You can’t pick your relatives

I was talking to my Gma (paternal) a few months ago and she was telling me her and her surviving siblings were updating the family book that was printed in 1991.  I opened my big mouth and volunteered to make the copies that would be sent to the rest of the family. Stupid stupid me!  My gma and Great Aunt Dorothy sent me the updates they had written on a piece of paper.  Let’s just say I’m in the family and I was really confused. So I decided to make it easier to read I’d enter all the info in a Word document. Before I go any further I need to mention my there was 16 siblings in my Grandma’s family (very good German Catholics) so this was gonna take some time.  I just didn’t realize how much time. 

This is the way I entered all the information. I took out last names and my dad’s two sisters so this is a compact version.

So that’s how I did it for all 16 great aunts & uncles. Of course each one had to have at least 3 kids and their kids had at least 2 and so forth.  I worked a good 40 hours on this.  There were times when I’d get so confused I’d start screaming and crying.  When I get really mad I cry and it happened a few times.  You may ask why I did it, well I kept thinking when my gma and her siblings are gone who will inform us of our family.  I want a way to keep in touch with some of the people.  After two weeks of work I had a rough draft that I sent to my family to make changes and check dates.  They sent it back and I made the final corrections.  I made 30 copies of the final update which was 20 pages long. 

Now remember when I first started out I thought this was going to be an easy little project. Once it turned into a big project I still didn’t expect anything from my family. However, my Gma and Great Aunt Dorothy gave me $20 each. Well I got home from volleyball on Wednesday night and there is a letter from my Great Aunt Ann.   She’s in her mid-70’s and is not old at all!

It’s a nice note and I really appreciate her thoughtfulness to thank me for all the work I did. But then I look at the “little something” she sent with it.

When I first looked at the amount I thought maybe she forgot a zero.  But I read what she wrote and sure enough she meant to pay me two whole dollars.  You must understand my great-aunt and uncle are not poor. Or at least they live a very high lifestyle. My aunt wears huge diamonds, long fake red fingernails and they drive expensive cars.  But the two dollars just blew my mind. I would have been happy with a thank you card. I didn’t need to be paid for my work, but to me $2 is a slap in my face.  And why write a check for two dollars. 

Please tell me my family isn’t the only ones like this?

Weekend plans?  Hopefully we’ll be harvesting corn, but the moisture was still too high yesterday.  I might have to work over the weekend at the sunflower plant, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed I won’t have too.

36 of 52

Carin at forever in blue jeans has set up a challenge to all mothers to get in pictures more often. Even though I’m not a mother to human children I will still join this challenge.

I caught my kids in the act of being nice to each other and I couldn’t pass up the chance for a picture.

Here’s my pictures of them being nice to each other, Caught In The Act.

Way Back Wednesday

This was the summer we spent two weeks at my grandparents house. They’d recently moved from the farm. It was a long two weeks. My gma kept saying it’s your vacation you don’t have to do anything. Yet I remember painting the shutters the whole time. It was a lot of work. I’m thinking this was the summer before my Freshman year of high school.

Christmas Shopping

Are you thinking about Christmas shopping yet?  Well for the first time in years I’m behind. I usually have everything done by Thanksgiving, but this year I just can’t seem to get into the mood of buying gifts.  I have all the ladies in my family done, but the hardest gifts to buy for are the men.  What do I get TNT. I mean he sells tools so tools are out of the picture. I was thinking of getting him a couple polo shirts with the tool company embroidered on them, but that’s like $40. So now what?  Mildred had mentioned getting my dad a gift certificate to the fishing guide service he uses when he fishes at Lake Texoma every May. So that’s an idea. My FIL, BIL & TNT are the HARDEST to buy for.  TNT came home from town on Saturday with replica’s of Clint Bowyer’s Late Models he drove in Tony Stewart’s Prelude to the Dream the last two years.  Not a big deal, but that would have been a great Christmas gift for him. I asked TNT if they had anymore or could order more for the BIL. “Uh, I didn’t think of it” 

At least the niece and nephew are easy to buy for. We get them a few little gifts then give them money to put in their college saving accounts. 

What are you getting your husbands or men in your family?

Old Tree

Last fall when we were bulldozing all the old trees down I took this before it went down.  I love the deep crack in the trunk. Makes me wonder everything this tree has seen. Drought, plentiful moisture, winds, seasons, imagine how many people it saw driving by on the highway.  It’s really sad to take it down, but there was no way around it.

How was your weekend? Mine was pretty good. I used a toothbrush on my kitchen tile for 5 hours on Saturday.  I still have the dining room to do. Defiantly not looking forward to finishing that. I woke up Sunday morning with a really aching neck so I’m headed to the pop doctor.  I got a lot of scrapbooking done and ordered 435 more pictures that will need to be inserted into a scrapbook.

Have you seen that investment commercial on TV with the dog hiding its bone then is constantly thinking and dreaming of the cat getting it and other things happening to it? Well on Saturday morning I gave Trixie a chew bone and she took it downstairs to hide it right away.  I let her outside and started cleaning the tile floor. About 3 hours later she comes hauling butt up the porch and is just going crazy until I let her in. She heads right downstairs. Of course I have to go investigate and sure enough she was checking on her bone.  That commercial popped in my head. I bet Trixie was out chasing rabbits when it dawned on her that Tails could be messing with her bone.  She just cracks me up. 

Caught in the Act

The look on their faces when I first spied them being nice to each other was so funny.

Aren’t they just the cutest furry kids anyone can ask for?

