Category Archives: Family

2020, Family, Gatherings, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized

Best Costume

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Daughter informed me she is going as Guy Fieri for Halloween this year.  She showed me a trial run, and she somehow,  with her long brown  tresses,  got a bleached blonde, sticking straight up, head of hair complete with head band and goatee.  Gone are the days when she wanted to be a princess or a fairy.

In my grad school days I once had to accompany a distraught client to the ER on Halloween.  The clinic tracked me down at a costume  party where I had dressed like an enormous strawberry.  (I sewed the costume  myself).  I showed up at the hospital in costume.  I was lucky they didn’t hospitalized me instead of the client!

I used to sew elaborate costumes for our children, and I will be quite ready to sew for my grandson in the future. This year is a not the best for fun costumes,  although I bet he would make a pretty cute Guy Fieri.

What are some of your favorite costume memories,  Halloween or otherwise?

2020, Family, History, Uncategorized

Popular Names

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Today’s post comes from Jacque.

Recently I scrolled through the Social Security Administration list of popular names.   I found a lot of Liams, Michaels, Benjamins, Emmas, Avas, and Fridas.  Brittany and Tiffany are now parenting Liam and Ava.  It is so interesting how names run from generation to generation.    I found this in my own family tree during 3 generations of naming that stretched from 1718-1750’s.

During the early part of the pandemic, when we were socially distanced at home without end,  sorted and scanned  family history information which I have inherited from my mother and my grandfather’s cousin, Muriel, who gathered together some Civil War letters from her grandfather who fought in Sherman’s March to the Sea.  She, at age 92 years, is his only living grandchild.

In her things I found a letter and application to join the DAR under the Patriot Christian Hamaker.  A polite response from the DAR points out that there was no documentation for a Christian Hamaker.  This must have been disappointing for Muriel, who wanted badly to join the DAR.  Only a John was documented.  HMMM, I thought, logging on to Ancestry.com to clarify.  Yes, indeed, Christian fought, but with a name complication.    Here is what I found.  Johannes Adamus Hammacher emigrated to America in 1740, marrying Eva Marie Licht upon arriving.  They produced 12 living children from 1743-1764. They were as follows:

Johannes Adam Hamaker

Anna Maria Hamaker

Maria Salome Hamaker

Maria Eve Hamaker

Elizabeth Hamaker

Johannes Henry Hamaker

Johannes David Hamaker

Johannes Abraham Hamaker

***Johannes Christian Hamaker –my direct ancestor

Johannes Isaac Hamaker

Johannes Samuel Hamaker

Johannes Phillip Hamaker

Do you see patterns here? Poor Elizabeth with no “Maria” listed must have felt left out.  All eight sons fought, all were recorded as “Johannes” or “John” from in the same Pennsylvania Regiment from 1776-1783.  It appears from the records that after one of them married and started farming or running a sawmill, the next brother would report for duty when the call was issued because the practice was that they travelled back and forth from home to the front as needed. I suspect that the oldest, Adam, fought the most since there were four daughters between him and the next son.  Poor Muriel did not know this.  I called her several years ago to discuss it, but she could no longer follow the conversation, which was sad.  She did the family such a service by preserving a great deal of important family history.

In subsequent generations the last name is recorded as  Hamaker, Hammaker, Haymaker, Hammacher, Hamacher.  My three greats grandmother is listed as Nancy Ann Hammacher in an Iowa census.  She then married Martin Klein.  Kline.  Cline.  Only George Foreman who named all his children, George Forman, including the daughters, created more confusion.

Got some interesting family names?  What names would you like to see come back into fashion? What names are you tired of?

Baboon Achievers, Family, Food, home, Uncategorized

Bratwurst Bun Perfection

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Last week, Husband sent, via overnight UPS transport, four bratwurst buns that he had baked,  to his brother-in-law, John,  in Omro,  Wisconsin. This was expensive.

Husband and John both grew up in Sheboygan,  Wisconsin, which touts itself as “The Bratwurst Capital  of the World “.  Bratwurst is certainly a staple in Sheboygan, and there are competing opinions regarding which butcher shop makes the best and what is the best way to prepare them. It is a sacred food there.. There is a flourishing industry in shipping Sheboygan brats to far flung Sheboygan expats.

