ALL CAPS (007/365)

“Why Don’t They Call ‘Em Bottle Hats?”
Unknown

TIME:  8:31 PM
PLACE: Kitchen
SUBJECT:  Bottlecaps

Remnants of the rewards I gave myself for cleaning out the refrigerator on Sunday.

Basket #719 (006/365)

TIME:  9:19 PM
PLACE:  Pantry
SUBJECT: Locker Basket

Fun Fact #077 about me.

The summer I was 15, I had a part-time job working for our local Parks and Recreation Department at our city’s public swimming pool.
I was assigned to the bathhouse where I had the glorious position of sitting behind a tall counter and handing out baskets to folks so they could store their stuff while swimming.
Each basket was numbered and had a pin with the corresponding number stamped on it. This pin was given to the member, who clipped it on their swimsuit or towel.  They would hand me their full basket, which I would then shelve in numerical order.
The shelves that held the baskets were metal, stood about 5 baskets high and stretched about half the length of the bathhouse. Maybe 20 or 30 feet?  There were 4 or 5 rows of shelves. 
The further back you went, the rustier the baskets became.  It was kind of creepy back there as well.  That didn’t prevent us from chasing our co-workers up and down the rows and trying to scare each other when times were slow. 
When people wanted their stuff, they would hand back the pin and I would locate the basket. 

It definitely wasn’t rocket science.

However, I did learn to dislike the public at an early age.

Our city had to close the pool due to its age and budgeting concerns a few years ago.  Apparently, they had an auction and sold much of the inventory of items at the pool including all of the wire baskets – I was not aware of this and wished I had known because I would have bid on them.

In 2013, I was at our monthly flea market and came upon a vendor who was selling some of the very same swimming pool baskets. 
She had one left. 

I didn’t even haggle.

I bought it.

I bet that I handed this basket out to someone at one time.

Monday Sunset & Cookie Selling Prep (005/365)

TIME:  5:00 PM
PLACE:  Down the street
SUBJECT:  Sunset

Enjoying this while trying not to think about the freezing air that is supposed to be arriving in the next few days.

TIME:  7:07 PM
PLACE:  Girl Scout Meeting : School cafeteria
SUBJECT:  Cookie Caravan poster

Fair warning…beginning this Friday evening and continuing throughout this weekend, you *will* be accosted by Girl Scouts hawking cookies at practically every grocery store, Wal-Mart, convenience store, video store and many other locations.

Good luck, we’re all counting on your support.

Holidays Are Done (004/365)

TIME: 9:15 PM
PLACE: Living Room
SUBJECT:  Corner

It is always amazing to me how the whole feeling of the living room changes after I take down the Christmas tree.. 

Calmer.

Cleaner.

For a little while at least.

A Night In Chester (003/365)

TIME:  6:57 PM to 8:43 PM
PLACE: Chester, Illinois
SUBJECT: Sign

The husband and I moseyed on down to Chester VFW for the annual gun club Christmas-Dinner-in-January soirée.

I amused myself by seeing what kind of photos I could take from where I was sitting. 


Hangers.  Hangers are fun.

Playing with the fish-eye function (taken by the husband).
Gotta love that Stag beer.


The floor was cool.

I’m seated closest to the door on the right in this centerpiece reflection.


You know that detail from my Coach boots from the 1st? 
Here’s a full view of them.
Nice, huh?


On the way home we passed St. John’s Lutheran School.

…and the Chester Mental Health Center.

I also made HH stop at McDonalds in Red Bud so I could get an iced tea.

I didn’t take a picture there.

Found Him! (002/265)

TIME:  February 8, 1858
PLACE:  Břeskovich, (now Vřeskovice) in the Plzeň region oof the Czech Republic
SUBJECT:  Josef Dolanksy birth record
From: Porta fontium 

After almost 9 years of doing genealogy, I was finally able to go “across the pond” and found my maternal, great-grandfather’s birth information!

This is what I knew: he was from Břeskovich Czechoslovakia; his father’s name was Charles; he had a birth date of February 8, 1858 and he immigrated to the US with the Jansky family..

I found a link to the Porta fontium site from Wesley Johnston’s “Researhing Czech Church Records on the Internet. 

After blindly searching, I finally figured out how the things were organized (thank you Google translate) and performed a search with Břeskovich as the place and checked “Matrika narozených” (birth registers).  I clicked on the result with the correct time frame and started looking page by page for the name “Dolansky”

It turned out to be easier than I thought.

Even though the registers are all in Czech, and the handwriting made it quite challenging to decipher some words, I actually found him quite quickly. 

Now, I know the names of his father and mother :
Karel [Czech form of Charles] Dolanksy and Katerina Jansky 

The names of his grandparents :
Paternal-Vavrince [Slovak form of Laurence] and Anna Dolansky nee Jicovy
Maternal-Vaclav & Katerina Jansky nee Hrebec

Where they are from and what they did for a living:
Father-a peasant cottager [an agricultural laborer who lived in a cottage on the landowners land] in Břeskovich (house #53);
Paternal grandfather-a owner of a farm in Chlumčany (house #4); Maternal grandfather-a peasant cottager in Jina (house #12)

This makes me so happy.

I love the Internets.

Name Dropping (001/365)

TIME: 10:12 PM
PLACE: Home
SUBJECT:  Zipper pull

I wore these Coach booties tonight while meeting up with Dana and Mike.
They were an early Christmas gift to myself.
I found them at Marshall’s on Black Friday.
On clearance for under $100.
Combined with my $50 VISA gift card that I had been holding onto since January?
SOLD