But I knew it was too good to last.

Within a few seconds Trixie was back to being the annoying little sister.

We had a snow storm come through.  Wasn’t really suppose to amount to anything, but it did. We have 2-5 inches with lots and lots of wind.  TNT couldn’t do his tool route because of the roads so he brought me into work.  It took us 45 minutes to drive 12 miles of highway.  The state hadn’t come through with their blades so we were breaking drifts as we went.  In some places it was a white out. I kept telling him lets just go home, but we didn’t. The blizzard is suppose to let up by noon, so lets hope I can get home.

35 of 52

Carin at forever in blue jeans has set up a challenge to all mothers to get in pictures more often. Even though I’m not a mother to human children I will still join this challenge.

My family from Central Kansas came a few weeks ago to visit and see my Dad’s (new to him) house. 

Can you believe TNT is almost smiling?  My dad is standing in the back beside TNT.

Mildred has to drink beer at 11:00 in the morning to get through the family experience! lol

I’m really busy at work so I probably won’t be able to visit much today! Thanks for stopping by though.

Way Back Wednesday

Check out Mildred’s caterpillars. LOL  Those are huge eyebrows. And look how nicely I combed my hair.  Scary!

We use to spend our weekends at the our grandparents farms. I hated living in town and spending time on the farm was heaven for me.  I miss those days so much. Not that I’d want to go back, but spending that time with my grandparents was wonderful.  My Grandma R and Grandpa R lived 3 miles from my Grandma D so we got to visit both on the same weekend.  I have to tell you I enjoyed my time with Grandma D the most. 

We always stayed up late and watched Gunsmoke on Saturday nights. Mildred was in bed and Grandma was sleeping on the couch. I was sitting beside an open window when I started to hear someone whispering, “Carrie.” At first I didn’t think much about it then it got louder and I started freaking out.  I thought for sure someone was standing outside the window trying to scare me.  Forget we are out in the middle of nowhere I slinked out of my chair and belly crawled to my Grandma on the couch. I slid up by her to wake her up. I get right up to her and it’s getting louder. Then I realized she was snoring and it just sounded like she was saying, “Carrie.” We still laugh about that.

Bump Set Spike

Mildred and I gathered a team for co-ed volleyball for this winter over in the town Mildy lives in.  Our six guys are all state troopers and two of them live in the town I do.  Well before the season started I had those two stop by my office and sign the roster. Many of the employees that work here at the sunflower plant are either on probation or have been in trouble sometime in their lives.  So when those employees saw those two trooper cars pull up they scattered.  I didn’t know this until they had left, but about 10 of them stood back in shipping by the window and watched for them to leave.  It just cracked me up. 

Back to my story about playing. We started last Wednesday and had a blast.  Most of the teams are like us and are out to have fun. The first team we played we were pretty evenly matched. There are no refs so the teams call their own violations. We called ourselves in the net or double hits. One guy on the other team I caught him in the net 3 times and he’d argue with me every time.  Angered me like no other. Be honest and don’t cheat. We even let them do a do-over cause some people were walking along the court. They probably wouldn’t have been able to get to the ball anyway, but we wanted to be fair. We played really well and won the game. We were so happy. We matched our wins from the last spring league.

Our second game didn’t have a very good outcome. The team we played are all-stars. They have two guys that hit so hard and it lands in front of the spiking line. Here we’re just a team out to have fun and they run plays and have their rotation set so the setter is always the setter. For us whoever is in front center will be the setter.  That one all-star that hits so hard left bruises on my forearms from when I dug one of his spikes. It’s just crazy.

This recreations program we play volleyball at is so organized. There is 11 teams and all teams play twice a night on 4 courts and we are done in 2 hours. Now that is the way a recreation department needs to be run.  The one we played in last spring here in my hometown had 5 teams, one court and we’d be there from 6-10 and only play one match. It’s just crazy how a little organization will help.

Kansas Sunrise

Took these the other morning. Can’t believe I was awake before the sun rose.  I must not have hit my snooze button 20 times before I finally crawled out of bed.

Had to get the moon and the star in there too.

TNT and I moved Mildred over to her new apartment on Saturday. I will miss seeing her everyday like I do now, but at least we’ll get to talk on msn messenger all the time.  And I’ll see her Wednesday evenings cause I play in a co-ed vball league over in her town.

Two years ago I bought a badminton set. I love playing and I think it would be really good excercise for TNT and I.  Anyway I’ve been trying to get TNT to let me map out a court with tape in his heated shop.  Well he finally agreed yesterday. I worked a long time to get all the lines straight and measuring.  His tool trailer was in the way so we started hitting the birdie back and forth without the net.  I served it to him and he missed.  Now I should have known better because he is a boy and boys have to see how hard they can hit things.  Well I see him wind up and the next thing I know the birdie is about a foot from my face and then it hit me.  I didn’t even have time to react to the birdie hitting me right on the forehead. Now let me ask what do you think my loving husband of 1 1/2 years did?  He laughed so hard he almost peed his pants.  He had to lean against the door cause he was laughing so hard.  I was laughing too. I couldn’t believe the first time he swung his racket he smacks me right in the face.  I call my sister and she’s laughing so hard she can’t talk.  Do I feel how much I’m loved or what?  lol

I took the day off from work to do what you ask? NOTHING! I slept in until 8:00 and then snuggled with Tails and Trixie. And now I look on the Bonnie Hunt Show and see that Ree @ Pioneer Woman will be on. I think I picked the right day to skip work.  Happy Monday everyone.