Finding a Lost Treasure

I mentioned going to visit my sister and going through more of my mothers estate items. We split up items and I ended up with the items no one wanted to sell at my annual yard sale. 

When my younger sister was dropping off the items the next day we pulled out the reel-to-reel player and I was going to just drop it off that day at a second hand store but my younger sister said we should look inside. 

We opened up the dusty / mildewed player and there were three reels inside. I was SO grateful my younger sister mentioned opening it. I have a better / cleaner player that I used to listen to all the reels my mother had. I haven't taken the time to go through the stuff I brought home yet having been sick etc, but tonight, I felt like I should clean up that reel player so I could put it in my yard sale. 

I pulled out the player and spent and hour cleaning it up and then turned it on and it doesn't work. I think it can be fixed but since I have a working one, I don't want to take the time to fix it. I pulled out the reels and found that one was a meeting or an interview of my father, one I can't read well that doesn't look like it is my mom or dad, and the last one is an absolute treasure if it is really what it says it is. 

My mother was a beauty queen for the USA before she got married. It says that it is a talk she gave just after winning the pageant! It states that it is the only copy of that talk and that it broke in the middle and she kept the small pieces if needed to splice back together but that is only a small section, so I am hoping that it really is her speaking and that I will be able to transfer it to a digital format.

The area where I transferred the audio files over to digital has been unused for five years or so. I got so overwhelmed with the amount of it that I stopped changing them over. I still have just under 200 audio cassettes to listen to and transfer, and then boxes of vhs, dvds, and cd's to transfer over. I would love to get that finished and clean out that bedroom of all her stuff, but I still have boxes of papers to sort and need to scan it all and then organized it in order digitally. I also have all my parents love letter from my dad while he was serving as a missionary in Australia, to my mother traveling the world as a beauty queen. Both have terrible cursive writing and wrote very small to put more information in the air mail letters. 

I probably have enough stuff to keep me busy for ten years straight, but if I look at the amount of it, I get overwhelmed, so I need to just look at one project at a time. So for now, I got one thing out of the house and out of my sisters garage, and now I have three large reels to listen to, but I am looking forward to hearing the reels. 

I feel like my mother is bringing items to me. There are several other interesting things that have happened in the past two weeks, and I feel that she is gathering family history items together for me. Maybe I will share about some of the other little miracles that have come this past week. God is amazing to organize all these things at the same time. 

Have a blessed day!

Cousins Lunch with Lots of Belly Laughs

I had a cousin who lives on the East Coast come to visit this week. She is one of the 50 plus cousins I have from my fathers side of the family.

This cousin was one of my closest cousins while growing up. My father was a triplet, and so the cousins that are kids of the triplets were closer than the other cousins as they were closer in age and of course, the triplets would have a close bond and so we spent time on camping trips and birthday parties etc together. 

The triplets were two identical boys, and one girl. So it was like two sets of twins in a way as there was an identical set that shared a sack and a fraternal set. My closest cousin was the daughter of the identical twin to my dad. She and I were close because my dad and his twin were close. She was also the closest to my age. 

We took a photo years ago with three of us, and then at each cousins party, we end up having this same photo taken. 

The wife of my fathers twin asked if she could join in the luncheon for the girl cousins, and we were thrilled to have her. We laughed and laughed. We laughed so hard and were talking about fun memories from our childhood going to the lake, reunions, different personality traits of the family line. etc. 

My sister and I ran errands and drove together so it was fun to visit with her and get updates on all her kids as well! 

I feel so blessed to have such a fun family! Have a blessed day!

Visiting Gardeners and Grandchildren

My Grandchildren dropped by with their parents for a very short visit this past week. I had contacted someone about purchasing some books that were about people immigrating to the U.S. and about gardening.

 Here is a link to my original post about these books! The Author signed them and got them in the mail quickly for me and I was so excited to have them before their arrival. They arrived and they stayed for less than 24 hours. They headed out into the back yard to play and I climbed onto the hammock with the gardening book and after they played and needed a rest, they all ended up climbing into the hammock with me at some point. 

