Sunday Evening--I think

Father's Day and My Mother's Birthday--both parents not here, so no celebration for me.

Today's temperature was:  79 degrees

Today's humidity was:  55%

Sunny, with a nice breeze

No air conditioning required :-)

I was going to post last night, but...when I got around to it--it was almost 2:30 a.m. and my eyes were crossed and my head was dizzy.

I have worked over forty hours in the last four days.  Searching for Pearl's ancestor's and today--for Merle's ancestor's.  With great success, I might add.

I have been using ancestry.com--I just put in the person's name, where he/she lived, the year they were born--or a guess, and up pops all sorts of pages of census reports, death notices, on and on.

I worked up through the years.  I used the names I knew for sure, and on most of the reports, would be their kids names and sometimes (if I got lucky) their parents name, so I could go back one more generation.  I have 6 generations for Pearl and 4 for Merle.  I got all the way back, on both of their families, until I hit dead-end, because the next generation back was either in Prussia, Scotland, England.  You can get those records--if you want to spend a small fortune--which I do not and knowing them--they wouldn't even care.

Like I said before--this has been good for Pearl.  She is thinking--remembering.  It is also sometimes difficult, because Pearl goes off on tangents about uncles and aunts and cousins, that I could care less about. AND at times, Pearl gives me a person's name and come to find out--that isn't their name at all, but perhaps what a family member was called.  For instance, Carrie, was not Carrie, but Carolyn.  I know this because in the 1880 census, she was called Carrie, but in the 1900 census, she was called Carolyn and when I clicked on her name, up came her parents and siblings--back another generation.  I had two pictures of old ladies that Pearl had and on the back---not their names, but she had written Pearl's great grandmother..same inscription on both.  So, I had to call her--she couldn't under who I was describing, so I had to walk down and have her look at them and give me names.  and of course, chat for an hour. <sigh>

It's also been good for me actually--I haven't felt this involved in organizing, searching, planning anything since I did Fred's family tree--which led to car trips to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to search out cemeteries to take pictures.  Too much fun!

Then when I get stacks and stacks of reports, I go into my Family Tree Maker software and enter all the information.  I get an ancestor tree, I get pictures--gotta scan them first, enlarge them, save them, attach them to whatever I want and then--print everything, put it in order, put in plastic sheet protectors and finally, arrange in their binder.  As you can see below--my desk area is really crowded and messed up--but I know what each pile is and where the info I need is.  I just don't  have the extra room I need!!

Stacks of stuff on the scanner, printer, keyboard.  A calculator to figure out ages.

I have a working ancestor tree, so I can mark on it and know where I am.

I do not know why these last 3 photos are rotated.

They are perfectly fine in my picture file!!

Individual family pages

I'm going to make a new title--instead of just Pearl, it is going to be Family Tree for

Pearl Elaine Cook and Merle Marvin Ott   "-)

So all I have left to do is put the whole thing together, then look every page over carefully and make sure there are no mistakes and it will be good to go and boy howdy--they are going to be surprised and probably need a lesson in how to read the thing.  

I was ready to jump in the shower this morning when Pearl called and needed me to come down.  She wanted a lesson--right then--in how to copy a picture off the internet and save it.  So we had our lessons---2.5 hours of lessons.  I showed her while she wrote down the steps--then I had her do it.

Then I came home and finally at 2:00, got myself something to eat and sat down to watch the baseball game and the U.S. Open golf tourney--switching back and forth--now that I HAVE CONTROL of the remote, LOL.

Pearl called and asked me if I could type up the "lesson steps" as she had forgotten and couldn't read her own writing.  So I jumped on the computer and did that.  Step, by step.  I even have to put "hit the enter button" in the steps or she forgets and sits there saying, "Why won't this damn computer do anything?!!"

"Well--you have to tell it to by hitting the enter button." says I.

I was planning on potting some new succulents I recently purchased and Dar walked in.  She was here yesterday when Pearl was here.  Pearl got to see Dar like she normally is around me and---Pearl did not like it!!!

Pearl was sitting in the rocking chair, so Dar pushed Buddy off the couch and sat down there...cigarette in hand.  Then she went in to her dissertation of what all she had done that day.  She is not a conversationalist--she is a lecturer and we her un-paid audience!  She did not want to hear anything Pearl and I had to say--it was, as usual, all about her.  If we tried to make a comment, you could see her fidgeting and soon she'd jump in--back to what SHE wanted to talk about.

She noticed two new novels I had laid out to take to my sister.  "Oh--can I take these?"

"No.  They are going to my sister."

"Why.  I can have it read in two days and you can still take it to her."

"No--because...when I get a brand new book, and I know I won't read it for awhile, I give it to my sister first.  She gets to open it, crack the spine and read it.  Then she gives it back to me.  She reads much faster then I do."

"Well, that's weird," says Dar.

I look over at Pearl, who is rolling her eyes.  She stands up, "I gotta get home.  It's time for supper."  and out the door she goes--of course, she calls later and goes on and on about how rude Dar is and why does she smoke in my house and she doesn't like the way Dar treats Buddy.

So today Dar comes over again, cigarette in hand with her lecture on what she did today!  She laughs her loud horse laugh and the cats go hide under the bed.  Then she says,  "I shouldn't have smoked when Pearl was here.  But, it is your home and I figured you wouldn't mind if I smoked."

"You don't smoke in your house,"  I say.

"Well, no!  I don't want to stink it up,"  Seems perfectly reasonable to her.

Then I say, "Do you smoke in Jackie's house?"

"No.  She's very allergic to smoke."

"Well, so is Pearl,"  I say.  "So if you come over and she is here, please don't smoke."

She skips over that and starts telling me....

"We were at Costco today and my brother bought a shed.  They were on sale.  Of course, you have to buy the shingles, the caulking, the paint, but he wanted it."

"How big is it?"

"It's eight by ten and seven feet tall."

"That's the size of the ones we have.  Except, most of them are at least nine feel high inside.  Seven feet isn't very tall to store stuff in the rafters."

"Oh no--it's plenty big.  You could park two cars in there."

I have had it with this woman so I retort, "You could never fit two cars in an eight by ten shed!"

"Why not?"

"I don't know.  Measure my little car on your way home and see if two that small size would fit in YOUR eight by ten shed!"

IDIOT!!!

I was going to drain the water heater tomorrow, but (delaying tactic) I think I will plant my succulents and do some laundry and.....anything I can think of.  LOL

It is quarter to eleven right now and I have not read an e-mail or gone on Face Book all day.  So I gotta do that before I go to bed.

Hope I have something interesting to write about tomorrow.