True Sheboyganites are as concerned about the buns as they are about the sausages. Buns don’t ship as well as sausages. Husband  likens the search for the perfect brat bun to finding the best bagel.  The perfect brat bun is light and crusty with a moist  interior and a slightly malty flavor, traditionally baked on a bed of cornmeal.

Husband and John have a mutually supportive rivalry in attempting to bake the best brat buns at home. They have found recipes on-line from defunct Wisconsin bakeries, and try to adapt them for home use. Husband is an accomplished baker. John not so much. My sister-in-law has had her fill of bakery experiments.  (Note: In Sheboygan,  baked goods are referred to as “bakery”).

The quest continues. . .

What are you trying to perfect? What is your favorite culinary  accomplishment?

animals, Family, pets, Uncategorized, work

Raison D’etre

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Our tortie cat loves anything related to eggs or chicken. She was a hobby farm kitten before we got her, and we suspect she was exposed to eggs and poultry.  Any time she hears eggs being cracked in the kitchen or finds out that we are preparing a chicken dish, she is a constant pest. She steals eggshells out of the sink and bats them all over the house.  She fishes eggs out of bowls on the counter and rolls them on the floor.. Her favorite prank is to steal chunks of chicken off our plates or serving dishes. She rolls around provocatively on the counter in front of us whenever we have chicken out, in what we imagine to be an attempt to charm us into giving her some. We call it her chicken dance. Stealing chicken and being charming are her current reasons for existence.

Other of our animals have had definite life goals. Our terriers lived to have fun and investigate anything new. Our current grey cat lives to chase paper balls. I think my raison d’etre is still tied up in my work, but I am beginning to think about other things to live for.

What have your pets lived for?  What is your raison d’etre? How has it changed over the years?

Family, Seasons, Uncategorized, work

Hats Off

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Husband owns and wears what I consider to be a large number of caps. He usually stores them in a plastic tub in the entry way. He displayed them on the dining room table for me so I could take the photo.

The ones in the back row have team, club, or university affiliations. The middle ones are work caps, since they are older and soiled around the sweat bands. The ones in the front row are his special collection of blue caps. He said he started wearing caps after he got a Pioneer Seed Corn hat from my father when we were in graduate school.

Every time he leaves the house, he has to have just the right cap. It has to coordinate with what shirt he is wearing and what activity he is going to engage in. He rarely leaves the house without one.

I don’t understand the purpose of these caps. I think they would be hot to wear in the summer and insufficiently warm in the winter. He is about to take the cap tub into the basement for the winter and get up his stocking caps. (Oh, he also has a blue wool one with ear flaps that he sometimes wears in the winter.)

They are oddly important to him. He says wearing a cap helps him pass in the world of men who work outdoors.  He also likes them as they protect him from the wind.  I don’t think he needs to justify wearing a cap. I just would be irritated with something like that on my head all the time.

 What fashion trend would you like to see return? What fashion trend did or do you abhor?

 

2020, books, Family, Health, Mysteries

I Need Book Advice

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My mom, Nonny, is really doing well with shelter-in-place.  She has always been superb at doing what the doctor recommends – always.  I think I’ve probably said here before that if the doctor told her to stand on her head every Tuesday and spit wooden nickels, you’d better have a bucket to collect those nickels every Tuesday. 

At 88 she is taking covid precautions very seriously.  She is staying in, staying away from neighbors, only going shopping when absolutely necessary and then she goes the extra mile (sprays the inside of her car, wipes all products off when she gets home, wears a mask, etc.)  She is not an online person, so she’s watching a lot of tv and doing a solitary walk every afternoon.  She’s mentioned a couple of times over the last couple of months that she is “out of books”.   Despite the fact that she introduced me to libraries as a child, she is not a library person.  Although I’ve suggested she find a close one, she is worried about hanging about in a library and bringing home potential contaminants.  Telling her that she can talk to a librarian about how they are handling covid to possibly reassure her hasn’t helped.

I thought I would get her some books, but I’m stymied about what to send.  I know that her favorite author is Mary Higgins Clark.  I know that she likes mysteries and thrillers but not things that are “too dark”.  Too much graphic violence and sex is right out as well. 

So if I go to the bookstore to pick up some titles for her, what should I get???

2020, Business, Family, home, Uncategorized

Anger Management

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Last week, the secretary at my office whose husband’s company did our cement work took the cheque I wrote for the job to our bank to cash it. The bank refused to honor the cheque.  They said that we never wrote cheques of that size, and that it didn’t look like my signature.  They apparently compared it to other cheques I had written. They tried to phone me, but I was busy with clients. I never noticed the calls. Husband had to go to the bank and confirm that the cheque was legitimate.