I ended up reading the "Grow" gardening book as Grand-Princess One is planning a garden this year and is really excited about it and has purchased the seeds already. 

That night before bed, I sat in the rocking chair and read two more books just before bed. They didn't want to sit still at first as they are little balls of energy, and being at my house is so exciting as they don't get to visit me often as they live so far away. However, when I started reading the books, they got interested and then came and sat on my lap and wanted to see the pictures / artwork for the books. 

The next morning was so busy that I didn't get to read the last book as they had to leave. I was happy that the kids enjoyed the books and the stories and was grateful to the author / publisher for getting them to me in time to enjoy them with the kids. 

If you have history of family coming over on boats, these books are great as you can insert your own story in at the end as the pictures open up dialog. 

The book called "Anna's Prayer" opened up a discussion about my experience as an exchange student in New Zealand and got stranded / abandoned in Auckland. I prayed for help and God sent one of the 100 people I new in the country down that street in the capital city at the exact time I needed them and they were able to allow me to stay with them and took me home to my host city after the David Bowie concert that night. Here is a link to the post about that event.

I loved that these books opened up dialog and I was able to share that story with them about how prayers are answered. 

Have a Blessed day!

Cool Antique Miner Lantern for $3

I wasn't going to go out the other day, but I thought about running some errands and ended up going out. 

While I was out I stopped just before closing at one of the second hand stores in town. They had cleared all the outside shelves and there were only a few things on them. One was a fun looking brass lantern that I have never seen before. 

It had a label from a company in Whales U.K. I thought I would see how much it was to buy as it didn't have a price on it. They had a smaller type in the collectors case for $10 but it was a new camping type with a similar make style. 

when I turned it upside down, I found it had gas leaking out of it. I asked about the price and since it was leaking, the worker priced it at $3~ I was thrilled with that as it is vintage / antique and solid brass at the bottom so it wouldn't tip over. 

I brought it home and washed off the gas and drained it. The wick was still full of gas so I lit the wick and let it burn off. It was fun having it lit and working being so old. It said Miners lamp and my grandfather was on the mining board and had stocks in several mines, so it is fun to have a few mining things near his photo collage and mining card. 

I love thrift stores as you never know what you are going to get or find when shopping them! 

Have a blessed day! 

Day of Deals - God Loves Me

I was at a thrift store last week and saw a GeoSafari game in the box on a shelf outside. I didn't know if it was something my grandchildren are old enough to play with, but I called my daughter and she said she didn't think it would be something they could use currently. 

I asked how much it was and the worker said $10. I decided against it. They go for a bit online if they have extra sets and it had four new sets inside with the prices still on them. I just didn't want to pay that much so I passed and told them it needed a price on it. The assistant manager took it to the back. 

I went back this past week and it was near closing and I was shocked to see it on a cart that came out for $3. I figured I could sell it online as it was still in the box. When I pulled it out off the cart, behind it was a cast iron HUGE roaster! It was new with the instructions, a cook book and two inserts, and pre-cured / seasoned for $4! I grabbed it as it can cook a turkey in it as it has a vent in the bottom or you can flip it and use the top as a dutch oven.It is also a smoker I was thrilled with that! 

I went to the collectable counter and they had a new in the bag Aqua Filter with FOUR ceramic filters. I researched the gravity fed filters years ago for an emergency class I was teaching. Berkey and Auqu Filter were the two best gravity fed filters and you can wash and clean the ceramic filters over and over rather than buying new disposable filters for other units. You can also plug the holes and get down to just one filter and it will still work and you can send the ceramic filters with people traveling to use with inline tubing! The only downside to ceramic filters is they can freeze and crack so you need to keep them warm in the cold like sleeping with them near you type of thing to keep it safe in the cold. These units with three filters are over $350. Extra filters are over $50. I paid $150 for it. 

