different. The names were often Fitz followed by the father's name. One ancestor was William Fitzgilbert. He accompanied William the Conqueror,(who is a cousin) to the Battle of Hastins in 1066. For his valor, he was awarded many titles and given much land. He took the name William de Clare. One of his estates was in Ireland,and he lived and governed there. He must have done a good enough job, because they named a county after him, County Clare.

It's fun to look at the royal lines because there's so much information on them and you can feel the history. Some of the lines are more difficult to research. The Hagerty line is proving to be that way. There are so many of them and many immigrated to the US so it's hard to separate the facts. Maybe someday, I'll go to Ireland and see things for myself.

Changes

I just finished reading a news column from Thomas Friedman. He quoted an article from "The Onion" where a Chinese worker in plastics talked about the crazy things Americans would buy, like salad shooters, use them for awhile, then just throw them away. You know, I used to have a salad shooter. I used it quite often for awhile. I must have thrown it away or hopefully given it away when I moved after my divorce. I've actually kind of missed it though.

Getting back to the point: Friedman says that this depression may actually be more than just a depression. 2008 may be the year that Mother Nature, and the stock market said "stop". It's time to stop spending more and more for things we don't need, stop trying to make more money than we need, and stop using up our natural resources and throwing away whatever we get tired of. He mentions that we're constantly working to grow more and make more money to buy more things made in China so they can get more money to buy more T bills so they can lend us more money to buy more..... You see where this is going.

I've always thought that a country who's gross national product is essentially it's consumers spending more and more is likely heading for a fall. Have you noticed a falling feeling? Fortunately, people are beginning to realise we need to build sustainably, recycle etc. Hopefully, it will all come out well, but the new world may be different from the old.

Update

I can't believe I haven't posted since Feb. 19 ! I guess I've been spending so much time doing geneology, that I just didn't get around to it. I also wasn't sure anyone wanted to read another post about my ancestors.

The past couple of weeks I haven't been feeling too well. I'm not sure what's been wrong, just another strange virus going around at work I guess. The first week, I had so much back pain, I couldn't sleep unless I used a heating pad.Then I got blisters from the heating pad. That's been a lot of fun. I'm sleeping okay now, but the blisters are itching. New kinds of fun.

We've had lovely warm days, temps in the 50s and 60s. We even reached 70 one day. We've had really strong winds for the last 3 days. Today we're back to snow. Seems like a typical March. Yesterday I was toying with the idea of starting to dig out a garden spot, today I have to clean 2 inches of snow of my car. Still, the sun is shining bright and the wind has calmed.

My poor bank account is getting szhitsophrenic. One payday can be almost normal, the next has only 3 days on it. The last posted schedual gave me 12 days off. Fortunately, I got asked to work tomorrow, giving me 2 days this week. I haven't a clue what will happen next week. Vendors are cutting back on demos due to the economy and it's the vendors paying for demos that pays my salary. The last time we had a normal amount of demos was the weekend before and the weekend of the superbowl. Maybe March Madness will produce some demos. There's always Easter, but that's not until April. I'm thinking of trying to change departments. Still, with my not feeling well, at least I haven't had to call in sick, but I have worked sick. Oh well, I haven't been that bad anyway.

I've been looking at my spelling in this last paragraph. Not good!

I can't resist a little geneology. I found out we're related to William the Conquerer. He was actually the brother of our ancestor, not the direct ancestor, but still, kind of cool. This is from my maternal grandmother's line. Charlamaigne also shows up, but that's certainly something to take with a grain of salt. I discovered an ancestor named Mael Coluim Mac Doinnail, King Malcolm I of Scotland, evenfound a picture. He was born in 0983. He was also in that same maternal line. It's amazing how the lines spread out, like a tree, right. I've found over 2800 people and that only includes my own lines, not my ex husband's lines. That includes a lot of brothers and sisters who I probably won't persue, other than a few recent people.

Musings

I've been ignoring my blog just because I'm a bit obsessed with geneology right now. Here is my daughter-in-Law, Lisa, putting up blog posts for her photography business, packing up and moving, doing blog posts on her family blog and she still finds time to keep up with Facebook and keeps thinking up ways to keep the rest of us busy keeping up with her. I guess I don't have any excuses about being slow to post.

