The Weekly Journal Project #3

Posted on August 29, 2022 by Kathy Morales

Fellow blogger Barb Rogers has been joining me in this weekly journal. (We met though Sepia Saturday!) She called her post “The Weekly Journal Project” and, if she doesn’t mind, I’ll use the same title. Feel free to join us. Just post a journal entry on Monday summarizing the previous week. Or make your journal a photo a day. Whatever you like. If you are a family history researcher, you know it is good to remember to document your own life! Link your journal entry in the comments of my post so I’ll be sure to read it and so will anyone else who sees it. If more people join, maybe I’ll learn how to do a “linky”party.

Week of August 22-28, 2022

Monday, August 22

We have part of our back yard gated so that the dogs can’t run back behind the garage. Long story. During this very hot summer, we rigged a sun cover over part of that area because it was so hot and ruining what plants we had. There used to be a little shade from a couple of fruit trees, but we lost them during the extended freeze in February. Anyway, my husband kept telling me about a bunny back there, but I had not seen it. The rabbit feels very safe because the dogs can’t get to it and my husband started putting water out for it. I finally saw the rabbit and took a picture, but I was too far away for a good photo so it’s not that great. I appreciated that it was eating weeds!

We had another downpour. At our house, it came down fast and furiously, but fortunately didn’t last very long. Part of the city had some flooding.

I am trying to go dairy free to see if that helps with some issues I have. I didn’t like plain coconut yogurt on my usual breakfast bowl. 🙁

Tuesday, August 23

Finally finished my Sepia Saturday blog post by deleting half of it. Eveline’s Senior Year: Sign the Food Pledge

Wednesday, August 2

Found this link to recipes from Three Pines. I really enjoy Louise Penny books. New one out in November!
I’ve been slowly going through cabinets and closets to get rid of things. I was pretty successful with my Buy Nothing group this week. I reposted a bunch of things that I had posted before but were not picked up or no one showed an interest. This week, my trash was someone else’s treasure. You never know… One woman wanted the bunch of decorated pencils I had – probably unused party bag gifts from years ago. She is a pediatrician and said she is making a treasure chest for her patients. I found my son’s old basketball pencil collection and a few more things and she sent me a Tik Tok video of my things in the chest. Fun!

Thursday, August 25

I gave up on dairy free already. I want to start my day with the breakfast I enjoy. Oh well. Breakfast was good today!

The Thursday ESL book group finished reading Holes last week, so we watched the movie together today.

Friday, August 26

The Friday ESL book group finished reading and discussing the Boxcar children book Mystery Ranch. It is not as good as the previous three, plus there is a fireplace made out of uranium ore in the house. No wonder Aunt Jane has been sick!
I took all our cassette tapes out of a cabinet to post on Buy Nothing, although I didn’t post the kid ones or the ones we recorded ourselves. I want to listen to some of the kid ones for the memories before letting them go.
I received a very nice email from one of the students who read Holes. She didn’t think she would ever be able to read a book in English, but now she is motivated to keep reading!

Saturday, August 27

Today made me think about connections – the many I have missed out on due to procrastination, laziness, or just wanting to hide in my house.

I shared this on Facebook related to the photo above:

Connections, ESL edition:

In 2018 Gloria and her husband lived in Austin for three months. While they were here, Gloria took the free ESL classes offered at Austin Community College. She became friends with one of her fellow students, Anita. When Gloria finished the class, she was tested for proficiency and was told that her score was too high for the free class and that she would need to pay for any future classes. Her friend Anita, a long-time student/former student of our ESL class, told her about our zoom classes during the pandemic. Gloria joined our ESL class from McAllen and has continued to attend.

Gloria and her husband were in Austin this weekend to see their son and his family and she invited me to meet up with them so we could really “meet.” We met at Easy Tiger at the Linc and shared a lovely hour or so together – and they brought me “McAllen” tamales, which they said will be different from Austin tamales. (I had other dinner plans, so the tamales will be eaten tonight.) She said I look different in person than on zoom – I didn’t ask if I looked better or worse! Before meeting up with me for coffee, Gloria and her husband had already visited with Anita. How wonderful that they met in a class at ACC, maintained a friendship over these years and distance, and now Gloria and I are connected because of that connection!

Anita made two best friends at our ESL class years ago – K and A. Their friendship represents Mexico and Thailand and China. It is a friendship born in ESL class and continues to this day.

