Memory Monday

I have given up on any rhyme or reason for Memory Monday. So here is this week's entry. 

I was sitting home Friday night when I got a text from my friend Diane who is past president of our local genealogy society and who is a distant cousin. She was at her grandson's basketball game and was talking to another grandmother whose grandson is a Perry. 

My Great Great Grandparents Sarah Perry
and William T Snyder

Diane and I are related through the Snyder Family. She and the other gramma were wondering (at the basketball game) if I would look up how the Perrys and the Snyders are related.  

And of course I knew off the top of my head. 

My 2nd great grandfather William Snyder was married to Sarah Perry and his sister Mary Snyder was married to Sarah's uncle COH Perry and my friend Diane's 2nd great grandmother was William and Mary's sister Francis. Got all that? 

Mary Elizabeth Snyder and Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry

I don't have a photo of sister Francis Snyder and her husband George Ruggles, Diane's branch. 

It's funny because my grandmother talked about all these people and I actually feel like I know them. It is also funny because I swear I am related somehow to everyone in this county, lol. 

Now the funny fact.  Our family legend was that we were related to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. Finding this trail was a mission of mine for a while. The true story? Mary Elizabeth Snyder married a man whose parents named him (first name) Commodore, (middle names) Oliver Hazard, and (last name) Perry. No relation to the military man.  He went by COH. 

My 3rd Great Grandparents Horace Perry and Sarah Ammerman. Horace is COH Perry's older brother.  

And because it is my family - my 2nd great grandfather William's wife Sarah Perry's father is Horace Perry who is the brother of COH Perry.  So I am double related to the Perrys. 

Happy Valentine's Day

 

As my nine year old granddaughter told her mom, Grampa isn't going to take Mimi to a restaurant for Valentine's Day so she made her own. 

I finally cleaned off the dining room table which still had Christmas remnants on it. The bottom right corner is a Goodwill box. 

The flower arrangement a friend sent was very droopy so I picked out some flowers and put them in mini vases. The table runner is from my older granddaughter's tea party this past summer. 

Better lighting. 

The glasses are part of the set of my grandmother's wedding crystal.  I was trying different ideas to show the etching. This is apple juice. 

This one is wine on my kitchen counter. 

Washed, on my kitchen counter.  There must be at least 100 pieces in this pattern in my china cabinet with glasses in a variety of sizes and types. I would bet that there is at least service for 12 in each glass, possibly more. And that is after the breakage by my mother who carted them around to at least six houses. I have four five china cabinets at this point. This one holds all the crystal stemware behind glass doors and my mother's china pattern in the bottom cupboards. I would bet that my mother's china was never used by her or myself.  I hope to talk a granddaughter into it. 

 And Friday we said "whatever" to the heart healthy diet and Mr Merry took me to the ice cream parlor for lunch. He had the ginormous banana split. 

And I had the apple dumpling sundae with a huge warm apple dumpling made from sweet dough surrounding a whole cored apple stuffed with cinnamon butter filling and covered in icing with ice cold homemade vanilla bean ice cream, whipped topping and almonds with a caramel drizzle.

Tomorrow we are enjoying a quiet evening at home with some frozen Trader Joe's chinese meals. All purchased prior to looking at labels for sodium content. 

It's a Full Time Job

As a novice to medical issues I am shocked at how time consuming this is! 

We started Monday with eye exams at the opthamologist. Mr Merry's prescription had not changed in ten years, but we ordered new glasses for him since his glasses were ten years old.  I got to experience a new student employee so that my preliminary exam took twice as long (or longer). Then the doctor came in and we found out that my cataracts are "ready".  I am having surgery on my left eye on the 24th and he assures me that when I see the difference, I will want to do the right eye two weeks later. 

He uses a special concoction of eye drops that is mixed in a pharmacy out of state and it has taken me two days of missing each others calls to arrangement payment and shipment. 