I went to the other thrift store and I saw a 10 gallon metal Igloo cooler which I have never seen in my life before! It was $12.50 but online they sell for quite a bit. I could only find one or two 10 gallon online anywhere. I found lots of 3 gallon and a few 5 gallon, but only 2 online in the 10 gallon. It did have some rust on the inside base, but I know there has to be a way to coat that as it would be super cool to have at a wedding for drinks as that is the style currently. I know it will sell, even if it is just a decoration as it was full of dirt, so I think it was a decoration before it was donated. 

I love when God provides things that I can sell and help pay bills. Even if none of them sell, most I could keep for emergency preparedness. I know They will sell as they have all sold online. 

I'm feeling blessed as God always takes good care of me! A Gratitude moment for sure! 

Have a blessed day!

Book Journals - Fun Idea Part 2

I shared a few days ago about how I was making some book journals for my kids and grandchildren. I want to share how I finished making them. 

I put the blank pages and the books in order of how I wanted them set up, and then I took them back to the printer and he said his employees were all exposed to covid so he didn't have workers to help cut the binding holes into the pages and covers, so I ended up spending the entire day there cutting all the pages and covers. 

I realized that some of the cheaper bindings on certain books didn't have thicker cardboard so there was nothing to hold the binding on the covers. I ended up having to tape cardboard on the inside and sometimes outside of the cover before punching holes in the covers. 

With the cardboard on the covers of the books, some wouldn't fit into the hold cutter for the binders, so I had to use a hole punch electronic machine that punched the holes one at a time. My arm was super sore the next days having to punch front and back covers one hole at a time and sometimes had to punch each hole twice. 

I had to go to two different places to buy the spiral binding and the smaller two sizes I needed were $20. I paid the other company $30. The books were probably $15 or so. So in total, I spent under $100 for all 13 books I made which is much cheaper than the $30 each to purchase books. 

Both places I purchased the ring binding from told me they were really difficult to put on. I came home and started putting the bindings on and they were super hard to put on. In fact a few of them were chewed up so much with me trying to get them through that I went back the next day to cut new holes in them.

I learned later than sooner that when you are winding the wires through, the covers are longer than the paper so when you are trying to wind the spiral bindings through, the paper is hanging down causing weight on the ring so I found that by lifting the covers up and letting the papers inside touch the counter and that took the weigh off the paper and made the wire go through so much quicker and did less damage to the covers. 

It did take a long time to get the binding rings through, but it was worth it. I spent some time on Christmas Eve sharing why I picked the book I did for each person and why I made them as the journals. 

It was actually a really neat experience that allowed me to share with my kids what I love about each of them.

When I asked my son-in-law later what his favorite gift he received for Christmas, he said the journal. It made all the work worth it. Everyone, even my grandchildren really seemed to enjoy the journals. They asked if they could take pictures with me and the journals and put them in the front of the journals and also asked me to write something in the front of each, so I spent a few hours writing messages to each of them in their books. 

I made a video of how I made the books so that if anyone wanted to make them, their process may go a bit faster and easier. 

I loved that I was able to find a gift that everyone appreciated. Have a blessed day!

Bit of a Rook Coincidence - Fun Story

I am working on a project for the girls for Christmas. This project needs a printer / office supply store. 

I called many places in our small town and the city trying to find a place that could do what I wanted and finally ended up just going down to a printing place in our town that I haven't used in many years. 

When I walked in, I recognized the owner. It wasn't the same owner that it used to be. It turned out that it was a son of a family we knew well, but only after the kids had left home! 

The father used to be a bishop in our congregation and the wife was the music conductor before me. The wife used to give the kids in the area that may not have much money simple jobs around her house so that they would have money for Christmas or camps they had for school. 

My girls went over several times helping her clean out closets and her pantry so they could get money to buy gifts at Christmas or have money for snacks at drill competitions. 

I was always so grateful for her kindness thinking about kids with parents on a limited budget. She was so sweet doing that as I know she helped several other families the same way. 