I've got so many people on my family tree now, over a thousand, that sometimes when I'm working on a line, I don't even know which current relative I'm following. A couple of days ago, I actually got people born around the year 960. It gets kind of confusing back there, and you're never quite certain how accurate things are, but it's sure fun. There's a William Garscoine in every generation, for about 6 generations.Now that gets confusing, I wish the family had numbered them. I've run into one man that's supposed to be the High Sheriff of Yorkshire. There's another who's the 2nd Earl of something. Those who went to Cambridge or Oxford have lots of info on them. Most of these people are on the Peck side, at least from one of the female lines. The Pecks were from my Mom's female side. They were in Massachusets from almost the beginning. They're all English, except when they married into the French. The Jefferies were also English, except when they married into the Clarks, who are Welsh. The Pecks married into the Ures and Muirs, who are all Scots.

On my Dad's side, the Hagertys are from Ireland and proving to be hard to research after about 1810. My Father's mother was a Burns. Her line is English, Scots and some Swiss. My Great Grandfather Haggerty, (notice the spelling change) was married to Hester Ritenour. Dad thought she was Pennsylvania Dutch, but much of the family is from Germany. Anyway, it is very interesting.

More Geneology

I can't believe how much fun I'm having doing geneology! The problem is that I spend hours looking up information. Every time I get birth dates in an earlier century, it's exciting. In some lines, I'm at 1494 for a birth date. How cool is that? I've been quite surprised at how early some of my ancestors appear in the United States. Some from my Maternal Grandmother's side must have been almost original immigrants.

I originally got into this because I was trying to find out if the stories about one of my Paternal Grandfathers marrying an American Indian woman, was true. Supposedly, several Hagerty brothers left Ireland during the Great Potato Famine. I did research on that. It occured in 1846 through 1848. I checked some ship passenger lists, and there were quite a lot of Hagertys, but I couldn't trace them without starting from myself and working my way back.

I was quite surprised to find my Great Great Grandfather Elias Haggerty was born in Pennsylvania in 1810. My ancestors had been here before the potato famine. Elias' father was born in Ireland though. I'm not absolutely sure I have the right person on him, as there are some conflicting evidence, but his name may have been, Believe John Haggerty. That name is no stranger than some I've come up with.

I find myself trying to imagine the life some of my ancestors lived. It really boggles the mind. I also ran into some really old information. It seems most modern Irishmen all come from 3 sons of a man called Milesius, who was a Celt from either Italy or Spain. They decided to conquer Ireland. Their names were, Heber, Heremon, and Amergin. It seems that Heber took over northern Ireland.The date listed was 1699 b.c. The great King, Brian Boru came from Heber's line. The Hagerty family also came from Heber's line. Anyway, it's quite facinating!

New Obsession

I've been a little lax in posting lately, but it's just that I have a new obsession. My daughter-in-law emailed me a question about my grandfather's ancestry. I could only give her some general, hear-say information. I decided to try doing some research online. I kept running into no information for my family name.Then I found a website that gave names in English for names listed in Gaelic where I found a couple of different spellings of our name. Unfortunately, it was from a list of clans and families in around 400 a.d. Today I found a mention of the name in a history from 1699 b.c. ! Imagine that!

Most of my family came from the British Ilses. On my Mother's side were Scots, Welch,and English. On my Father's side were Irish, at least on the male side. I'm not positive on my Grandmother's side. She could have been scottish or Irish. My understanding, from family stories, there were several brothers in the family that immigrated from Ireland to Canada during the Great Famine. I've read a lot on that, Now I'm trying to get passenger lists or even names of ships and dates of travel. It is so interesting to read about the happenings and all that these people went through and to think that one of you ancestors was there. I'd like to get from me to them, working backwards as you mostly need to do. I'll tell you though, that info from 1699 b.c.has really whetted my appetite to go as far back as I can. It is just facinateing.

It seems that most of the Irish come from 3 brothers whose father was a Celt from Spain. They were Milesius, whatever that is. The three brothers went to Ireland with thier armies to conquer the island. Thier anglesied names were Heber, Hereman, and Amerigan. Heber's line was where my family name came from. It's also the line that King Brian Boru came from. He's played a huge part in Ireland's history and Myths. I didn't find any kings in my family line. Oh well, who wants a king in the family anyway.

