August 12-17

August 12 Sunday

            My unexpected day at work went well (see previous post).  Since I worked the afternoon shift, I got to ride the golf cart around and do site checks.  Cutty’s Resort has over 500 sites.  Fortunately, about half are seasonal sites on which I do not have to do checks.  While I do have to check all of the others it is a fairly simple process.  I get a list from the fee booth of sites where their time is up but that haven’t checked out.  Today there were about a dozen of those.  Of the dozen, about half had left without going through the checkout process.  The other half dozen received notices that their ‘due out date’ had come and they needed to reregister or move out.  All other sites get a cursory check for any violations of campground rules, i.e. not using sewer ‘donuts’ on their drains, use of non-breathable outdoor mats, pets left unleashed or unattended outdoors, etc.  This process takes about an hour after which I go relieve Wally at the fee booth/gatehouse.

August 13 Monday
   I woke this morning to another chilly day.  I guess I haven’t posted about the odd weather here in central Iowa.  After several weeks of unseasonable high (100+) temps, we have been having unseasonably cool (highs in 70s and lows in 40/50s).  This is Fair Time in Iowa and usually THIS is when we get the really hot weather.  This year people have been seen wearing sweatshirts at the Iowa State Fair.

Before picture of the damaged pickup
(photo taken through a screen door because I wasn't
smart enough to open the door to take the picture)

In-between picture at the body shop

After

            After work today, We were able to pick up our pickup and return the rental car. 

            On another note:  I’ve been spending a lot of time on Ancestory.com tracing the various branches of my family tree.  A couple of surprises have come up.  I knew that, on my mother’s side, the Coons line lead back to Germany, however I’d always been told that we were also Scotch/Irish also.  What I have found is that nearly all of the branches that I’ve traced that, did not go to Germany, ended up in Wales.  None of the lines that I’ve found go to Scotland or Ireland.  A couple to England and one to Holland weren’t that much of a surprise

            Another surprise is that I thought we were fairly recent immigrants.  Nope!  Most of the lines were here prior to the War of Independence (and all that I’ve found fought on the Colonists side).

            Speaking of wars, I was also surprised to find that most of my ancestors that were in the Civil war fought on the Northern side of the conflict.  This is surprising because, except for one line, my ancestors all came from Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Missouri.  Yet, only one that I’ve found fought on the Confederate Side.  He was a Major in the Confederate Army and several years after the conflict he had to swear allegiance to the Federal Government to regain his voting rights.  I also found where, at the age of 78, he applied for veterans benefits as a veteran of the Army of the Confederacy.  I had no idea that these two things were done.

August 16 Thursday

Williams and I.  He has a firm grasp on my beard.

            No work today

William, Great Grandma Ella and Lorelia

Grandma and Williams

Big Sister Lorelia holding William

            We went to Nathan and Beth’s at 8 a.m. to watch Lorelia and William for a couple of hours.  Charlotte was in school (second grade this year) so we didn’t get a chance to see her.

August 17 Friday

            No work today                   

I took some items over to Union Park UMC and spent a little time visiting with our Pastor about some of the changes that are taking place in the building itself.  We stayed around when we found out that Ella’s son and our daughter-in-law and other family members were coming to talk to Pastor Lee about Dawn’s father’s funeral arrangements.

            On the way home, we happened to pass a barbershop.  I’ve been wanting to get my beard trimmed by a professional.  So, we stopped and got that done.  Then we drove over to Merle Hay Road to the Valvoline oil change place where I’ve been going for the last couple of years.  It was closed (permanently) and a sign directed us to another location in Clive.  We found the other location and got the oil changed and a daylight running light replaced, as well as the air pressure in the tires corrected.

            We drove to Lake Robbins for the “Celebration of Tony’s Life” for a family friend who had passed away a couple weeks ago.  When we arrived there, there wasn’t a soul around.  We called Lyn, Tony’s sister and found that the date had been changed because Tony’s son was not able to attend on the date set.  We were just left out of the loop on the change.

            On the way home we drove through McDonalds and grabbed a couple burgers for supper.

            The rest of the evening was spent watching Droid TV.  I’m really sorry I wasted so much time watching the YouTube Contestants on America’s Got Talent.

August 9-12

August 9

We did a ton of shopping today.  We were looking for some small picture frames that would fit wallet size photos.  We want to be able to hang pictures of all of our grandkids and great grandkids (13 at this point).

We checked:

WalMart … nope

Kmart … nope

Target … nope

Dollar General … nope

Dollar Tree … well … yes but they were butt ugly shiny silvery things

Family Dollar … nope … I’m hoping we won’t have to settle for those butt ugly shiny silver things!

Bit Lots … Yep!  We bought 13 black metal frames for a $1/each

And of course we couldn’t visit all those stores without buying other stuff.  So, we ended up spending about $50 by visiting all the dollar stores.

We stopped in the early afternoon at Ryan’s for lunch.  I really tried to be good and I only had two chicken legs, a small amount of mashed potatoes and gravy and a salad with unsweetened tea to drink.  That’s hard to do at a buffet!

When we got home, I worked on the sermon for this Sunday.  I also recorded it and another sermon and posted them on my other blog, www.ThomasEWilliams.blogspot.com

August 10

I woke up this morning to 54 degrees!  In August.  In Iowa.  During the Iowa State Fair!  Don’t read this as a complaint … but where are the 100 degree days that we expect this time of year?   Oh that’s right, we’ve already had them!  Weeks of them!  I think I’ll wear a sweatshirt to work today.

August 11

Ella worked in the evening.  I went to our home church’s Saturday Praise Service and stayed for the potluck following.  I took a lettuce salad with paper-thin slices of cucumber and carrot and a diced orange.  I also made a dressing of vinegar and oil with salt, pepper, garlic and strawberry puree.  It was really good.

You know how potlucks go?  You end up with everyone bringing dessert or everyone bringing salads or casseroles?  Well this time it was very balanced between entrees, salads, fruits, pastas, and desserts.

August 12 Sunday

The day started with a community breakfast of pancakes, French toast, and sausage.  I had three pancakes with no syrup and a sausage.  I really am trying to keep the calorie intake down.

I preached my sermon and then we came home for a little bit before Ella had to be at work at one.

I had the day off so I did some more research on Ancestory.com.  I’ve traced the two main lines of the family tree (Williams and Coons) back as far as I can at this point.

1500 in Germany for the Coons line and 1400 Wales for the Williams line.  I had worked on tracing other branches for a couple of hours and had just decided to take a nap when I got a call from Wally.  “Are you coming in to work?”  “No,” I replied.  “Why not?” he asked.  “Because I’m not scheduled to work today,” I said.  “According to the schedule at the fee booth you are.”  So I grabbed my copy of the schedule as I was right, I was not scheduled to work the afternoon shift … in fact NOBODY was scheduled to work the afternoon shift.  So I changed clothes and went to work.