They have both passed away and we miss them. I was shopping at a thrift store in town and ran across some rook cards. Our family plays a game called "nertz" using Rook cards, so I always buy them when I find them because in that game, you can have as many people playing as decks of cards you have! 

On the rook cards were photos of a family. On the back of the cards was the family name. In our town there are lots of families with the same names, so I pulled out the cards and started looking at the photos on the deck and it was our family friends photos! 

Since the parents have both died, I figured that maybe when they were cleaning out the estate it got donated by mistake. I bought it hoping I could find one of the family members and give it back to them. 

When I saw the son at the printing place, I was able to tell him I had the cards and he was interested in getting them back. I guess they purchased the business a few years back. I had no idea! I was glad to get the cards out of my cupboard where I keep that type of stuff and he was happy to get it back. 

It was nice that I was able to do something nice for their family as their mother did nice things for mine. Karma is real and does come around. I think the personalized cards were fun seeing family photos on the cards. The wife said she got it off an online printing place years ago. It was kind of a cute gift. 

Have a blessed day!

Miss 3000 - Todays Blog is my 3000 Blog Post!

I started my blog in March 2010. I have been blogging for over 11 years now. I realized  that my blog posts were getting near 3000 and figured I would celebrate that I have 3000 posts! 

I did a search on "3000" just to see what showed up. There were lots of references to the song about someone visiting the future to the year 3000.

There was references on "urban Dictionary" about how you add "3000" to the end of something you are telling someone you love as an emphasis, as in "I love you 3000" and there were many references to that.

Of course there is the reference that I used in the title of the movie, "Mr. 3000" referencing a baseball player hitting his 3000 hit. 

I think that is something, that I have written so many posts and kept writing this for so many years. It has become a family history, recipe book, reference book, and a "How To" for my kids and family.

 HAPPY 3000! 

I hope you are having a blessed day!

Mandibular Tori - Boney Growths Under the Tongue - Who Knew

When one of the girls was home recently, she asked all the sisters to show her under their tongue. We all wanted to know why she had so much interest.

She said that she and her friend were comparing tongue tricks that people can do that are genetic, and while doing that, her friend freaked out when she told her to just put her tongue into the little gap under it and turn it sideways. 

The friend was like, "What little gap?" Then they looked under my daughters tongue and there is literally a "little gap" between two larger white bone looking things. 

We all started looking at each others mouths and come to find out, she has really large ones. She then looked it up online and when we were all together today, she explained that the white bone looking things are called "Mandibular Tori" and are common in 20 to 40% of the US population and are more common in males. Out of those people, 80% have it on both sides of the mouth! 

She has really large ones, another sister has very small ones you can hardly see, and I have a small one not visible, but I can feel it on the right side of my mouth and almost nothing on the left. The other girls have nothing we can see, and they don't feel anything.  

Weirdest thing about this is, she has never noticed that she is different and I have never noticed and they aren't born with them and they grow. They can grow so large, that they touch in the middle. We looked at them online and some people have no space at all between the sides. 

The causes are unknown but it is speculated that it is genetic, but there is a finding that it can be caused by trauma to the mouth or jaw. Another speculation is that if you clench your jaw or grind your teeth, it can cause them to get bigger or disappear as you don't grind teeth. There is another school of thought, that it is a vitamin deficiency. 

I am not sure what the cause is, but I would think that perhaps trauma could be the cause as she has had several blows to the face / jaw over the years falling on ice when she was little and other situations when she was older. I don't doubt that it could be grinding teeth as I have several that do that. I know that we are vitamin and mineral deficient, so that could also be a contributing factor. 

The girls have been much better lately about taking vitamins and many are getting chiropractic help, so hopefully, if it is from trauma, that would help them disappear. I just worry that maybe it is a result of the nightmare parasites we have been dealing with as I believe some of my girls had them before I did. 