It's quite difficult to find a lot of info in Ireland due to the famines and rebellons etc. There are archives in Ireland, but they aren't online, so far. I could just go over to county Donegal and see for myself, right. I think my Aunt and I will go to the LDS Church Family History Library. We should be able to get quite a bit from there. I also joined a geneology message and discussion board for the U.K. so, I may pick up some things there. Fortunately, I'm enjoying the research aspect of it all.

Getting Carried Away

I'm on a social website called Facebook to keep a bit more in touch with my family, plus it's fun. However, today I learned how mindless it can get. There are whole lists of things, places, products and people that you can become a"fan" of. Unfortunately, you can spend 20 minutes running down pages of lists and clicking things you are fans of, without wondering whether you want to be a fan of something that sounds cool, or whether you really know anything about what you're becoming a fan of. Is there any purpose to it? I'm certainly not sure. Still, I just became a fan of dozens of places, organisations, and foods. Did I accomplish anything but to fill up 20 minutes of time I could have used elsewhere? I guess I can put it down to playing.

We've really run the gamut in weather this past week. We got one of our usual temperature inversions, with the resulting polution being pretty severe for over a week. The polution became fog for a couple of days. In fact, my drive home last Thursday night was pretty rough. Then we got rain for a couple of days, which turned into snow yesterday. That led to shoveling and other fun things. It's still January, so I'm sure we'll have more snow. If I was the boss of winter, I'd mostly keep the snow in the mountains, and the rain in the valley. Nobody seems to be assigning me the job, so I guess I'll have to deal with what is.

A New Day

Yesterday, America made history. We elected the first African-American as President. It was noteworthy that his inauguration was one day after we celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday. It's like his dream finally came true.

As wonderful as that is, the really exciting thing is the calber of man that we have elected. That he is African-American, is just icing on the cake.

My impression of Barrack Obama, is of a man who is comfortable in his own skin, someone who has confidence in his vision of how things should be, but not afraid to ask for help. He seems to be open to opposing views and other ideas. He certainly seems to be someone open to the modern world, it's technologies and new ideas. He still wants us to remember all the values that America was built on. He's asking us to help build a new vision of our world, incorporating all those values. It's so refreshing to be asked to do something other than to "go shopping"! He recognises that "We the people" are ultimately responsible for the direction our country goes. He can lead, but we need to follow. We can't ignore things that are wrong in our country, niether can we wring our hands and cry that we can't do anything.

The problems facing our nation are so vast that we're going to have to be patient. We need to give things time, and we can't expect miracles. President Obama is a man, a good and intelligent man, but he'll probably make mistakes. We need to keep supporting him anyway. Who among us hasn't made mistakes

The Blows of Life

Sometimes it seems that life can really hit you hard. It just hauls off and gives you a big kick!

In our local newspaper, I read a story recently that made me sad and glad. This woman, is 61 years old and had been diagnosed a year ago with MS. Her husband of 40 years, found an older mobile home in an established mobile home park and moved her into it. Then he sold their home and disappeared. She's not heard from him since, and has no idea were he is. Maybe he didn't want to take care of her, or maybe he just didn't want to watch her deteriorate. I guess"in sickness or health" was part of the marriage vows he forgot.

Unfortunately, the furnace didn't work and the water heater was shot. She had no hot water and no heat. She did, however, have electricity and a roof over her head. She also had caring nieghbors who found out about her plight. They got her an electric blanket to help her keep warm at nights, and on the colder nights had her sleep in their mobile home and offered her their shower. This lady can only walk with a walker. She can't work, but has disabilty payments of which, her lot rent takes up half. She goes to the local food pantry to supplement her food.

A really great thing happened. Her situation became known to a contractor and a plumber in town. She now has a new furnace and a new water heater with new pipes. All of this was donated and completed by her birthday. She figures that a warm home and hot water for a bath, is about the best birthday gift she's ever received.

It just goes to show, life can bash you around, but it can also lead you to good people and better days.

Reading

I've been a bit lax in my posting. Maybe it's cause I spend too much time reading and not writing. I just finished "Thud" by Terry Pratchett. I have so many of my books put away, due to my moving. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy Pratchett's Disc World series. These books can make you laugh out loud. They are also a comment on human nature.