I don’t know how to feel about this.  If the secretary in question didn’t look really Hispanic, I probably wouldn’t be upset about this. Ruby said that the teller was condescending and rude.  I appreciate that the bank is looking our for my interests, but really!  Ruby’s husband, an immigrant from Mexico, came up with excuses for the bank, but I still am upset.

How do you manage your anger? 

2020, Family, home, Uncategorized

Husband’s Dutch Fit

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Husband and I have a pretty equitable division of labor when it comes to housekeeping.  He decided yesterday was the day for him to clean his bathroom.  He organized all the shelves, tossed out unnecessary stuff, and then gathered  all the cleaning supplies he thought he would need. You can see them on the counter below.

It is a small area, but it took him all morning.  Lots of rags were used in the cleanup. Different cleaning products were used to clean different parts of the room.  He had what our family calls a Dutch fit, an episode in which you go over and above regular cleaning.  He still needs to wash the floor. That will happen today.

I am grateful he cleans his own bathroom.  Housework has mysteriously gone by the wayside since the virus and the increasing election nonsense.  There have been few Dutch fits. I think we have been too exhausted to put energy into much cleaning. I am hopeful our house will shine and gleam after the election and the virus subsides.

What are your favorite cleaning products? What are your least favorite  cleaning projects?

2020, Family, Media, Stories, Technology, Uncategorized, Weather

Voting Options – who knew?

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This past summer the state sent out a “do you want a mail-in ballot” form and it asked about the primary and general election.  I checked both boxes so wasn’t surprised when the ballot for November showed up two weeks back.

I had actually intended on going on election day to vote but YA wanted to vote early.  In fact, she was rather adamant about it.  So we both filled out the ballot and got then into the envelopes to mail.  That was when she informed me that she didn’t want to mail the ballots because she was worried about the postal service getting clogged up.  I said I didn’t think that was likely, but certainly not a month out.  But I acquiesced and looked up where you could drop your ballot off.  Downtown.  Ick.  I detest driving downtown and I didn’t want to pay $10-$15 for parking either.  But the drive-by drop-off in August didn’t happen until just a few days before the primary and YA was nagging me every day; I knew she wouldn’t want to wait until the end of October.

So yesterday I took a deep breath and looked up the exact location for drop-off and was ready to drive downtown and take the plunge when I saw a link to drive-by drop-off.  Yesterday was the first day!  As I headed into town I was a bit worried that it would be hard to find or that there would be big crowds, but I worried needlessly.  As I turned right onto 4th Avenue South, there were big banners at the sidewalk and there was only one other car in the drop-off area.  The worker who came out to take the ballots was friendly and helpful.  I mentioned that I was glad the weather was so accommodating and hoped it would stay that way.  She told me that they would actually be getting a tent soon so they would be able to operate in the rain.  Way to think it through Minnesota!

How will you be placing your vote this election?  In person?  Mail-in?  Drop-off?  Drive-through?

books, Family, Gatherings, holidays, home, Kids, Media, Stories

Christmas Is A Comin’

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We purchased scads of stories on audio cassette tapes when our children were young. They listened to them as they drifted off to sleep. Daughter says she still has to listen to audio books before she can go to sleep.  Some of these were stories narrated by famous actors.  Meryl Streep narrated Peter Rabbit  and The Tailor of Gloucester.  Danny Glover narrated How the Leopard Got its Spots.  Jack Nicholson narrated The Elephant’s Child and How the Camel Got Its Hump.  The stories changed as the children got older, and there were crime mysteries, old time radio shows, and, finally, recordings of novels like  A Wrinkle in Time and the Lord of the Rings.  They all sit now in the basement in boxes.

In our effort to get rid of stuff, we are going to have these stories transferred to electronic files and CD’s, and give them to our children for Christmas. Our grandson is old enough now to appreciate stories. It will give us the pleasure of passing on these wonderful recordings and make space in the basement shelves.

Christmas is coming, and we are starting to plan for quiet visits with our son and his family in Brookings. Our daughter is flying to Sioux Falls for a wedding at that time, and we will see her in Brookings, too. It will be a quiet and very much appreciated time together.

What are your plans for Christmas?  What are your ideas for gifts? What stories do you think are essential for children to hear?