Ingredients
1 qt. (4 cups) milk

1 pkg. (4-serving size) JELL-O Butterscotch Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling

1/2 cup vanilla ice cream, softened

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Preparation
PLACE all ingredients in large pitcher with tight-fitting lid; cover. Shake vigorously 1 minute or until well blended.

POUR evenly into 4 glasses. Serve immediately. (Mixture thickens as it stands. Thin with additional milk, if desired.)

Pumpkin Milkshake

Ingredients
4 ounces chilled canned pumpkin

1 1/2 cups cold low-fat milk

8 teaspoons sugar substitute

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation
Mix well in electric blender. Top with a dash of cinnamon or nutmeg.

My father and I went out yesterday to the old stone church and graveyard where our family members all go to be buried. I wanted to take pictures of all the tombstones, and look to see if my gggrandfather who came over from Germany was buried there. I was told the Church (a place my family has been involved in for ages) had documents relating to his death there. Eventually I plan to go and get copies of those, and see if they indicate what city in Germany he was born in. (To note, my father says the lines of Poland and Germany have since changed, which I will have to research).

Anyway, I found numerous tombstones. Several tombstone were so old that the lettering was worn off, or they were unmarked completely. We started on one corner of the graveyard and weaved our way in and out trying to decipher names (they all seemed group together by name which was helpful), but I couldn’t find any sign of my gggrandfather.

When we came around, I noticed this rather huge tombstone about 3 tombstone away from where we started. Upon closer inspection I saw that it was in fact my gggrandfathers tombstone, with his year of birth and death, and his wife buried next to him under a rather small tombstone.

And next to them was one of my grandmothers infant sisters (she was one of 15) that died during their infancy.

I don’t know why it was so exciting for me. I was so relieved and happy to find the tombstone, and I wonder why I never looked at it before considering how many times I’ve been to that graveyard. It was just right down the road from our old farm near the Reservoir. I almost had the feeling of being reconnected with my ancestors as I stood there looking at his name engraved in stone. So much that I almost teared up, and it was like I was being reunited with them. It was all very satisfying.

I took pictures and intend to start on a blog of my ancestry from both parents. And I certainly intend to go visit and honor my ancestors memories more often now that I know where their markings are.

This past Saturday, I applied my second application of henna on my hair. I can’t express how much I have fallen in love with dying my hair with henna. The entire process is like a meditation, painting yourself with this soothing green goo with a fantastic scent. Relaxing for 4 hours while it sets in your hair and then rinsing it out and letting it dry naturally. It’s like a personal spa session.

The last time I did this was June 30th, so it lasted about 3 and a half months. When I used to dye my hair blonde, it would cost me well over $100 each time. The henna I purchase costs $37, and I have excess to do touch-ups which could last me even longer.

At first my hair looked almost black, but it takes 2 or 3 days for the color to really set in. Today my color can be described as a dark chocolate with strawberry highlights. I feel silly saying that I go into the bathroom at work to admire it under the soft lightning.

The henna takes a few days to really shine, but it’s so ridiculously shiny and soft right now, I almost can’t stop playing with it. It’s the perfect color, the perfect texture, and is so amazingly healthy compared to a few years ago. When I was a blonde, my hair was so dry from all the bleach and could hardly grow from the ends breaking off. Now my hair is the way it should be.

It will eventually lighten up and become more strawberry brown, the tips that were still blonde will become more red, but it will still be healthy and beautiful. And I can just do another spa treatment in a few months.

My mixture consists of 1/2 henna and 1/2 indigo mixed with half lemon juice and half apple cider vinegar till they are the consistency of yogurt. I may switch to just vinegar as lemon juice always makes my hair feel course the first day or so.

I highly recommend just trying cassia if you don’t want color, your hair will love you for it.

Best part about it, it’s all natural.

“Don’t you know that they all looked and still look up to you? To them, Eddie XXXXXX is a hero because he’s always helping out everyone.”

That’s what one of my fathers friends told him today.

You see, a friend of the family was killed in a car accident Friday, and the viewings were this past weekend. A biker gang came up for the viewings and the funeral, and there were well over 500 people there. My father knew almost all of them, because they all grew up together in the 50’s and 60’s down in Randallstown, Maryland. They were the type of people you see in American Graffiti with the hotrods (my father had a custom 1969 roadrunner) and the white t-shirts tucked into bluejeans.

