Here and There

I haven't been very good about posting AND I haven't been very good about reading all your posts either.  I will try and do better--next week.

I should be done with John's genealogy tomorrow.  I found a newspaper clipping(s), that he told me about his Uncle who was killed in a fall at the paper company up in Munising, MI.  He is going to be surprised and happy because he told me that every time he gets up in that area, he goes to the Library and looks at reels and reels of microfiche, but never could find anything.  I also found out something about his great grandfather that is not very nice.

John told me that his grandma and her other siblings had been adopted.  Not true.  Yes, they were adopted, but not INTO the family, but taken away and adopted by other family members.  I found a newspaper account of the fact that his Great Grandfather deserted his wife and children.  Then his wife died and when he came back to Michigan, there was a warrant for his arrest.  Before the police could get him, he abused two of his daughters--John's grandma being one of them.  "They" took the children away and his grandma, at age 15, had to go and live in an Industrial School for Girls, until age 18. 

Her younger sibs were adopted by her mother's parents and aunts.  When the Great Grandpa got out of jail in Detroit, he went back to Calgary, Canada where he was born many years before.

I hope this isn't upsetting to John.  The sins of the grandparents do not reflect on him!!!

So strange and something I do not understand--as an only child for so long and now my only sib is my sister----Wednesday night, I handed him a paper and pen and asked him to write down his sisters and brothers and the years they were born, or if he didn't know that, how old they are now.

He could not remember all of them!!!!!  His parents had 13 children in 23 years.  Three of them died as babies--he remembered about that, but he had a hard time getting the names in birth order.

I can't imagine living with that many siblings!  How would you ever get any time with your Mother?  With an alcoholic father, absent a lot of the time and his mother having to work....................it makes me sad for this little, old guy.

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I had a strange and weird situation yesterday and today.

I am starting a new pattern test for Chris.  It is a vest, an unusual vest.  She got the yarn for it when she was here in September.

It is Knitting yarn #2 weight--very fine yarn.  What we have is a variegated Mohair yarn, but Chris wanted me to test crochet it in a solid color.

Yesterday, I went into Brighton to JoAnn's to find it. We had purchased the original yarn there.  I couldn't find any with that weight, so I asked a saleslady, who I have dealt with before and who is ALWAYS very snotty!

"We don't have any.  NO ONE uses that weight yarn anymore!"  and she walked away from me like I was some sort of idiot.  I looked around some more and DID find that weight by the same maker as the variegated yarn and in the right color.  I grabbed 6 skeins of the color.  It is expensive.  $44.46 for 6 skeins!!

I e-mailed Chris a picture and she responded back that she wanted me to do the test, not on this Mohair type of yarn, but just a regular acrylic, because while testing, if I had to rip it back, the Mohair is a pain.

I had to go back into Brighton today to get a couple of inkjet refills to print out John's book, so I stopped at Michael's to see if they had the yarn.  I took the JoAnn's yarn with me, thinking that if I could buy the non-mohair at Michael's. I'd take back the yarn to JoAnn's (the stores are next to each other).  

I looked and looked--up and down the yarn section aisles--two times.  Than I found a saleslady working in that section and asked her.  She replied,  "We don't carry that weight yarn anymore.  No one seems to use it," in a much nicer manner than the lady at JoAnn's.  Then, just to be sure, she got on her walkie-talkie and asked someone else if they still had some back in the storage room.

Nope.

Why I find this strange?  I have several skeins of #2 weight yarn in my stash.  In pink, blue and white.  I use it for the special baby afghan I make for people.

So, when I got home, I jumped on-line and....Mary Maxim's and Herrschners do not carry it either.  The only place I could find it was on the site of the brand of the yarn we got AND, it doesn't come in anything except Mohair.  

I just hope I don't run out of the yarn before the test vest is done or I am in deep doo-doo!

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I guess I am getting too old to keep up, nowadays.  It seems there is always some favorite something I want and it is no longer manufactured!

I plan on finishing up my bedroom spring clean tomorrow (she said with good intentions.)