I guess we will never know, but I hope they stop growing. If they continue to grow, they take them out surgically. That is expensive and painful, so lets pray we can figure a way to get them to stop growing. 

Being a nurse, I am surprised I have never heard of this. I love that I can continue learning new things! 

Stay safe and healthy and have a blessed day! 

Fixing or Repairing a Broken Silver or Gold Trophy

 Several times now over the years, I have had trophies from my parents that have needed repairs. 

Having 8 children, and four of them being boys, anything of value got quite destroyed, especially anything shiny and enticing for children. My dad had this small silver plated trophy he got as MVP of a team he played on in 1956. He was not really big into sports due to working as a teen, but was very athletic so it was the only trophy that my dad has for that type of thing. 

Many years ago, my dad had some items that they were getting rid of out of his home, and this trophy was one of those items. At the time, one of the handles on the trophy was broken. No one else seemed to care about it, so I grabbed it hoping to be able to find a way to fix it as I had fixed my mothers large trophy a few years before. 

As you know, I have been working on my dad's history since his health scare this summer. I pulled out several boxes of items I have had in the garage for many years hoping to organize it while working on his history these past few months. 

I contacted my brother-in-law and showed him the trophy and asked if he had any ideas as to how to reattach the handles as the other was half off. He didn't have any ideas, and I tried to glue the handle on with several types of glue and used rubber bands to hold it on. 

Obviously, that method of repair didn't work and I got busy with other things and put the trophy aside. I knew it wasn't worth paying to have it repaired so I just thought about it for a month or two not wanting to keep a broken trophy, but not wanting to throw it away. I thought it would be a cute thing to share with my grandsons at some point if they play basketball. 

I have my mothers large beauty queen trophy as she represented the US as a beauty queen so I think it is fun to have a trophy from my dad as well. 

I had an inspiration moment a few days ago where I had an idea come to my mind. I thought that if I broke off the other broken handle, then I could make the trophy look more like a chalice or cup and no one would know any differently as all the information is on the cup face. 

I was really excited about that thought and so I broke off the other handle and then used a grinder tool on a Dremel and ground down the handle edges that were still left on the cup. I ground it down and then buffed the area and polished up the silver and I was super happy with the results of the grinding and polishing and made a video of how it looked halfway through so you can see the before and after on the cup. 

I share lots of other tips that I used on fixing my mothers trophy many years ago, so watch the video all the way through if you have questions on fixing a trophy. Now I can show my dad the fixed trophy and hopefully get him to share some stories about his experiences playing on the team. I also found some pictures and news articles of him playing and getting the award so I may put the trophy in a shadowbox and put a picture in the box with the trophy and a copy of the newspaper article in with those as I think that would be a fun memento. 

Hopefully you can get the idea, and feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Have a Blessed Day!

Scanning Someones Life - Long Labor Of Love - Fitting for Labor Day ;-)

I spent an entire week from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for six days with one bathroom break a day scanning my fathers life history. I spent a few months finding everything and organizing it into a functional and chronological bunch of boxes.

I thought I was ready to scan it all having organized it as well as I thought it could be. I learned a few lessons this week. I have scanned at this library before. I have scanned at many different Walmart stores, and tried many home scanners as well as other stores scanners. See if you can find a fast auto feed scanner that does both sides of the picture as it runs through the machine. I also like the flat bed scanners that can capture many pictures at the same time and you can edit each as you scan. That way you aren't saving double copies of every scan, even when it is bad and needs editing but many flat bed scanners don't capture more than one photo at a time. 

I would say I am probably more skilling in scanning than 99 % of the people in the U.S. but even with that, I wasn't ready and as organized as I should have been. 

