Throwback Thursday

I've been trying to scan and edit some of the photos in my mom's stacks of photo albums this week.
It's slow going since I have to scan them into hubs computer(the printer with the scanner is attached to his machine upstairs), then he has to email me the photos, then after uploading them to OneDrive I have to download them to my machine and then edit them. ugh.  Why won't they download from the email attachments directly to my machine(instead of having to upload them first to OD)I have no clue!
And then Hubs emailed me some scanned photos as pdfs....wtf!?!?
Sigh.
I will Never get this all finished before I die.....ugh!

Anyway, here is a photo I love.  I am not in it since I wasn't born yet when it was taken.
It's of my maternal grandparents(my mom's parents)and my maternal grandmother's mother.

I believe this was taken in the mid 1950's, given the clothing and the car parked next to them.
The building behind them has a store sign which I think says "Leggett's"(You can see the first 5 letters.).
Leggett's was a smaller department store chain that began in 1927 in Lynchburg, VA.
Not sure if this store was the Lynchburg store but by this time in the 1950's they had more stores dotting the map in south central Virginia......Farmville, Roanoke, South Boston all had a Leggett's.
Suffice it to say, they were standing in a mid-sized city somewhere in Southeastern Virginia.

Anyway, this photo is of my great grandmother Lucy Baker Vassar, her daughter Lillian Vassar Harper and Lillian's husband, Wirt Harper.

Yes, my grandfather was named WIRT.
Don't laugh.....it's an old traditional Southern name.
People are naming their kids far worse names today IMHO.

Anyway, once my mother left home and married at the ripe old age of 16, her parents were empty-nesters, free to do as they pleased since she was an only child.
My mom left home in June of 1951 right after she finished 11th grade.

My grandmother worked full time and my grandfather did not at this point in his life.
They did go on vacation every year and I've been told that often, after my mother was living away from their home, that they'd take Lillian's mother with them, as she was a widow.

Can you imagine as an adult married couple, taking your mother along on all your summer vacations?

So I have quite a few photos of the three of them together in various vacation type spots and some not-so vacation type spots.
I love my grandfather in this one.
Let's just say that my grandfather was something of a "character".
He would "mug" for the camera and I am sure he put the bill of his cap up like that just for this photo.

Yep, Wirt was a fun guy......
And I love his two tone "stepping out" shoes. lolz

Sluggy
 

Did Someone Say Giveaway?!?

Spring has finally seemed to have arrived so why not have another Sluggy's Boring Blog Box Giveaway of 2015.

This is Giveaway #3 for the year. 8-)

Check it out..........

 

1 x White Chocolate FLIPZ
1 x Max-Freeze Topical Pain Reliever
1 x Pantene Shampoo
 2 x Ora-Gel Kid's Toothpastes
1 x Crest Oral Rinse
1 x Aveeno Hand/Body Lotion
1 x Carmex Lip Balm
1 x Sally Hansen Nail Hardener

1 x Revlon Emory Boards

1 x Colgate Toothbrush

1 x Cover Girl Mascara

1 x NYC Lip Gloss

2 x Cover Girl Eye Shadow(teal and blue)

2 x Starburst Jelly Beans

1 x Almay Lip Pencil(mauve)

5 x Assorted brands Nail Polish Colors(white, navy, yellow, lavender and black)

 

Just some close-ups of the goodies.......

 I'll leave this giveaway open until May 10th, Sunday, at 11:59pm.  The next day I'll put all the valid entries into a container and draw out a name and that person wins.

You may get ONE ENTRY per Day by leaving a comment on this blog post until the Giveaway ends.

To get BONUS entries---

* Post about my Giveaway on your own Blog,  on Facebook on Twitter or some other Forum you frequent with a link to your post.  This will earn you 2 additional entries for each action and you can do this once during the course of this giveaway(8 entries total if you do all 4).  Please leave 2 additional comments on this blog post for each additional Bonus entry. 