My father also found out he had a reputation of a fighter. He did get into a lot of fist fights when he was younger, but not because he wanted to fight, and certainly not because he was a bully. But he said he always defended the little guy. For a while, one guy even paid him $20/week to protect him because he used to get picked on so bad by bullies.

He told me a story about one time they were drag-racing and an idiot decided to light a barrel on fire and throw it underneath the cars. If there had been a gas leak, all the cars would have exploded. So my dad took the guy and dangled him over the edge of a bridge to teach him a lesson.

My dad said he almost cried when his friend said he was a hero. I guess he doesn’t realize that he’s always been my hero, and always will be.

In other dad news, apparently he found some old witchy brooms I had in the garage, and hung them in the trees for Halloween. That didn’t quite satisfy him, so he got some of my sisters barbies and fastened them onto them.

He’s a goofball

Or, “Why we have so many dumb people.”

In an epiphany while talking to my 13 year old sister, I realized that many children these days are not taught basic life skills that they need to get by in life, which I think contributes to the general lazyness and fast-paced environment we have now. People forget to eat, get overly stressed, rush around constantly, and essentially harm themselves needlessly because they just don’t know any better.

Essential Things We Aren’t Teaching Our Children:

1. How to cook. One thing I was given when I got married at 18, was a bin of index cards with family recipes on them from my mom, and various aunts and other female members of the family. This was a wedding gift, and a very cherished one.

My sister is now 13 and knows little about cooking good wholesome meals. It’s not surprising given the microwavable mac n’ cheese, hamburger helper, hotpockets and other such unhealthy and pre-packed foods. I try to involve her in cooking when she comes over my house, so she can at least learn the basics. Even just basic recipes and cooking techniques like how to cook steak, how to make cheap crock-pot dishes are a great skill to learn.

2. How to eat. Going along with #1, we aren’t teaching our children how to eat. Burgers, fries and a Milkshake are the norm. Quick breakfasts bars and sugary cereals are daily sustenance. Sugar and red meat are the worst things we are doing to our children, and needlessly. No wonder obesity and diabetes are epidemics.

The best thing we can do is make a conscious decision to change how we eat and what food we keep in the house. No sodas, but instead sugar-free drinks (Safeway’s generic brand of sugar-free drinks are AMAZING). No sugar-filled cereals and quick breakfasts and instead cook up a scrambled egg on wheat toast with butter. It only takes a moment, and is much healthier and will keep them awake longer during the day. Keep re-heatable soups and stews from the crock-pot that they can heat up on their own instead of the quick hotpocket meals.

3. How to clean properly and without chemicals. The fact that we disinfect everything using bleach and anti-bacterial soaps is doing more harm than good. Our children’s immune systems aren’t as strong because we’re protecting them so harshly. In addition to that, we are exposing them to harmful chemicals by using commercial cleaners rather than cheap eco-friendly alternatives.

By teaching our children to use vinegar and water with a newspaper instead of windex and paper-towels, we are allowing them to save money, be kind to the earth, and responsible cleaning habits. Most natural cleaning solutions are much cheaper, healthier, and obviously more environmentally friendly, so why not switch while they are young? When they move out on their own, make a basket of natural cleaning products as a housewarming gift.

4. How to manage money. I always thought this should be something taught in school, but I was never taught how to manage my money properly. In fact I remember specifically in 6th grade I was taught how to write a check, but that was it. So essentially I was taught how to -spend- money, but never how to -manage- it.

I’m a strong believer in teaching financial habits at a young age. Setting up chores for children to complete and in return receive a small allowance. Make a deal that they can spend a certain amount of their allowance, and deposit the other portion into a high interest savings account for when they get older. Sit down with them each month and let them see the interest they gain on the account, and make a list of things they want to buy and how they can budget to save up for it. Make sure they understand what is a need versus a want, and how to be frugal with their decisions.

I think the United States especially would be in a better place if the people who are in so much debt were more educated when they were younger about their financial decisions.

5. How to spend money (frugality). Going with #4, I think even just a few basic frugal skills are good to teach our children, even if you aren’t a frugal person yourself. Going through and purging toys and clothes regularly and not purchasing a toy every time you go to the store. Using actual lunchboxes instead of brown paper bags, and reusable utensils. Even using a small container for their sandwiches instead of disposable plastic baggies is a beneficial habit for them to learn, and good for the environment.

