Hello Everyone~ 

Well, I have gotten a little behind in posting on my Blog.  I have got to get into a better habit of posting in here.  

I cannot believe half the year is gone already.  I have to say this is the weirdest year I have been in so far.  It sure seems like the USA has turned into a Jerry Springer show.  All the negative stuff floating around in the world has been draining on me.  Any time I can see or hear a happy story I eat that stuff up... I crave that.  We need more of good stories we need it badly.   

Everyday it's something bizarre going on in the Government.  I don't do Political posts on Facebook.  I am getting tired of everyone's posts saying how wonderful Trump is or how horrible Trump is. These posts are not making either side come to any agreement or see anything differently.  These posts are just making everyone argue and I feel we are becoming more and more hateful and uncaring about each other.  If you are someone who posts this stuff... stop and take a look at yourself and ask yourself why are you posting this, what are you getting out of this?  Is it just for the dopamine bump, is it something you feel makes you feel smarter than the other guy?  Do you feel you are truly educating someone? Don't say you aren't getting anything out of it... don't lie to yourself.  

For the most part I am a people pleaser... I don't want to make anyone feel bad.  I want to make you smile and feel loved.  What am I getting out of this right now?  I am venting and hoping that maybe one person reading this will stop and look inside themselves and think about what I am saying.  Maybe that person will start telling folks things that bring them together instead of dividing them.  

Majority of us all are loving caring people who want the best for our families and fellow human beings. I truly believe we would stop and help a stranger in need.    

We need to quit complaining and start doing something about the things we are unhappy about.  If you post something about something you don't like, then come up with suggestions and ideas on how to make positive changes, it doesn't have to be something huge, volunteer for the causes you believe in, etc. Do something positive every day to people you encounter.  Sitting around in your armchairs just posting stuff for likes on your social media isn't helping and for God's sake, before you post something you see on the News, or FB etc. research it... fact check it.  Understand that these stories you hear are out there to manipulate you to get some kind of emotional knee jerk reaction to make you believe what they say and get you to forward that post.  

We need to get off our phones and start living and experiencing the world again off electronics and the internet.  I am very guilty of this I can spend a ton of time on my computer.  I am so much happier when I am out doing stuff.  

I am sending everyone love and hope you have a wonderful weekend.  I am headed out to the Farmer's market...   I think there is at least one Blackberry bush, and some Dahlia flowers that are dreaming about moving to our farm.  My Hubby is going to his Quad City Antique Ford Club Breakfast.  Then we are meeting up and going to some estate sales.  

Hansen's 5th Wedding Anniversary

January 1st was our 5-year wedding anniversary.  Hub and I took a few days off and went to Wisconsin to do Genealogy.  I have a cousin Ivanoel Gibbins who wrote 3 family history books called Cousins by the Dozens and the Historical Library in Madison Wisconsin had copies of all 3 books.  

My maiden name is Thomas and when I started becoming interested in Genealogy in the early 1990's it was very hard to research this family name because we didn't have the internet like we do now.  I would go to Mormon library in Mesa, AZ and the volunteers taught me how to research my family tree on this microfiche of the Census.  I started talking to my family members and found through my Aunt Marge Thomas Folks, that she had a copy of Ivanoel's Cousin's by the Dozens book Volume II Jan 1, 1980, that had our family in it.  Aunt Marge sent me a xerox copy of all the pages and I entered all the family members she had tree information into my Familytreemaker database on my little computer and have been hooked since then on researching my family and anyone else's Trees that want my help.   

I have been searching for my own copy of this book ever since...  

Well, since I cannot find a copy, I am going to recreate it, I am typing the whole thing and we went to that library to copy the photographs and documents in the book, hoping for better quality of photographs and they are a little better.  Hopefully i can find a lot of the documents and Newspaper Articles online and get clearer copies.  

I wish I could have met my cousin Ivanoel; she was very interesting.  I will talk about her more in depth in the future on my blog.    