Today was my visit with my new pulmonologist. He is very nice and knowledgeable and we got along great. I am actually breathing better now (after 3 days of breathing treatments in the hospital and all those Lasix IVs) than I have in years.  I will have a pulmonary function test next week and I think we are repeating the CT of the lungs in two months. 

I had a visit with my new cardiologist last week and he changed the dosage of my three new prescriptions and sent that information to my pharmacy. Friday afternoon I got a message from my pharmacy stating that they had the medications on order and that the price of one of them would be $1032 since my insurance denied it. I knew it would be useless to try to straighten it out over the weekend so I stopped in Monday morning. The clerks had 5 of those new pills for me, the rest still on order and the other two prescriptions were still on order and they had no clue when they would arrive or how much the $1032 prescription would cost me out of pocket until it got there. They acted like I was the troublemaker here and taking up their time with dumb questions. We stopped back on Tuesday and got the rest of the expensive prescription. The cost was $408.28 for 30 days. I checked my policy online and I believe the cost for March and April will be the same, then it will go down to $200 for May and around $100 for the rest of year. Which is much better than $1000 a month. By Wednesday the other two prescriptions were here. One is $1 out of pocket and the other is $10. 

After we visit doctors and pharmacies, we are using our newly purchased passes to the city recreation center. There is a track (actually mats) around the basketball courts on the ground floor that is 1/10 of a mile. We change our shoes and do 10 rounds, which is my limit right now. Almost everyone passes me. It is interesting to watch people at the open gym, mostly young men in their 20's. One day we had a wheelchair player, a young man with no legs. Today there was a lady even older than me who could not bend her knees and walked with two crutches, still faster than me. It makes me realize how lucky I am and how I need to keep at it. 

Saturday we had to use the upstairs track which is walking on the left and running on the right, due to a basketball tournament. My issue is the stairs leave me breathless and we were unable to find the elevator. Tuesday is my new favorite because the gym floor is used for Toddler Time, lots of adorable children aged four and under with mats and toys.  Mr Merry is being a good sport and coming with me everyday. 

All this means is that we leave in the morning as soon as we get the grandkids on the bus and try hard to get home for lunch. So much for the leisure life.

I was pretty excited to finally have lunch with friends on Friday but one of my friends has a repair person coming so we had to cancel. I do have a Trader Joe trip scheduled for the next week. 

I hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day - it's Galentines Day at my house - and eats lots of chocolate. 

I am trying to keep up with everyone's blogs as best I can until I can get my new routine.

Memory Monday: Til Death Does Us Part

I was trying to move back one generation at a time, but I thought this story was so perfect for Valentine's Week. 

My great great great grandfather Daniel was born in Warren County, NY in 1819 and moved to my county in 1833 at age 14 "and took full share into supporting the family". During warmer months he cut and sold wood and also worked with the masons who were erecting the first brick building in town. In the snow months he attended "winter school". 

In 1844 he married my 3rd great grandmother Almira who was born in Genesee County, NY in 1824 and who came in Ohio when she was 10 years old.  Daniel and Almira started farming on 40 acres and moved to various farms in the county before coming back to the original land.  

Daniel and Almira were affiliated with the Society of Friends although Almira did join the Methodist Church for a time.  The couple were parents of four sons, Nathaniel, Charles, Daniel and my great great grandfather Henry and a daughter Sarah who died at one year old. 

"Both were excellent people as parents and citizens, and possessed broad sympathy for the unfortunate. At their golden wedding, held February 11, 1891, the large number of relatives and friends demonstrated clearly the esteem in which the old couple were held"

And here is the family "love story": 

Almira, listed in the paper as "Mrs. Daniel" was in poor health that winter and passed away on in March, 1891. Daniel told the family and friends that he could not live without her. 

"Here he resided until his death March 16, 1891; the death of his wife the preceding day, affected him so powerfully as to cause his death within 24 hours, and the pioneers were buried side by side in Olena Cemetery."