6. Basic auto maintenance. I know of a girl who had her transmission slip for well over a month before deciding to tell her husband about it in which case it was already too late. There are also people that don’t know how to check their oil or even the fluid in their radiator to make sure they are going to make it to their destination. Since an automobile will enter almost everyone’s life at some point, and is such a necessary for so many people, it makes sense that we teach our children how to maintain such an expensive investment. Even if it’s just the basics.

7. How to take care of their hair and makeup. Yes, this will generally only apply to the female population, but given the amount of make-up, dye, and hairspray I see on today’s youth, I had to mention it. Hair is generally important to most females, but we’re constantly teasing, applying chemical, and doing more damage than good. Girls are now inspired by Britney and Bratz, instead of how to look/dress appropriate.

When I was younger, I always combed my hair while wet and used those horrible rubberbands in my hair, not to mention dyed it blonde for many years. I had no idea until recently that this sort of routine is what caused my hair to be come so dry, have so many split ends, and why I am now struggling to get it to grow further than the middle of my back. I feel cheated.

Today is Blog Action Day, and many popular blogs from around the world are taking the day today to post about environmental issues.

For my topic, I decided to talk about ways my workplace has adjusted to be more environmentally friendly, and how I think it could improve.

Ways my office is environmentally conscious:
- We use silverware
- We keep ceramic cups and mugs for employees to use
- We recently moved to a restored old building (instead of building new)
- We use an energy efficient refrigerator
- We did away with purchasing big jugs of bottled water and now use a brita water filter for tap water
- We recycle soda cans
- We are a web development company so we don’t use as much paper as other companies. Our timesheets are electronic, we communicate via AIM and email, our schedules are all electronic
- Our cleaning crew collects cans to donate the money from them to charity

Things my office still needs to improve:
- They still use paper towels
- They still use paper plates
- They use those little plastic straws for coffee
- They do use a notepad on occasion, but it’s rare I’m not sure how well I can count it
- They do print out quality copies of pages to review and send to clients, which can build up as far as paper usage. However these are on a wax printer, so I think that’s more environmentally friendly.
- They should use more eco-friendly cleaning products
- They order out a lot instead of bringing their own food in reusable containers

Things I’m not sure about:
- I don’t know if they use recycled paper, but they should
- I don’t know if they used recycled ink cartridges, but they should

Get Rich Slowly is having a contest to win a Nintendo Wii. To enter you must explain your biggest financial achievement or success story, and then send him a message about it. My frugal self won’t allow me to purchase a Wii, so I rely on various contests to try and win one. No luck so far though :/

I’m still living my financial achievements, but I can talk about my path so far, as I feel it’s definitely been a growing success in my eyes.

My lowest point was not long after I had gotten married in 1998 and moved down to the Norfolk Naval base with my husband. Several years of living paycheck to paycheck, not paying bills when they were due, him spending money on video game after video game, we were thousands of dollars in debt.

I left Norfolk, left my husband, and moved home after my father had a stroke in November of 2000. He fully recovered, but in August 2002 had to quit his job or lose his leg due to the circulation problem that caused ulcers. I had just lost a job working at a Rock and Gem shop and we were both broke and now unemployed.

Talk about a wake-up call.

I got a job later that month working at a Vet for $8 an hour, but was still not getting anywhere with my finances. My fathers social security wouldn’t kick in for another 6 months, so we lived off of $8/hour until then.

Around this time, I was driving a 1978 Ford Bronco, and spending tons of money on gas and replacement parts as I’d routinely break down from the thing being so damn old. I had attempted to get a loan for a used car, but my credit score was somewhere around 525 and not going anywhere but down anytime soon. I was turned down for every car imaginable, which put my financial mindset into overdrive, because I -needed- a car to get to work.

I decided to switch jobs again, working for Terminix at a CSR for $10/hour, and applied for my very first credit card with Capital One. Granted I was only given a $200 limit, but it was a start. A few months later I got another credit card with at $2k limit with USAA through my military insurance.

A year of small purchases and a view of my credit report, finally granted me my first car loan in January of 2006, which I bought my used 2004 ford mustang with for about $14k. This started to build up my credit even more (though I don’t know what my credit score is atm, I imagine 700+, but I will find out again in March when I qualify for my free credit report again through annualcreditreport.com.)