Here is a little note and photos of her from her from Cousins by Dozens Volume I.

After the library we checked out the city a little. Then went and ate and headed to our hotel.  

The next day on our way home we stopped over to meet Dave's cousin Sherry Sebero Kirkenbush.  Sherry is descended from Joseph Sebero and his line is from Canada/Wisconsin and we believe this line is part of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin.  Dave has some Native American DNA.  

I loved our visit with Sherry.  She opened her front door with a French Bulldog in one arm and gave us both hugs with her other arm.    Sherry is our kind of people and the good news she is only an hour and half drive away from our house.  I can't wait to see her again she is so funny, and I love all of her stories.  Now here is the weird thing... she reminds me of my Sister-in-law Beth who passed away September of 2021.  Sherry is tall, funny, has a great laugh, she fixes and does all kinds of cool stuff to her house and when she talks with her hands, and her mannerisms, she is so similar to Beth.  I wish Beth could have met her.  

I think Dave is going to try and go stay at their cabin on one of the Sebero homestead in Wisconsin.  It would be cool if our nephew Josh could go with him.  I pictured him and Dave having a blast.  

Other going Ons

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, we have our daughter Nichole, her hub Matt and our grand kids.  

Hub and I go to Arizona soon, it will be my first trip back since I left in April of 2022.  It is just a quick 3-day trip and mostly to see my mom, my kids and grandkids. Also, a quick lunch visit with our dear friends Ruth and Nelda.  I miss them all so much.  

Dave is heading out to a lot of different places the beginning of this year, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and then turning and going to Utah.   He is also building a room, in the Attic at Nichole and Matt's house in Tennessee so he is at the kids a lot too.  

I am trying to talk my mom into going on a Cruise or some kind of girl trip for her 80th birthday with Ciara and I.   

Hub. Mushy stuff

This fella makes me laugh, we love the same kind of things, and there is no one I would rather be with than Dave.  He is a tough fella who never complains and can do anything. Dave has the most tender heart and loving to everyone he meets.  I feel such Gratitude that he in my life and love him deeply. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful year this year... I feel it is going to be good for us all.  

 

                         Merry Christmas on the Farm 2024

                                    

Christmas is almost here, and we have everything done and ready to go.  As I am typing this our daughter Nichole, son-in-law Matt, and our grandbabies Jordyn and Sawyer are on their way to stay with us for a few days.  Dave is cooking up his specialty of Chimichanga's for dinner tonight at their request.  We have plenty of games ready to play and Dave's Mom will be over for many hours of laughter and fun.  I can't wait to watch everyone open their presents. 

This is our first Christmas with a house full of cats, this year we could only put on ornaments that are unbreakable.  We finally figured out if we put the Cat tree in one window by the Christmas tree, they would climb that and leave the tree alone for most of the time.  Plus, we have the 4 dogs in the house too.  It is a little crazy but that is how I have lived most of my life, a little crazy with a ton of animals around.  

Christmas is a time of making memories to cherish.  I loved Christmas when I was little with my Grandma Ginny and Grandpa Bill Thomas, I spent a great amount of time with them and felt safe and loved there. When I was 2 years old, we moved to Georgia, and I didn't see them again till I was 6 when we went to Phoenix for Christmas. I remember the Christmas tree with the Shiny bright ornaments, and they gave me a Mickey Mouse watch I didn't want to leave them when it was time to go back home.  

My grandparents in Georgia on the farm, were Grandma Marie and Grandpa W. T Johnson and my Great Granny Pinkie lived there too she was born January 1, 1900, and was the best cook.  I have great memories of my time there it was a magical place where I could explore the woods, and we had horses, cows, pigs and dogs.   It was so beautiful there.  If I could pick what my Heaven would look like it would be the farm in Georgia.  