Pre-pandemic, I made it a point to know every student who walked through our doors, but we use two zoom accounts to provide our two levels of classes, so I don’t get to maintain or make new connections in the lower level class. In July I offered a book club to the lower level students. This was our fourth book (Boxcar Children) for this group and it is how I met Gloria.

Like Gloria, another student in the book group has never attended our in-person class. Y lives in Illinois. K (one of Anita’s best friends) and Y are both from Thailand. K traveled to Thailand a few weeks ago. We were all so surprised to learn that Y was joining us from Thailand and that she met K at the airport! They spoke frequently and went several places together over the next couple of weeks.

Life is crazy and beautiful. And interconnected … if we make the connections.

My husband and I continued maintaining connections by having dinner with our Sicilian cousins. Well, one is a cousin of some degree to my husband – and his wife. We tried a new restaurant – an English pub in Round Rock. The fish and chips were good, but that’s all we liked about it.

The day ended on a sour note when our grand dog jumped out of his dog bed just as we were all settling in for the night. He had been stung on his paw by a scorpion in his bed. I didn’t sleep well, watching for any signs of an allergic reaction. He was finally able to go to sleep, and slept much better than I did.

Sunday, August 28

I was very tired today from lack of sleep. Watched church on Youtube. Worked some more on my blog post, but still didn’t finish. It seems to be turning into Sepia Tuesday for me lately.

Well, that’s my long journal for this week. I’ll be more brief next time.

Have a good week!

Eveline’s Senior Year: Sign the Food Pledge

Posted on August 23, 2022 by Kathy Morales

I shared a photo of my grandmother Eveline Coates’ high school graduating class in Mystic, Iowa a few weeks (now months!) ago. Along with the photo and her diploma, a couple of other mementos were saved. One is the program for the Junior-Senior Banquet in honor of the graduating Seniors. It was interesting to see how World War I seemed to be the overarching theme of the festivities. I decided to take a deeper look at what her life may have been like during the 1917-1918 school year. There was a lot going on, a war and the beginning of an influenza pandemic to name the two biggies. The list of related posts is getting long, so I’ll link them at the bottom.

Stahr, Paul, Be Patriotic (United States: United States Food Administration, 1918).

Readers of the local newspapers published in Appanoose County had read about the national food campaign since before the U. S. joined the war in the spring of 1917. Once the U.S. went to war, the food campaign intensified. Herbert Hoover, who headed the U. S. Food Administration, didn’t hold back, telling Americans to stop eating so much!

1917 Jun 4, Centerville Daily Iowegian and Citizen, Centerville, Iowa

On October 15th, local readers might have seen a sample pledge card in preparation for the upcoming food pledge week later in October (immediately following a Liberty Bond campaign).

1917 Oct 15, Semi Weekly Iowegian, Centerville, Iowa

Although the food pledge campaign was not exactly new at this point, a couple of days before the above, the paper published an article providing the back story to the food pledge campaign, hoping to encourage a majority of families to join the effort to save food to help the war effort. Most of the publicity was directed to women, who were told that their domestic duties were needed to win the war. They would be Kitchen Soldiers. One of their first assignments: sign the food pledge.

11 Oct 1917 Centerville Daily Iowegian and Citizen, Centerville, Iowa
All of the thread below are part of the same article.

Women of Iowa were asked to sign the pledge, which would allow the government to create a mailing list to communicate directly with them.

The campaign started six weeks earlier, but hit some snags, so the government wanted to quash any misunderstandings and make a further appeal to the housewives of Iowa. Those who didn’t sign on, well, they would represent a new class of “slackers.”

Readers were told that college girls, fraternal organizations, and churches had joined the movement..

School children would be assigned a special essay on October 15th, to be titled: “Why Every American Family Should Sign the Food Pledge Card.”

The final pitch.

Just as it would have been nearly impossible to avoid the Red Cross membership and fundraising drives, it would have been equally difficult to miss the call to join the food campaign. I think I can safely assume that a canvas worker knocked on the door of the Coates family home; the working men were approached at work; and the school children heard their teachers talk about the need to conserve food. Eveline must have written an essay about the importance of signing the food pledge. If Eveline’s mother, or Eveline herself, signed the pledge, they may have hung one of these cards in the window of their home.

National Archives at College Park, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

No one was too young to help win the war. Eat no wheat for breakfast and clean your plate.

*Cushman Parker, Little Americans, Do Your Bit (United States: United States Food Administration, 1917).*

This is my very late contribution to Sepia Saturday, where a child with a similar hairstyle stands tall on a chair, ready to do her bit.