Here is a list of items you should take when scanning histories, documents, newspaper articles, pictures, certificates and any other history: 

scissors
staple remover
stapler
small baggies for paper clips
clear non-shiny tape
small bag for trash
snacks
water bottle
chair cushion 
tissues
paper towels
extra file folders or plastic sheet covers
Kart / dolly to move boxes or totes of items to scan
BACK UP DRIVE with room for amount of scans you are doing 
another BACK UP drive as I did scans of slides which take a long time and those scanned while I used another back up drive to scan on a near by flatbed scanner. I also sometimes do two document scanners doing different files on both so have at least 2 large USB or back up drives is SUPER helpful if you are doing large amounts of scans. 
HELPING HANDS is always great, but I can't get my siblings to participate so my daughters have helped in the past. 

Make sure you take a chair pad. I forgot my purple pad, and many times, the chairs in this library are so horrible I can't sit for a few days after scanning for even a few hours, but they replaced them with really cushioned chairs so I took a blanket out of my car to sit on but never had pain like I did before. But, until you know, I suggest taking a pad if you are going to do marathon sessions. 

Take out all the staples ahead of time and replace with paper clips if needed. Taking time to pull out staples while scanning took lots of time and I missed some which ripped the documents. 

Pull the letters or certificates out of the envelopes and you can put the envelop behind the letter or before but be consistent so people can know which letter goes to which envelope as sometimes people didn't date their letters or certificates but if I scanned the envelope, I could tell exactly when the letter was date stamped or the event happened due to the stamp on the envelope. Know your scanner as the document scanner we used, the envelopes went in bottom first as this caused the least amount of issues with the scanner. 

Lay the letters out flat in order in a folder so you can insert them all into the scanner together as one document as when I titled them all, it took them out of the chronological order I had them in. So now, I have to go back to that first batch of scanning and rename them to get them back into order by date. 
If you do title them, put a number or date in front of the title so they stay in order. For example, best way I found to find items is by date. So, I put the full year first, then the day, month and year, then the title. 

So, I would put
2019 9-1-19 Scans for blog
2019 9-2-19 Scans for blog day 2 
etc. 

This makes it SO much easier to find what you need. I'll share more tomorrow. Have a Blessed Day! 

Little Kart Doing BIG Things - Folding Kart AMAZED Me!

A few weeks ago, I shared how God gives you what you need when you need it. He knows what our needs are before we even know what we need. 

In this post, I shared that I found this amazing little fold up cart that has an angled back brace that locks and has wheels on it so it can lean back on its own without you holding it and it has wheels on the back.

This past week, I went to a college campus to use the scanners at the library so I can scan all my fathers documents and have them all there while I scan them. I had been worried about it and had borrowed a cart / kart from my dad, but it wasn't super strong, but I figured I could take one box at a time with that fold up kart. 

I liked what I saw and shared in the post, I had an empty tote on it but hadn't tried it with anything heavy on it until this past week hauling four huge totes/boxes across campus. Princess Two helped me as I had a half full box as well that I carried but I was SUPER impressed by this cart. 

The tote is STUFFED full of documents. There was a box of about ten full photo albums which was super heavy as well as two other boxes full of photo frames with glass in them, old photos and family history documents.

The kart didn't have any problem keeping the boxes balanced and moving. I was even able to just tip it back over the curb which lifted the front wheels off the ground and the gutter / curb was no obstacle for getting the heavy boxes up on the curb! 

I was able to get the cart for under $10 or so if I remember, and after using it this week, I was so impressed that I actually looked it up and was floored when I saw how much the Kart costs new! I had never seen anything like it before, but GOD knew I needed something functional and strong and had been pondering on how to get all those heavy boxes there. 

This little Kart is called Kart-a-Bag Tri-Kart 800 by Remin. I found it on a website for $288 plus shipping! Can you believe it? It was just what I needed and God put it, and those perfect file totes in my path, and all are being used and I am grateful for them! 

Princess Two who is the least strong of my girls, being so tall and thin, was able to pull the loaded kart with ease. I used it many days by myself hauling different boxes to and fro and even when you have to go through a door, the kart is so smooth, it was easy to just glide along.

I would give this Kart a HUGE thumbs up and if you need a strong little Kart, it is just that! 

Have a Blessed Day!