 

* Become a Follower of this Blog to get 1 more entry.(Hit the "Join This Site" Button at the top right side of this blog).  Of course if you already Follow my Blog, leave a comment ascertaining that for 1 more entry.

Please leave a comment if you become a Follower or are a Follower already and give me your ID/name on there so I can verify it.

 

* Join the Bloggers United Federation if you have a blog to get 1 more entry.  Leave a comment saying you want to join up with your blog addy and I'll hook you up.

(All members who have already joined the BUF will of course get 1 Bonus entry as well.)

  Disclaimer--This giveaway is open to those with mailing addresses within the US or Canada only.
If you are in Canada, you will receive a smaller box of goodies, as the shipping rates internationally are ridiculous and I am not taking out a mortgage on my house to pay to ship this stuff.  ;-)

**
If you need this shipped to Canada, I'll have to change the box and it's contents a bit.  I can ship a plain box weighing up to 3lbs. via 1st class mail, which, while more than the flat rate Priority to US addys, is still affordable.  These prize boxes usually weigh 7 or more lbs. when full, so if the winner is in Canada, I'll let them pick and choose which of the items they prefer sent in their box, until the box weighs 4lbs.  I hate to have to do this(not ship ALL prizes to them)but I would hate it even more to exclude them totally from entering the giveaway.

***NOTE***

Please make sure there is a way for me to contact you in your comment.  If you're not a registered Blogger User with your contact information on your User page, please put your email addy or email me your email addy privately when you leave a comment so I can get ahold of you if you win. If I can't contact you then you can't win.  Thanks!

So let's get this started!

Sluggy

Bloggers United Federation

Sonya Ann has started a small consortium of bloggers. *yikes I wrote bloogers but fixed it!*

Anyway, we are a group of assorted bloggers banding together to support each other's blogs.
As SA our fearless leader said it, "It is really about building a solid network for all of us, driving more people to each other's blogs and hopefully, earning more. "

I urge you to join with us if you have a blog.
Just let me or Sonya Ann know, either by leaving a comment on one of our blogs or by emailing us directly, and we'll "hook you up".

All you have to do is simply to promise to go to other member's blogs and to link to each other every so often to get your readers to become other BUF's members' readers.
This isn't limited to a certain genre of blog, a certain country, age or sex.....except no x-rated blogs though you can say PORN every now and then. ;-)

Heck, maybe some day we'll have a convention or something......or I'll show up on your doorstep......ok, maybe that's too creepy, huh? ;-)

I've made a separate page containing the List of the Bloggers United Federation Members which is the tab titled "Bloggers United Federation" (duh!)at the top of this blog.  Each member is a hyperlink so you can just click on their name and go to their blog.
Leave them some comments, let them know who sent you there and just show them some love, ok?

I have also included(most were already there anyway)the BUF Members' blogs on my blog roll.  Each BUF member has an asterisk next to their listing there, to denote their membership.


So come on, what are you waiting for?!
Join us.

Sluggy

Ancestral Connections Are Everywhere!

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I discovered 2 years ago that my bloggy friend Sonya Ann and I are related.  We are 9th cousins.
She and I are descended from Captain Samuel Snead(my 10th Great Grandfather, her 9th Great Grandfather).
He was our first Snead to immigrate to American. Samuel came to the Virginia Colony with his wife, Alice Gallimore Snead and their son, William, in 1635.

Our most recent shared ancestor is Samuel Sneed's grandson, John Sneed, who married Alice Tinsley.
From there our ancestor's branch off, Sonya's line being the son William Sneed of New Kent, Virginia and mine, the son Samuel Sneed of Hanover, Virginia.  Back then, name spellings were quite fluid, Snyd or Snead one time, Sneed the next time.  Over the years the spelling of the name got standardized in her line to SNEED, my line to SNEAD, but it's the same family line.

One of the famous cousins we share--Golfer Sam Sneed.  My 6th cousin 3x removed.

Anyway, who would have thunk it, that I'd find a long lost cousin in blogland?

So imagine my surprise when I had my last giveaway and the winner, chosen at random, had the same last name as the maiden name of one of my 3rd Great Grandmothers!