In this book, we meet Sam Vines again, chief of police in Ankmorpok. He's now a Duke, thanks to marrying Sylvia. His one absolute in life, other than being a "copper", is being home at 6pm to read "Where's My Cow?" to Sam junior. It's a picture book, suitible for a small toddler. Inspector Vimes even manages to yell it from memory from hundreds of feet under ground, and Sam Jr. hears it. Of course, the disc world has it's magic.

The main idea of the book is to discover the secret of Koom Valley, and to stop the fighting between Dwarf and Troll, before they reinact the Battle of Koom Valley.There are some great side stories about different kinds of people learning to get along, like werewolves and vampires, who normally don't get along. (Imagine that)

I enjoyed the book so much, I'm thinking of re-reading some of the first ones, especially the ones about witches. Unfortunately, I don't think I still have them. Time to get a library card.

The New Year, So Far

One of the first changes for the new year is that my work hours have been cut. During the holidays I usually work 4 days per week. I was trying to prepare myself for the decrease in income when I usually go back to 3 days per week. Suddenly, I have to re-do my budget again. I'll only be working 2 days per week, at least in January. It could be worse, some are cut to one day some weeks. Even the fulltime people have to give up one day a week. We are just not getting the orders for demos as much. Hopefully, as time goes on, things will pick up. There is one advantage, one less day a week to deal with driving in a snow storm.

Speaking of snowstorms, we had a fun one last Friday. I'd been hoping it would hold off until I got home, but it didn't. It started raining around 6 pm. By the time I got off at 7 pm, it was beginning to snow. When I got to I- 80, the snow flakes were getting big and visability was getting worse every moment. When I first got onto the freeway, there were 4 lanes with totally invisable lines. You headed where you thought you should be, then prayed. Eventually, as I got farther west, the freeway is down to 2 lanes each way, so I just hugged the outside lane, listening for the bump, bump, bump sound that would tell me I was too far to the right. People were being pretty careful, only going around 30 mph. The roads were so slushy, that when anyone passed, they gave you a slush bath. Luckily, I had put new windshield whipers on a couple of weeks ago. Needless to say, I finally arrived home safely.

The next day, it took me 10 or 15 minutes to get my car door unfrozen and opened. The road crews had done thier jobs during the night and the roads were in pretty good shape. It was a fast moving storm, sort of hit and run. Lots better than those storms that hang around for days. I must admit that everything was pretty the next morning when we went out to clear the driveway. The sun was shining and the trees were covered in thick snow. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture. Maybe next storm, it's only January, after all.

Happy New Year

Here's hoping for 2009 being a "good" new year, whatever your idea of good is. Hopefully, we will all reach, at least the most important of our goals and aspirations. Notice I didn't use the term, "resolutions". I've gotten away from making resolutions. I think that we get too hung upon forever breaking those resolutions, then feeling like a failure. With goals and/or aspirations, we can always revise or refine, or even just chuck them if they don't serve our good.

I've looked at my New Years goals and it seems that I make the same ones every year. Obviously, those goals are not working. I've tried to revise and reword.....still no go. Maybe, just maybe, these goals aren't met because they're the wrong goals. So many years, too many to count, I wanted to lose wieght. It didn't work so much or at least not for long. I revised the goal to being fit and healthy. Seems like a good goal, but hard to measure unless you set up parameters to meet. Wow! That sounds like fun. I also made goals about money. Well, wasn't that a great success?

This year I've decided to be easy on myself, at least I hope it will be easy. Maybe, the feeling that I need this goal, is a sign that it won't be that easy. You see, I think I need to enjoy life more, have some fun. My goal is to bring more fun and enjoyment to my life. Of course, everyone has a different idea of what is fun, and that idea can change from one day to the next. I just want to live my life, not just fill it up with "have tos" and "should dos", and add more of the"want tos". As the past has shown me, life can and will, throw you unexpected curves, at least I want to be able to say I've done, at least, some of what I've wanted to do. Sometimes, all the power we have is our choice in how we will react to what life throws at us.

One nice thing about a new year. It can be like a blank slate, anything can happen. I'm going to try and focus on the positive. It can be a very good year.

Last Day of 2008

I like to review my year on Dec 31, when I can.Usually, that's in my journal, but I'll do it in my blog this year.

