Genealogy, I am doing it

Yesterday, Jackson came into the kitchen and said "Mom, what is harpies? I just saw a commercial for harpies medication and I wondered what it is." Oh, you mean herpes. Oh dear. That is a conversation I am not quite ready to get into with him. I know he is 12 and the time is fast approaching (probably long past) but how do you explain STD's to your kids? We reassured him that it is a disease he does not need to worry about getting right now and sent him on his way. Waaahhh. I want him to go back to being 5.

On a lighter side, I have been reading the Joseph Smith biography, "Rough Stone Rolling." It has been very fascinating to learn a little more about Joseph and the times he lived. During my reading one night I discovered that the town where he spent a large amount of his childhood, and where he had his first vision, Palmyra, is just 12 miles from where I knew some of Rollin's ancestors lived. It got me interested to see if they were living there at the time of Joseph Smith's vision and receiving the gold plates, so I dug into the genealogy I have gathered.

Rollin is 1st generation church member, so there has not been a lot of work done on his family line. That was exciting to me when we first got married, because my family work has been done by so many people going back to the time of the pilgrims, and I thought I wouldn't have much of a chance to ever do genealogy work. In the past as I have worked on Rollin's genealogy, I haven't gotten very far, not much past his great-grandparents, but this time I had so much success! It was so cool to all of the sudden find these people. This is an actual copy of the 1900 census which lists Rollin's great-grandpa who I could not find for the life of me for 10 years and then all the sudden, here he is!



There are some interesting facts in Rollin's family's past, and I wish I could sit and talk to these people and hear their stories. That is what is so exciting about genealogy work. I have a chance to just imagine the people and what made them make the choices they did, or how they responded to the life changing events they were faced with. For example, Rollin's great-great-grandpa died while when he fell off the roof of a construction project he was working on. He was 24 and left behind his wife and 4 children. Rollin's great-great-grandma had to send three of her children to live with relatives because she had no way to provide for them. How tragic is that? I would love to hear her story.

Anyway, I am still working on getting back to the 1820's and 1830's in upstate New York with Rollin's line. I am pretty close thanks to some recent developments. Once I find out if they were actually living there, I would love to see if they were in some way involved with or at least knew about the Smiths. Knowing some of Rollin's relatives like I do, it wouldn't surprise me to find out his great-great-great grandpa carried a bucket of tar or a bag of feathers to crazy Joe Smith's farm one night. Cool, huh?

Bargain Shopper Alert

Mindy told me that the next time I ran across a good shopping deal, I should post it on my blog. So, here you go Mindy and anyone else who likes to save. At Smiths, they are having an 8 for $8 deal which is $1 each for those not good at math. The sale is on General Mills cereal, Nature Valley granola bars, General Mills cereal bars, Fruit Rollups, and Betty Crocker fruit snacks. So go stock up!

I need a house elf

My Grandma and I were talking one day about house cleaning. We discovered that we each have one area of cleaning that must be done each day to make us feel like we can stand the sight of our houses. Hers is bed making. Mine is dishes. Now, this is not to say that the dishes in my house are always done or that I don't have a perpetual pile of dishes making the sink useless for any of its other intended purposes. What it means is, if I have done the dishes, but nothing else that day, I can live with the state of my home. If I haven't done the dishes, I never really feel that my house is clean.

Karma, or my husband and kids, knowing this about me, must think it is a cruel joke to provide me with an endless supply of dirty dishes. Karma also kows that my obsession with the dishes makes it nearly impossible to relinquish my hold on the dishes-loading job and I can not enlist the children to help me. They do it all wrong. The plates must face North. They don't get that. Karma is cruel.

Now I know that a family of six will certainly dirty its share of dishes, but I really think my family must set some kind of dirty dishes record. For example, by 2:30 p.m. on any given day, there will not be a single clean piece of silverwear in the house. That is 16 spoons, 16 forks, 8 butter knives, and an assorment of serving pieces that have all been used that day. How is this humanly possible? Who needs a butter knife more than once a day? On one particular day in the not too distant past, I placed 11 kid-sized cups in the dishwasher. I ONLY HAVE 4 KIDS! Apparently they are too fancy to use the same cup twice, so each drink of water during the day deserves its own cup.

I am of the opinion that I should not have to do the dishes more than once per day, but this is slowly ceasing to an option. I am saddened. All this dish washing cuts into my laziness time. And my hands are getting dry and scaley. How bad a person would it make me if I decided to go all Dixie? Is that environmentally responsible? Then again, I would definitely use less water. Hmmm....what a quandary.

A Boring Update on the boring update

Mya's lack of naps is having occasional repercussions. The other night she was so tired and so grumpy, she threw quite the tantrum. She had locked herself in the bathroom, and her only response to our inquiries into what she was doing was "I'm not listening to you." When Rollin went in to check on her, he discovered she was attempting to open some nail polish and give herself a mani/pedi. Rollin took the dark red polish away from her and she completely lost it. She screamed "Leave me alone," crossed her arms and went to stand in the corner. We could not stop laughing which just made her more angry which just made us laugh more, etc. etc. I had to take a picture.