I emailed her if she knew anything about her family history and after some back and forth we discovered that we share an ancestor in Abraham Stapp II who married Dorothy Moss 1678.  Abraham was 2nd generation of that family born in America. We are 8th cousins 2x removed(I am straight 8th cousins with her grandfather).

One of the famous people we almost share, Scott Stapp of the grunge band Creed.  He took his stepfather's surname so genetically we aren't cousins.

But we do share this guy.....

Kentucky legend & frontiersman Moses Stepp.  That's his grave in Martin County, KY.


I find this happening every time I turn around.  I find ancestral connections to people I meet in my life.

More recently I was talking to another blogger buddy, Jay, and he said he was related to Roy Rogers(Roy's real name was Leonard Franklin Slye).

 Well I went to look up Roy's parents and Leonard's mother was named Mattie Womack.  Gee, I have a line of Womacks in my family lines. I traced Roy's maternal side Womack line back a bit and wouldn't you know, it flows back to Prince Edward County, Virginia, where my Womack's were too.
I feel confident that once I do some more digging I'll find the actual link to Roy Rogers maternal line of Womacks to mine.
So far on the paternal side of Sly family I haven't done enough research to connect Jay but he says it is there.
So while Jay and I aren't cousins we are both probably each related to Roy Rogers, Jay through the paternal line and me through the maternal line, so we are from allied families.

It sure is a small, small ancestral world we live in.




Have you done any genealogy research that led you back to famous or infamous people in your family tree?

Sluggy
 

I'm Skeptical

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon this blog......HERE.

This Mavis Butterfield person seems like a kindred spirit....even if she seems to be an Uber gardener.
She use to coupon heavily and went into that extreme couponing mode when it was hot a few years back just like me, and her food spending was under $100 a month for 2 years.   We both stopped doing the heavy couponing for free stuff thing as we saw that most of the things you got for free using coupons were NOT good for you.  Mavis' food spending shot up a little bit but still stayed under $185 a month overall in 2013 and 2014.

Now she has challenged herself in 2015 to only spend $100 a month on food for her family of 4.
Oh, and she is only grocery shopping at Costco for the year.
Yeah.

Ok, so before everyone gets all depressed and disheartened that they can't feed a family of 4 for a year on $1,200, let's talk about this.
I applaud her for doing this but really, she isn't only spending $100 a month for food.
She is going into this challenge with a whole kitchen/pantry full of things bought before the challenge started.
Condiments, spices, staples like sugar, flour, etc.
Plus she seems to have a lot of preserved food starting off too(she's mentioned a ton of frozen blueberries about 5 times in what I've read so far...lol).
Plus she is using gift cards gifted to her and getting free Zaycon credit for meats when people sign up through her referral link.
And she is doing bartering with neighbors to get a bit of variety into her rotation so no money changing hands.

She is not even 4 months into the year and almost up to $500 in spending but feels her monthly totals will be going down once she can start harvesting from her garden so yah, that should give her lower totals OOP.
But is she adding in all the costs associated with growing that food?  Seeds, tools, added water use for her home, the costs to preserve the foods she grows......they all add up, don't they?

As for Costco.......we don't have one here and I've only been in one once(this past January).  It seems to me similar to those other warehouse places like Sam's Club and BJ's.
Isn't the running joke you can't get out of a warehouse store without spending at Least $100 a trip? lolz

I don't know.
The large packages of stuff is fine for things you eat often but what about dishes you only need a small amount of something for?
She batch cooks and freezes dishes too which is fine if you have ample freezer space.

Back in 2010 I grew just shy of 94 lbs. of food that year.  It will be interesting to see if she meets her goal of growing TWO THOUSAND POUNDS of food this year. 

I'm going to continue to follow along with this scheme and see how it pans out.
Hey, I am game for anything that brings down my food bill without making us eat a less healthy and/or less varied diet.....aren't you?  ;-)


And now I am off into an online suckhole looking at articles/blogs on feeding your family on $100 a month......


Sluggy