2008 was probably my least best year, I'm afraid. Losing my daughter, Michele, is right up there with being one of the worst experiences in my life. It was so unexpected, despite the fact that for many years, when she was younger, I was afraid that she would drink something, or run off and get into trouble that would lead to her death. The past several years were quite calm after her years going through puberty and getting into a group home. Because of the excellent care she received from Turn Services, I began to relax. In fact, I had started to worry about how Michele would deal with my passing. I guess no one could have predicted she would have a brain tumor.

There was a great deal of pain in Michele's passing. There still is, for that matter. Even so, I was amazed at the lives she touched, and the people who were there with me and with her, giving her their love and energy to get through her last task. I am so grateful for them.

Strangely, gratitude is an emotion that rivals sorrow for this last year. I had help and caring from so many people, those at the hospital, those people who worked with her, people that I work with and my wonderful family who bear the sorrow with me. I hope they all know how grateful I am to them.

I can barely remember the first few months of 2008, but from Michele's passing onward, the year seems etched in my mind. Strange.

I got to get to know a little about my granddaughter to be, when Sam and Solanah drove down from Vancouver to see us after Michele died. They knew they wouldn't be able to stay for any funeral proceedings, but were here to show thier support for us. I'm grateful.

I'm so grateful to my son, Bob, his wonderful wife, Lisa, to my grandchildren Caitlin and Ethan, for thier company and presence during the planning and services for Michele. We had this little 2 bedroom house, filled with the people I love, mattresses everywhere, and it was great!

I got myself busy doing yard work with a "green" people power mower. It was really quite easy. It helps when the mower is new and the blades are sharp. I had planned to plant a garden, but hadn't got the grass dug out before Michele's passing. After that, I just didn't have the energy, or the heart to dig it out. Hopefully, I will get that accomplished this year.

We didn't do much movie going, but did go to an art exhibit last summer. Gas prices were still high, so there weren't any road trips. Most of my travel was commuting back and forth to work in Salt Lake. By the time I needed to start my extra Holiday hours, the price of gas was coming down. For awhile, it seemed that the price was in free fall, dropping a couple of cents a day. Now it's up a few cents, but seems to have leveled off. (hopefully) I have a new co-ordinator at work, but things aren't too changed. It does seem that there's a bit more micro-managing with the recession and all.

A really bright spot has been the election of Barrack Obama as President. He has so many problems ahead of him, I give him my prayers for strength and good judgement.

The future looks a little scary right now, but I have a lot of hope for us. I was reading an article in the news that most people feel much the same way for now. Maybe we'll be forced to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and make a kinder, better world.

I know this is kind of long, and I've only hit the most important spots. Onward and upward to 2009!

Quiet Christmas

We had a quiet Christmas yesterday. The south wind was setting up a raquet though. I could never seem to figure out if it was snowing lightly, or if all the flakes in the air were just being blown around from existing snow. There was about an inch of snow on the roads though, so MaryLou drove down to get Maureen for dinner.

I cooked dinner, nothing too elaborate, a cranberry pork loin. We did pig out on cheesecake for dessert. It seems that all three of us got food for Christmas, lots of chocolate. By 4 pm, MaryLou took Maureen home. Later, we realised we couldn't hear the wind anymore.We looked out and it was snowing like crazy.

Today, I got up with a sinus headache around 5 am and took ibuprofen. I got up at 6:30am and got warm clothes on to go out and dig out from the storm. We had at least 6 inches,maybe a little more. By the time we cleared the driveway, porches and walkway, it was after 8am. I cleared my car a bit, but need to finish. I got snow in my boot and my pant bottoms were snow crusted. One of my feet was so cold that it ached for awhile after I got into the warmth. My head was still hurting, so I finally decided not to go to work today, I'll make it tomorrow though. Can't afford to take too much off.

We're actually seeing some blue sky here and there.It's really cold though, about 22degrees. I don't know why I grump and groan about the cold and snow every winter. After all, it is winter, and it comes every year whether I want it to or not. Maybe I should find something fun to do in the winter that I could look forward to every year. Might work, as long as it doesn't require driving in ice and snow. Lotsa luck, right?

Odds and Ends

It's been an interesting week or two. We finally got busy at Sam's Club with the Taste of Sam's event. Every week-end after that was pretty busy. People aren't buying as lavishly as they have the past couple of years, but they are still buying some of the things they really like, even if the price is a bit higher. I was really getting tired from the extra hours, plus we've been required to work later hours. All of our week day shifts are from 11 am to 7pm. That puts me home pretty late. Last Friday we had a pretty big snow storm and it took me 2 hours to get home. Things will slow down for awhile now.Maybe I can get rested up.

