The rest of the week

 Things got a whole lot quieter around here after D and Eli left for home on Wednesday.  C had helped clear up the toys so there wasn't a lot to do as far as tidying.  Instead I focused on cleaning: bathrooms were scrubbed down, the kitchen counters were cleared and the floor washed, the front hall rug was lifted, the floor under it swept and washed, and today's chores will include vacuuming both my bedroom and the living room.

I finished watching The Queen's Gambit and an animated The Grinch on Netflix.  If you have an opportunity to watch the first, it is a very interesting story of a young girl who arrives at an orphanage as a young girl.  We'd started watching the second program when I was at D's in early December, and watched a bit more when they were here so I finished it on my own.  It was fun!  Last night I watched a documentary on the disappearance of Shanaan Watts and her children.  I recall the story from the news; the documentary was a compilation of police cam videos, interviews, text messages, and videos from Shanaan's Facebook page. Sadly, her husband Chris Watts wanted a new life and there was no place for her or their children.  It was a sad story, but I found it interesting how the police worked the case.

While watching television, I've been knitting and crocheting. I've finished three scarves, with a fourth near completion.  It's a great way to use up scrap yarn and I enjoy using different pattern.  By the way, the photo is upside down and my photo editor would not allow me to rotate it properly.  Weird!  (By the way, Olga, you were correct about the toques, one was inside out. Sometimes I'm not the brightest bulb.)

Speaking of bulbs, my oven light has burned out.  I had to Google how to replace the bulb, but the cover has been on there so long it won't easily turn.  A job for my son to do. Hopefully he'll be able to wrestle it off. If not, I'll have to learn to live without the light until I decide to replace the entire stove...not for a while yet.  Since I was in the oven anyway, it seemed a good time to give it a clean so I've been letting the baking soda and vinegar work away at it while I write this post.  A little scraper (for use on a glass top stove) and some elbow grease and the latest spills will be cleaned up.

Earlier this week, I received some information on my maternal grandmother's side of the family from my cousin Ken.  He's sparked enough of an interest in me that I've decided to join Ancestry, at least for six months to complete some research of my own. In the materials he sent me was this photo.

William John and Mary are my great great grandparents, my great grandfather, William Francis, is pictured to the furthest right of the back row. I never knew him as he passed long before I was born but my first name is Frances, as I was named after my grandmother Mary Frances. Obviously she was named after her grandmother too. 

Nan (as we called her) had at least eleven siblings, and I'd only met two of them.  Her family were Latter Day Saints and I'm particularly interested in determining whether they lived in the United States at some point.  My limited research thus far, has not revealed any clues to how they came to this faith.  I have been able to trace back to 1775 to my sixth great grandfather but beyond his birth in Ireland, there is no additional information.  I certainly hope someday to make the trip to Ireland to look into the Jordan family history as well as my father's family.  

Well, I'm sure that was of little interest to my readers (as was most of this post) so I'll end this with one final response to a comment.  John, you're absolutely correct there were a lot of presents under the tree - most of which were for Eli.  In fact, my daughter and I had words over it, as I think she over did her gifts for him.  When you add in my gifts (two), Santa's gift (underwear), Uncle C's gift, G'ma D's gift, and her friend M's two gifts, I think he was feeling a little overwhelmed.  He just quit opening them and played with what he had.

Take care everyone, stay well and however you choose to celebrate (or not) have a Merry Christmas!