I hope everyone has a Wonderful Holiday and gets to spend time with their loved ones.  Don't worry about trying to make everything perfect, just enjoy the moments that come.  When my kids were younger, I was always worried about trying to make everyone happy in my big extended family and I wore myself out and did not get to enjoy the happy little moments.  Don't waste your time on stress and worry.  

Sending everyone my love.  Here is a pic of Mr. Lasher Kitty from Ciara's snapchat today.

 

Fall is over, winter is starting, as today I saw snow flurries when I was driving home. I love to see snow and really enjoy being in the house cuddled up in my Minky blanket watching the snow fall.  

Everyone is doing well.  My Hubby is still the coolest fella in the universe.  Ciara likes her new job and making friends, and she is going to Hawaii in the Spring.  Hub and I are headed to Arizona in January.  We are only there a couple days to see my Momma as she has had a lot of health issues this past year and I just really miss her.  We are seeing the kids for one night and then headed back home.  We also have our 5-year wedding anniversary coming up and I have taken time off so we can do something.  

All the animals are as spoiled as they possibly can be.  Somehow, we ended up with 5 cats living in our house, so along with the 4 dogs so we are a full house.  Outside we have 17 chickens now, one of the OG chickens passed away this summer.  I think the cause was that she was egg bound.  Speaking of eggs, we get a dozen a day now.  I need to figure out a way to use them all, or someone to pass them onto.  

If you don't have a Minky Blanket, here is a link these are the most amazing blankets ever!

https://www.softminkyblankets.com/

Onto Memory Lane

Hiraeth is a Welsh word that doesn't have a direct English translation, but it's often described as a deep longing for home.

As I get older, I have become more nostalgic about the past especially around the holidays and wish I could time travel to return to my childhood and be with my family again. I'd give anything to have one more day visiting with them and I wish I would have asked my grandparents about stories of their lives. 

If you still have your parents, grandparents or anyone you are fond of that are still around ask them their stories so you can pass them on.  

When I retire from this job, I want to go around and interview folks and record the stories in a video or recording, so they can pass those down to their family members.  I do genealogy every day and I would just love to see a video snippet of my family that have passed on.  I figure if I could do that for someone else, something of them would live on forever and future family members could enjoy it.  

I love hearing folk's stories about their lives.  I think this started when I was a Candy Striper at Doctor's hospital in Phoenix.  I would volunteer on my summer breaks, and I worked in the progressive unit of the hospital. These were patients who had heart attacks or issues that were serious, but it was a step down from ICU.  Most of the patients were older folks, and I would give patients water and help with little things they needed but my favorite part was listening to them tell me their stories.  

Then a few years back I saw this company called StoryCorps  https://storycorps.org/ and loved listening to all the family stories and thought someday I want to do that too.  

Here is 7 generations of my Family Tree 

I have been working a lot on my Tree trying to get all of the 7 generations of family in my database.  I am short just a few and they have been brick walls for a long while.  I am probably going to have to travel to look for these missing parts of my family.  

I am starting to create books for different family lines.  I am working on the Thomas family starting with Henry "Heck" Thomas born March 31, 1814.  .  Here is a snippet about him from a book my Cousin Ivanoel Gibbons

 

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving this week....  If you get a chance to be with your family, ask them to tell you some stories about their lives.  You won't regret it. 

Just. another day...

                    Cartoon Jewels ~I love my snapchat filters, I send the kids and grandkids silly photos         every day.  Here is what I sent today.  :) 

Farm life

You never know what is going to happen around here.  Thursday night, Ciara showed me we have Broccoli worms and some kind of bug that hatches as spiders in our garden. Since we have an organic farm, we have to find something that can deal with these worms that are organic.  We are going to use bacillus thuringiensis (BT).  Our garden is doing well we have a lot of tomatoes, squash, okra and peppers growing and ready to eat.  Ciara has planted Beets and Pumpkins that are still growing.  

