The youngest little is potty training. She delights in flushing the toilet as she waves bye bye to the peepee. Never to a number 2 as that hasn’t happened yet. Yet she hides in the bathroom to soil herself ????

The  latest waving of the flush happened to be a pair of her underpants.

We are on a septic tank with very old (65 years to be exact ) plumbing. Think just after outhouses were fashionable, and necessary.

Those little bitty panties clogged up our whole system. Poopy water was gurgling up into the shower base ! Yuk.

Thankfully hubby was home this weekend and used a handy dandy snake down the removed toilet. It took four hours and two resettings of the toilet, but he did it!

My hero, my panty grabbing hottie.

❤️

If  I am ever offered a cocktail , 9 times out of 10 , I will opt for a glass of bubbly.

Living in Southern California,  we technically don’t produce champagne.  Only the French region can do this. No problem, I’ll drink Cava, prosecco and sparkling wines.

I made this little “press for champagne” plaque  as a whimsy addition to our bar. No it doesn’t ring  , it’s just fun.

A small wooden frame, and a metal embellishment ,with a  rhinestone, spray-painted gold and hung.

Et voila ! Champagne s’il vous plait!!

 

When we stop to think where we came from ,we generally don’t think farther back  than our grandparents ( unless you are already interested in ancestry of course). By the time we are even remotely interested in our ancestry, our great grandparents are long gone.  At least that was the case with me.

I love history , especially the Tudor period.  I believe this fascination stems from my grandfather and my father’s interest in history also.  I have read many novels covering this period and watch any shows to gaze at the splendour of the costumes and the way they lived,  despite none of our modern conveniences. ‘Outlander’ being one of my current favorites (not Tudor time period)

Like some ,I consider their toiletry requirements.  I’m not sure why I turn into a 10-year-old boy ,but I have to wonder how they managed !

That aside,  I realise in the last few years that if you want to get to know where you came from ,you have to ask now.  Your parents are a mine of information.  If you still have grandparents, try to get information from them also. A lot of pertinent and valuable information goes with them.

Getting an old photograph album passed down to you when someone dies is a treat to look through, but if there is no accompanying information (for example : names and dates on the back of these photographs), it’s just old photos.

Word of mouth  is so much better , as the joy from your relatives expressions and memories are priceless.  You can ask for peoples names and with that will come a funny story about that person  that has perhaps never been written down before.  Even some old family secrets might pop up changing the course of history! Whaaat? She had HIS brothers’ baby?  Think bad soap opera ! It could get juicy!!

From the age of the Internet and into the future , these ancestry searches will be easier, however, prior to the Internet , it’s a case of searching censuses ,old photographs in attics , and the hall of records or churches.  Someone like myself, who moved away from my country is less likely to have access to these records.

I was given a large manila envelope that contained birth, marriage ,and death certificates from a few of my relatives from my father.  When I open them and started reading them ,touching papers back from the 1800s I started to cry .  I’m not sure what I was crying for ,but I believe it was a sense of loss, happiness and finding missing pieces .  I didn’t find anything juicy, scandalous or mind blowing, but it affected me.

There is a show on tv called ” Who do you think you are” that I enjoy immensely and always wish that someone would do the work for me and discover I am a Viking kings daughter from days of old but alas, no one will. That’s up to me to find it all out.

Some people don’t want to know what was in the past , but I do ,and so this year , watch out relatives, I’m coming to a city near you, with my notebook in hand to interview you. Great excuse to travel and reconnect also!

Ancestry.com you are about to have a new subscriber  😃

I want to know who I am.

 

 

 

In Scotland it is traditional to clean your house from top to bottom before the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve .  The hope being, that if your house is clean at the start of a new year, it will remain so through the year .

My house is never clean on New Year’s Eve , so therefore it will remain untidy throughout the year.  I blame the children.

A few of my girlfriends have housekeepers , or cleaners , who stop by once a week and clean their home.    I have often thought that I would like someone to help me clean also , but this gives me all sorts of anxiety.

I would have to clean my house before they even came.  I wouldn’t want them to think I was dirty !  My kids toys are everywhere, and  as hard as I try there are dishes in the sink , wet towels on floors , and fur balls in the corners.

I am also somewhat of a control freak and perhaps they wouldn’t do it to my standards or follow my directions.

Goodness only knows I can’t get my kids to help. My eldest takes out the trash and loads the dishwasher but generally forgets to put the detergent in and turn it on…so no help there. Waking up to a dirty load of dishes most mornings with the trash spilling out of the cans. Yes , he forgets them too.

The younger children have very limited chores , only to make their beds, hang up their towels ,and put their dishes in the sink.  I tried to make it easy ,and each has a hook for a towel, but somehow I step over towels daily.  Inevitably the dishes are left on the breakfast table, never make it to the dishwasher and I end up picking them up and washing them in the sink.  The beds are crumpled mess despite only having a comforter to pull over and smooth out.

No child in my house knows what a vacuum cleaner does , only that if they climb onto  it , it’s a fun ride!

You might ask ‘why they don’t do what they are asked to do ?’ I’d love to be able to tell you but no amount of sweet talking, arguing, cajoling, threatening or punishment seems to get my request for help through their tiny heads. It must be a maturity thing and yet I just told you about my man-child.

I know it’s not my fault , right??

My husband will tell you that I have an issue with things being done right and that I’d rather do it myself and do it my way and quickly , than wait for the offending culprit to catch up.

I might have to learn to take a breath and request one final time of my children to complete their tasks , or make a checklist/point system to encourage them to perform. They are my mini employees after all ,and I reward them handsomely with wonderful treats and yearly vacations.

I am designating myself head of human resources and their in -house training will be starting immediately!

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