My New Weekly Journal without a Name #2

Posted on August 22, 2022 by Kathy Morales

I’ve wondered about a name for this new journaling plan.
The Week That Was
Monday Musings
Look Back Monday
Mirror Monday
???
Not sure what I will land on, but I haven’t decided and am open to suggestions.

In any case, I would love to have you join me! For now, just link your own blog journal post as a comment here so I can read yours and so can anyone else who comes for a visit. Or you can post yours on Facebook page or whatever makes you happy. There really aren’t any rules. You can just post a picture a day and maybe add a little text. Or just write a little summary of your week. Add a photo or two if you like. Just do it! Some of us research family history and we shouldn’t neglect ourselves. You don’t need to be as wordy as I seem to be! The plan is to post on Mondays.

Monday, August 15, 2022

* I have kept a bullet journal since I had terrible chemo brain about seven years ago. I’m much better now, but I find I still need to keep it going or I just don’t get things done. I stopped using the weekly chart I would make of daily tasks to do, and just made short daily lists along with brief journalling. You would think I would keep up with the ordinary tasks of life, but I don’t. So I put a chart back in the journal to get myself back on track. Day 1!
* R, who I teach English to a couple of times a week on zoom, is delightful. I love how she laughs at her mistakes.
* Practiced zoom stuff for ESL class – I always get a bit stressed, but it looks like what we want to do will work. Our plan is to offer concurrent zoom and in person classes beginning 9/19.
* Picked up 50 Get Out the Vote postcards to sign.
* First entry of this journal written and posted.

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

* When I taught R today, she thought the concept of a mobile home was hilarious.
* Attended zoom discussion of Mediocre.
* T and I are slowly clearing out stuff. She uses Facebook Marketplace and I use the Buy Nothing group. Sold a wicker love seat we have had for many years! Why must I work puzzles from the closet before giving? I have to see if all the pieces are there, right?
* Thinking about our very hot and dry summer and the changes we have made to save the Texas electric grid. Will we continue to be diligent about turning off and unplugging nearly everything? Keeping the shades drawn to keep out the heat? Keeping the thermostat at 78?
A nearly bare tree in our yard and the “greenbelt” that has caused me to worry about wildfires.

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

* Posted more stuff to Buy Nothing.
* Hot!
* Finished audiobook of The Patriarch, a Bruno, Chief of Police book. And started the next one – Fatal Pursuit

Thursday, August 18, 2022

* ESL book group finished reading Holes. All enjoyed it. I’m trying to figure out how we can watch it together.
* Took a Thundercloud sub to Pastor Cathy and then I helped her finish signs for the Pride Parade. I knew I wouldn’t be attending, but I participated a little bit.

* I left the church and had to drive home in quite a downpour. We have not had measurable rain for 51 days, so it was very welcome, but a little scary to drive through. Tapered off a little after I got home and took this picture.

Friday, August 19, 2022

* ESL book group reading Mystery Ranch. Always enjoyable. One more week.
* Took my friend to lunch for her birthday. She is the one whose party I missed last week. We had a lot of catching up to do.
* Then a long talk with T about some things she is planning which would not be close to home. 🙁
* Lots of talk about travel swirling around me. Pastor Cathy is encouraging to go on the Civil Rights trip in October. She and I made the trip before the pandemic to test out her travel plan before opening it up to a group, but the group trip had to be been postponed until this fall. Also, M ate lunch with some of his cousins who want to take a trip to Sicily in May. Since the Whipple surgery, I don’t have an amenable gut in the morning, so if I want to travel, I’m going to have to see if there is anything I can do to improve the situation. Decided I’ll eliminate dairy for a few weeks and see if that helps. But not until Monday! I’ll finish the gelato in the fridge first!
* Received a notice from the HOA about this recycling bin – which included this image as proof. It’s a long story. The city took our bin without our knowledge, so we requested a new one, and we ended up with two. They are supposed to pick this up!

Saturday, August 20, 2022

My goal for the day was to finish a blog post for Sepia Saturday. I’m stuck. Gave up before dinner, worked on the next puzzle from the closet and watched some James Taylor on PBS. Nostalgia!

Sunday, August 21, 2022

I was up and dressed and ready to go to church – if I were going. I just watched on youtube. But – I’m working on breaking the slovenly Sunday habit.
Still trying to finish that blog post! I know I am making it too hard. I did a lot of research, but I don’t want to write a research paper! This is supposed to be fun and easy, but … still not done! Argh!

That’s it! Have a good week and I hope to read about yours!