One of our Hens was acting lethargic, so she spent the night in the house in cage on Thursday night sleeping with a fan on her.  I was kind of hoping that after they grew up and moved out to the chicken coup that I was done with them in the house.  I told Ciara I believe the black and brown hens are going to start laying eggs any day now, and sure enough we had one tiny egg.  Our 5 easter egger chicks will take longer before they lay eggs.  I hope the lethargic chicken isn't egg bound, but we will deal with that when the time comes.  

While we were outside a group of deer ran right by us, like 20 feet from us and Chewy our husky went after them and chased them all the way down to the woods.  

We still have two of the three outside cats around and they are in our barn behind the house.  Smokey who I was able to pick up tonight, she is a girl, the other kitty Shadow is a boy.  Momma cat has been gone a couple weeks; I hope she is safe somewhere.  

Happiness is in the little moments 

I love Saturdays, it is my relaxation day of the week. Today it is cloudy and overcast which is wonderful and I am on the couch doing Genealogy & watching TV shows with Ciara, the dogs and cats.  Ciara is crocheting a long neck dinosaur today lol.  

When I was younger, I got into the habit of watching channel 8 which is PBS channel when I lived in Arizona it would have cooking shows, and this old house.  Our here our TV doesn't broadcast PBS too well with our antenna, so I am always looking for shows to watch on Amazon or other streaming channels, and even YouTube.   My all-time favorite shows to watch I find on the Discovery and the PBS living channel... here are my most favorite: Homegrown with Jamila Norman she is amazing here is her farm Patchwork City Farms, and anything Jacques Pepin, Julia Child and Lidia the Italian chef.  

Family

We got a call from our daughter Nichole she said our son-in-law Matt is sick with Covid and they need help, so Dave packed up and is headed to Tennessee right now to help. I wish I could go so bad, but I have work.  I am so happy that Dave's job is one he can do anywhere and that he is able to go help our kids.  That is the hardest thing about being away from family that I miss, is being there to drive over quickly to help.  It is going to take Dave about 8 hours to drive to them but that isn't a rough amount of time to drive.  I told Dave to send me tons of photographs.  

What I am up to....

Genealogy:  I am working on the Zornig (German), Pfaender (German), Plambeck (Denmark), Flavelle (Staffordshire, England) & Weidman (Denmark) families.  This is Ciara's Paternal family lines, and they all ended up in Illinois when they came to the United States.  I am close enough to go and research in Chicago, which is exciting.   

Here is a Weidman family photograph. 

from left to right.  (August is Ciara's Great-Great Grandfather.)

-

Son Carl Weidman, Father August Weidman, Mother Christine Plambeck Weidman, below her is daughter Marion Weidman, and to the right is daughter Ellen Weidman.  

August Weidman born 1882 in Bornholm, Denmark and passed away in Evanston, Illinois 1959.

Christine Plambeck born 1882 in Copenhagen, Denmark and passed away in Evanston, Illinois in 1952.

Ellen Weidman born 1906 in Rockford, Illinois and passed away in Palatine Illinois in 1995.

Marion Weidman born 1909 in Evanston, Illinois and passed away in Alma Michigan in 1991.  

Carl Weidman who is Ciara's Great Grandfather born 1912 in Rockford, Illinois and died 1961 in San Diego, California.  

Bread: Ciara and I are going to create our very first sourdough starter.  I got Ciara a Bread cookbook for her birthday, and we are going to make all kinds of breads.  It is starting to cool off use the oven to bake soon.  In October I have another book coming called: The Big Book of Bread by the King Arthur Baking Company.  I cannot wait.

Gardening:  I am thinking up ideas to put a raised garden by the back door.  I want to find some old things I can upcycle to make the area around the outside of the garden. This is going to be a small area It is going to be for flowers and herbs.  

Things floating around in the back of my mind...