Sammy decided last week that he was ready for a hair cut and this time he wanted it to be short. So this morning we went to see Brynn and she did the honors. It has been about 4 years since Sam has had a short hair cut, so he looks like a whole new kid. I think it took about 3 years off him. Every time I glance at him I do a double take cause he looks so different. He is a cute boy.

Before & After

I want to give kudos to all of you who really pitched in and helped us fill that dumpster. It was delivered at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday and by 9:00 p.m. that night it was full. I am glad to see that so many other folks have crap they need to dispose of too. The city picked the dumpster up this morning about 10 and the guy had to climb up on top and push some things down in so they wouldnt fall out when he loaded it. We personally filled it about 1/3 full just with our stuff. Here is a picture of how much we put in.

Boring update and General Invitation

It's a sad day in the Skinner household. Mya has decided naps are no longer her thing. As mentioned in my previous post, I am through fighting her so my two hour block of quiet each day is gone. Luckily she is such a good girl and is almost always in a good mood, so we have fun even when she is napless.

Jackson and Sam took their end of year tests for homeschool. They seemed to be pretty confident about their performance. They have finished the course work for the year as well, so I dont know what to do with them for the next 5 weeks until school ends. They will be asking me 82 times a day, "Mom, do you have any ideas on what I can do?" I might have to do some actual teaching and that is not why I got into this homeschooling gig.

Logan is off track and bored out of her mind. She does not have many friends in the neighborhood on the same track, so there is no one to play with a lot of the time. She is not an entertain herself kind of kid so we are always on the lookout for something to do. She has just about crafted herself out, her room has been cleaned out, and her mom is played out. Luckily this is her last off track until summer. One more week of boredom. I hope we can make it.

We have ordered a dumpster from the city so we can dispose of all the crap that has been residing in our home for the past several months to years. I am issuing an invitation to all within the sound of my blog. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door." Mostly you can bring your wretched refuse. The city dumpster will be in front of our house from Thursday the 17th until Saturday the 19th. Help us fill it.

Just another example of how I am ruining my children

As the second oldest of 6 kids, I noticed a disparity in the strict-ness of my parents between the older kids (like me) and the younger kids. My younger sisters and youngest brother got away with everything! I thought it was pretty crappy that I had to come home earlier, go to bed earlier, keep my room cleaner, wait longer to get my ears pierced, just be a better kid. I never understood the reasons, until now. It is about losing your desire to keep fighting. I have lost it with my kids just as my parents lost it with my younger siblings. I don't want to fight any more.

Take this picture for example.

Here is my youngest of four taking her afternoon nap. Notice two things: first,her binkie, which I know she should not still be using but doggone it she absolutely loves it. If made to choose between me and her binkie, I can not for certain say which she would pick. It would be a close call most days and not even a contest on some (the binkie would win hands down.) I am tired of fighting her to give it up. None of my other kids were allowed to use theirs after about 10 months, yet here she is a 2 1/2 still begging me for it ALL day, every day. And after telling her no 8 times, I give in and let her have it. Second, she is napping on the couch in the kids play room. For the past two weeks, she has demanded that she take her nap on this nasty old couch while watching TV. What kind of a mom lets her 2 year old do this? One who is too tired of the tantrums and tears that go with enforcing a bed-only nap policy.

Well, I have a whole new respect for my parents. I no longer resent the fact that life was so much harder for me than it was for my younger siblings. Now, all I can hope is that some day my older kids will forgive me.

SpongeBob Skinnerpants

We are a TV loving household. Unfortunately, speding too much time watching the "boob-tube", as Dad would call it, is the vice spoken of in general conference that we are most guilty of comitting. Since we can't say that we spend our time participating in other worthwhile activities, at least we can use our knowledge and experience that we gain from our hours of TV watching to try to make the world a better place. That is what I will attempt to do today.

The time we try to spend together as a family often involves the television. As a result, I am FAR too familiar with a lot of characters from Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., PBS Kids, and The Disney Channel. I made an observation the other day about one show in particular, SpongeBob Squarepants. We quite enjoy this show. It is funny and clever and most often has a nice little message (as much as a kids' show can.)

Anyway, my observation was basically how much the characters on the show are like my family. Rollin is Spongebob. He is a optimistic and can be very silly, and things always seem to work out for him. And when he wants, he can whip up a pretty mean hamburger.



The kids collectively are Patrick. They just go along with whatever Rollin is up to, keeping their heads in the clouds and looking for something to eat.


And I am Squidward. Grumpy, pessimistic, unmotivated. Spongebob and Patrick and their goofy games can really get on my nerves, but deep down inside I love it. Oh, and I played the clarinet from 6th grade through college (but I was much better than Squidward is.)



In the immortal words of Oscar Wilde, "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life." So there you have it. Life imitating art. Spooky, huh?