Supper with Dad & stepmom last night, at the Cracker Barrel located between us. They pulled in soon after I did. I managed to get one chain of a shamrock done as I waited, and most of that as they were walking toward the door. We had a nice meal & conversation. They told me about the route & stuff planned for this summer. We'll be crossing the Great Divide twice and seeing one of Dad's college friends.

books: finished The River Knows and kind of re-reading All About Passion.

tatting: Finished the 7th shamrock this morning. I gave one to Kathy last night so that leaves 6 for my co-workers. Maybe I'll go back to my snood/bun cover now.

sports: ACC conference, UNC won their game today.

Genealogy: Dad gave me a bunch of stuff with grandmother's grandparents & family on it. It was put together by his sister. It's all 20+ years old but when the person died >20 years ago, it's all still accurate.

clothes: black ~slippers, black slacks, black texture-stripe trouser socks, black belt, Harrington Steading polo, Celtic knot jewelry & sometimes, plaited hair.

All Family Post - You have been warned

Dad & Kathy:
The box of books was a big one. I brought them all home, for Chris to look through, too. Whatever we don't want, will go on Book Crossing.

Dad seemed to like the set of Roy Acuff cd's. I'm glad that I finally thought of that. I had the hardest time coming up with his present. Kathy liked the Breast Cancer Awareness pink ribbon pin. I'm not sure how she felt about the historical knitting patterns from the Red Cross.

Dad also gave me the answers to some family questions that I had posed 5 years ago. Now I need to connect the questions to the answers.

We had a nice supper & some good conversation & then I headed home.

Mom:
Ended up running late to see Mom because of the plumber. He called that he was on his way (& thus we turned off the water in preparation) just as I was about to take my shower. Finally made it there & Mom didn't answer the door. That worried me a little but I moved to get a phone signal & called her. Turns out, she just hadn't heard me.

We went to lunch at the Chinese buffet and then to a good thrift shop. We found some very good tank tops for me to layer. I made some better choices this time, I hope. I also found a couple books & a new pair of black heels; a pink plaid skirt, a gold brocade vest, a Pooh mug for Rosemary, but no light-colored summer shoes. I love thrift shops.

Back to Mom's apartment. I went through her blouses, selecting what fit that I liked. She's trying to weed out her clothes & I'm one of the first stops. We also 'fixed' the problem with her DVD player. She has Cyrano de Bergerac on DVD, it's one of her favorite movies.

Weird coincidence: while writing at lunch, a gentleman piped up about how furiously I was scribbling away. I mentioned that I was writing relatives & mentioned, among the others, my aunt in Harnett County. He mentioned that he was from Harnett County. So I asked if he knew my grandmother's family. He replied in the affirmative. I asked about my great-aunt specifically. He mentioned her husband's name (to make certain that we were talking about the same person). He's her nephew. So he & I are cousins by marriage.

Something new on my blog I've added a list of my favorite blogs. That way I won't have to go searching through my email or blog posts to find them.

books: Finished Comeback by Dick Francis. It was a pretty good mystery. I was certainly surprised. Started Scent of Darkness by Dodd at lunch today. I also read vol 2 of Millennium Snow.

letters: I sealed and mailed the letters to my dad's sisters & to my niece. I suddenly decided that I want to add butterflies (tatted, naturally), to the letters so I after I finished eating (& sealing the letters with sealing wax), I tatted another butterfly. They are green size 20, so they are not particularly small or delicate butterflies in my opinion.

genealogy: No luck with the search of past State Fair winners. I ended up leaving a message on the voicemail of the assistant to the head of the Swine Husbandry department at the State College, hoping that he would know where to look for past State Fair Hog Winners. Anitra suggested that I contact the guy who wrote the book about the past 100 years of the State Fair.

On the bright side, after talking to Mom I asked the NC Census list to look for Great-grandpa in the 1920 census & they found the family! I now have confirmation of where they lived & the kids' names. To avoid flooding the list, you're limited to one request a day, so tomorrow I'll ask about grandmother's family.

tatting: another inch on the edging & three green butterflies.

tv: Last night was more The Wild, Wild West. It's between seasons on tv & it shows.

clothes: I received a few compliments on my outfit yesterday, so it looks like I will wear it again. Today it's simply ~slippers, black jeans, white polo (UNC-CH logo), tri-moon moonstone pendant, moonstone earrings, fem ring, red stone ring, hematite ring, silver bracelet & ponytail w/ black elastic.

Family stuff: while Mom was visiting, we talked about her grandparent's farm (that would be her father's parents). Mom visited when she was a little girl & she told me what she remembered. Grandma (for simplicity sake, I'm leaving off the Greats) Suzy did not like new things. Even as late as when Mom was a little girl (early 40's), she was still cooking on an open fire. They did not even have electricity on the farm until Mom was a teenager (late 40's/early 50's). Once they had electricity, it was only in the kitchen.

Grandma Suzy did not even leave the farm for years at a time. When she did leave, it was for one-day trips to the nearest town (which to this day isn't very big). They had a well-house attached to the kitchen; that was as new-fangled as she got. Every new appliance or change was a struggle to get her to accept.

Grandpa Claude didn't like tractors until his legs got so bad that he had to stop using mules. Then he fell in love. He bought not only tractors but a ditch witch (dug several ponds on the property) and other machines.

He also raised prize-winning hogs. They were huge and the kids were not allowed down at the hog lot; it was too dangerous (or they would disturb the hogs, who knew which one).

And it's a beautiful Friday morning. It's crisp & sunny & cold & guess who forgot to find gloves this morning? So my fingers are finally warming up, after being at work for awhile.

Washed my hair last night (hey, nothing on tv until 8pm & I'd already eaten supper). I braided it before I went to bed; it was merely damp by that point. It's still damp this morning; I haven't taken it out of the braid yet.

Yesterday I wrote to my Aunt Lillian. Technically she's my great-aunt but she's close in age to my mother. She's married to my grandfather's youngest brother, who's 20 years younger than my grandfather. I wrote her asking for some family info. I mean, I don't even know the names of all my grandfather's siblings. In my defense, there were 11 of them. I can clearly recall meeting about only 4 or 5 of them. And I don't know the names of my paternal grandmother's sibling (6 sibs plus grandmother). My paternal grandfather only had the one brother, that makes it easy. I don't know any of the names of my maternal grandmother's siblings. I should, she didn't have that many.

Last night I did some on-line genealogy stuff. Found 3 of my great-great-grandparents in the 1880 census (& possibly one sibling of a great-grandparent). That was really cool. So now I know that gg-grandpa Veesart was a laborer. Whatever that means. I thought his wife was from Belgium but she's listed as being born in Illinois, not that the census gauranteed accurate. Her parents are listed as being born in Lorraine. I think that's Alsace-Lorraine. It did confirm that he was from Holland, as my Dad remembered.

Hmm, can you tell that genealogy fascinates me? I also found where someone has done a lot of research on my maternal's paternal line. If it's accurate (her email bounced so I can't ask her), then her family has been in NC 250 years. Wow. Of course, they used to be farther east back then, Cumberland Co.