My daughter-in-law got me started on Facebook. It's been kind of fun, so far. There's a lot of fun things you can do. I've already added some friends, of course they're all related, except for my grandson's fiance, and she will soon be officially related, though she's already part of the family.

The weather up in the Northwest has been scary. I think they have more snow in the Portland area than we hae in the Salt Lake/Tooele area. I worried about my family being on the road, but it seems that it's been so cold, that one cars'battery went dead, and another had a flat tire, so they're not on the road too much for awhile. Instead of road problems, they have to worry about cabin fever.

It's been pretty cold today, or at least seemed so with a south wind blowing in another storm. Christmas Day is supposed to have a pretty heavy snow storm. We're staying home,but my Aunt Maureen is coming here for dinner. If the storm gets too bad, I guess MaryLou or I can drive her back and forth.

We spent the morning going into Salt Lake to visit Mom and Michele's graves and put some poinsetias on them. All day, I've felt that something was missing. It's been like waiting for someone to arrive, so Christmas could begin. There's kind of an empty space in the house right now.

Lisa did a beautiful version of one of the pictures she had taken of Michele and sent it to MaryLou and I. It is really special and we both cried when we saw it, but we appreciate it so much. Lisa always sends out a family picture for thier Christmas card. Solanah is included this year too. The family always has wonderful poses and attitude for the picture. They all should be on the stage.

I've been a little lax on my posting. Sorry, but I've been pretty tired after work and busy on days off, maybe a little lazy as well.Hopefully, I'll get better

Blah, Blah, Blah

As you may see from my title, I'm not in too great a mood. I've been trying to post at least once a week, more if I can. I'm just putting down words to say I've posted.

Christmas is next week. There's not much to say about it, except that I'll be through doing a 4 day work week, that's nice. It will be a very quiet day for us, I think. It will be white, I'm sure. We haven't got huge amounts of snow, just persistant storms coming through. I could even deal with that,I think, if it wasn't so blasted COLD! It'sabout 15 degrees out there now. I need to replace my windshield wiper blades before Friday's storm,but I'm really resisting going out in the cold.

When things get dark and I get grumpy, it's time to find something to be grateful for. I filled my gas tank for under $12 last Sunday. Prices for gasoline are about $1.39 per gallon, so far. That's something to be grateful for. We have a roof over our heads and the furnace works. Our shower is done and works. I still have a job and, so far, my hours haven't been cut. I enjoy the people I work with. I enjoy most of my customers, especially the babies and toddlers. I have a wonderful family,even though it is one smaller this year. The snow is only inches deep, not more than a foot deep as it was last year. We are starting to pile it up in the mountains. I have books to read, crafts to do, the internet to play with. I have clothing to counteract the cold, and I don't have to work in the cold, like some. I guess I have things pretty good and if I'm open to the possibilities, things will get better and better. I know all that, but, just for today, I'm still a little grumpy, but I'll be better tomorrow.

Procrastination

Today the sun is shining brightly. We have just a light breeze and the temp is around 35 degrees. We ended up with about 2 inches out of Monday's storm. I hoped if I ignored it, that it would melt. Unfortunately, we are on the wrong side of the street. We face North. This time of year, the sun is toward the south, so it's mostly behind the house as it goes across the sky. That means that the house shades the walk ways and quite a bit of the driveway. Anyway, the snow was still there this morning. I finally had to bite the bullet and go shovel. Of course, by now, there are footsteps and ice all over, so the walks and driveway are only partially clean. Hopefully, what sun we do manage to get, will melt at least some of the packed snow and ice. If I had not procrastinated, the snow might be gone by now.

To go on with my exciting life; I'm not sure if MaryLou's dreaded virus is aware of me or not, since I always have some sinus problems in the cold weather. MaryLou isn't coughing so much, but she still has a full head. We both got good news from Social Security today, a nice 5% cost of living raise. With me still working and paying into the program, I usually get a little boost in December,which is nice. Considering my salary, it's just a little boost, but better than nothing.

I work the next 4 days and we may get snow. After last year, I'm not looking forward to the commute. Hopefully, it won't be as bad as last year. After the holidays, we may get slower at work and I may get hours cut. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what the economy does, just like everyone else.