My Daddy, Ronald William Thomas, August 30th is the 20th anniversary of my dad passing away.  I cannot believe he has been gone that long.  I want to do something in honor of him... maybe plant a tree or a bush or make something that I can look at and think of him.  

That is about it for now...  

Oh great Movie we watched last night....  Fly Me to the Moon 

FLY ME TO THE MOON - Official Trailer (HD) (youtube.com)

 

  

Welcome to the World Sawyer Reese Hally born July 6th, 2024

Here you are...    

Your Poppy and I are so glad you are here fella.  We are excited to share so many things with you.

You have the whole world to experience, and it is going to be so magical.  

Can't wait till we can come and visit you.  

Love you dearly little one. xo

*****Happy 4th of July *****

It has been a while since I have written.  So many things are going on!

We have a new grandson named Sawyer Reece Hally expected around July 9th. He is the son of our daughter Nichole and son-in-law Matt who live in Tennessee.  We will head out to see them mid-July

Our animal family has grown. We have 6 cats on the farm now, 3 in the house and 3 outside cats. 

Meows:

A young momma cat found a safe place under our front house and had her babies there.  We were able to catch three of them so far.  The grey one is a boy named Lasher, the solid black girl is Raven, and the black and white girl is Rowen.  They are named after Anne Rice characters.  Ciara is the official animal namer...  The three outside cats we are still trying to catch are a solid black kitten named Shadow and a gray kitty that is going to live in the front house with my mother-in-law Liz and she has named that cat smokey. The second photo is of Momma cat, Shadow and Smokey from our ring camera. They are still living under our front house and hang out on Ma's front porch.  

Buc Buc's :

The chickens are getting big and have been living outside in the coup.  They get along with the OG's.  Here is a picture of one of our favorite chickens named Tofu from when she was little till a grown up.  

  

\  

        

 The Garden:

This year the garden is growing so well compared to last year.  I believe it is because we have had so much rain.  I need to go out there and prune everything really well this weekend.  Last time I went out there the dogs were running around playing and Chewy ran full force into my bad knee and knocked me down.  I was by myself so I laid out there a little while till I could get back up.  I have been a little nervous about going back at least by myself lol.  

We got that new lawnmower and I tried to drive it and was watching the wheels, instead of looking up and forward so I was freaking out, I about ran over my husband 4 times.  So, Hubby has been doing all the lawnmowing. Who knew one of those easy turn ones would be so weird to drive. I am going to try to drive it this weekend.  I am going to go out to a big area where I can practice first.  Wish me luck. 

 

Random stuff:

Dave and I joined Planet Fitness out here, and I like it a lot.  It takes a bit to drive there but it is never crowded, and they have these awesome body massage machines you can use after your workouts.  Riding the bike helps my knee.  I am going to get another steroid shot soon. I am trying to draw out getting the knee replacement.  I am so afraid of the pain of the surgery.  It hurts to walk now, and I would probably be so much happier if I got the surgery. 

We have had a lot of thunderstorms lately.  Ciara and I are all thunderstorm loving people, but it isn't like the storms in Arizona, because Tornado's are usually involved.  There are Tornado Watch's and Tornado warnings.  Watches mean there are the kind of storms that can produce Tornado's but the warnings are the ones you really have to pay attention to. Those mean Tornado's are highly likely in our path.    When that happens, we sit and watch TV and the weather men will be on over any program that was on, and they will show the area and radar and tell different areas where touch downs occur and when to take shelter. our phones will keep having warnings going off  there are sirens outside that go off when it gets really close. So we all head down into the basement, and we take the dogs and the cats down with us. We sit on lawn chairs and wait till we get the all clear on our phones. This last tornado warning Ciara and Dave drank wine down there lol.  I don't think they were as nervous as I was...  

Noelle:

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Dave's daughter Noelle passing away 12 years ago. Our friends Ruth and Nelda decorated her grave in Arizona for us.  They are amazing friends and I love and miss them so very much.  This means so much to Dave.