2006 also presented a brand new job doing something that I love (web design) making more money than I’ve ever made in my life, well over 33k/year. I’ve started my 401k, a Roth IRA, I put $400/month away into savings, and will eventually put my car payments into my Roth IRA once it is paid off (hopefully by 2009). I also have an emergency fund, though I haven’t quite reached my preferred $5,000 amount in it yet.

So far in 2007 I have started keeping track of my fathers finances. Since he has no retirement and no pension, I’m sure worries about what will end up happening to him since he has absolutely no financial worth and never will. I’ve stopped him from going in the negative with his bank account every month, and for his birthday this past September, I had saved up enough to pay off one of his debts. For fathers day next year, I intend to have enough saved up by putting a little away each month to pay off his entire hospitalization bill (with the help of my sweetheart).

Soon I will have all of his debts paid off, so he can at least relax with the money that his disability gets him, and I can relax and not worry about paying off any debts for a while.

This year is also the first year I created a separate savings account in my ING account to put a little in each month for a “Christmas Fund”. Which also makes this year this first year I’ve never had to scramble around for cash for the holidays, and to make sure I have enough to give my dad money to buy his gifts with.

Honestly my biggest financial goal will be when my father owes no money, and I can support us both fully. He’s worked hard all of his life doing concrete for 40 years, and I respect him more than anyone in the world. He deserves to live the rest of his days content, and that’s what I fully intend to give him.

I suppose his lack of financial planning can be attributed to my obsessiveness with mine over the last few years. I’m 27 years old and I’m already figuring out my financial plan for my retirement. You can just never start too early, because you just don’t know when it will be too late.

Given the recent spurt of genealogy information I gathered, I decided to email my mother and let her know some of the information I found, in hopes it would show her in good faith that I’m willing to share this information with her. In return, I hoped she would finally let go of some of the information she gathered and share it with me like she promised. I’ve always been under the impression she’s hoarding this information and holding it over my head like a weapon.

These are the replies I get:

Who is this person? I need to contact them. Give me their contact information so I can compare notes, but can’t do it for another week or so.

I do have the names of XXX parents. I just have to look it up. Right now I can’t because I’m in the middle of mid-term exams at college and don’t have time to look for it.

She was originally Cherokee Indian, so her parents would have Cherokee names, not American names. I will have to look at what my cousin sent me. Don’t have time right now.

I dunno, seemed more like a demand to me. And I’m certainly not going to just give away contact information of someone. That’s private. Regardless, I’ve warned my cousin about it, and apologized that I may not have information to share with her because of my greedy mother. My cousin and I both agree that sharing genealogy information is a -good- thing, and don’t understand why people hold onto it like buried treasure.

Whatever. I found information without you mother. If I have to live with just the information that was provided to me from other sources, so be it. You will not use this silly bullcrap against me.

[Edit]: I wrote a reply:

This person gave me all the information I needed, nevermind.

They are checking on the tribe again to be sure.

Good luck with your exams.

To which she replied fast with:

You didn’t tell me who this person is. What information did they give you? I need it for my research.

Yeah. Right.

When I didn’t reply fast enough, I received another:

Hey, are you going to give me the information or not?

To which I finally decided to reply:

Mom,

I have been trying to get some information on my family from not only you but other people in the family and NO ONE seems to want to give it up. Do you know how disheartening this is for my generation? That our ancestors make it so hard for us to find out where we came from?

This relative that I found went through the same thing. People hoarding information and not wanting to share it, they don’t understand it and neither do I. As you and I spoke of before, I will be creating a website with this information to share with all of the people in my bloodline. I will probably be setting up the foundation of the website before the end of the month even.

I’m not giving you their contact information. If they want to contact you, I will let them know. In the mean time you can relay messages through me, or you can stop being so opaque about the whole thing and making demands like you just did.

I just want to know about my family. It is information I want for my kids if I have them, and part of the learning process of figuring out who I am. I understand you are busy, everyone is. I also understand you have mid-terms. But I have been patiently waiting for this information for about a year, and you wouldn’t even give me your grandparents names. I had to find that out elsewhere. I highly doubt this was information you had to look up.

I’m not trying to shake the boat. You and I both know very well that we lead very different lives and that this will most likely never change. Don’t try and make this out to be an attack on you, because it isn’t. See it for what it is.

Her only reply to that was:

Good luck in your research.

Which, knowing my mother, means she’s not sharing squat. And probably never intended to.

Thanks mom.