Adelbert "Bert" Babcock - 1894 diary

In 1894 at age 27, my maternal great uncle Bert wrote a diary while working on a farm owned by my paternal great grandmother's brother - Russell Dye.  I'll just let you click on the link to go view my opening description of this new diary blogging project.


I'm going to sorely miss Henry C. Olney and his family, but I'm already excited about Bert with his wry sense of humor, and another take on farm life in the Naples, NY area in the late 1800's!

http://bertbabcock1894.blogspot.com/  

click above for the Diary blog, and click below for some of Bert's gems in Twitter format.

http://twitter.com/BertBabcock

Interesting Day!

Maya creates a gift for her parents. We framed it and delivered it yesterday.

We had a very interesting Christmas Day. Our daughter-in-law Deanna just gave up and said I can't go on - I need to sleep!!!!!. Our son Casey brought Maya and CJ over for Christmas, and Deanna got some well deserved sleep! Caesar James - 6 weeks old - is actually a very good baby, but does not sleep more than about 1.5 hours at a time. Casey is very good at doing his share, and is a great Dad - better than me - but his food supply (a bottle of breast milk) just does not measure up for CJ.

Mom, whose short-term memory problems present a challenge all the time, had three incidents of added problems yesterday, and she and Dad did not even make it next door to our house for Christmas --- and she did not want us to come there. Because of the spells, the nurse from her care program came over, and we ended up in the Emergency Department in the late part of Christmas as the day shifted over to this morning. They could not figure out anything, and sent her home around 2:30 AM. No calls from Dad yet this morning, so I hope all is well?

We did have a very nice - if somewhat smaller - Christmas brunch - lots of leftovers. We also got to hang out with Deanna's family at Aunt Mary's house for a very nice dinner - though we did need to leave early for the Emergency Room part of the day!

Annual Top Show

Every year I do my top show at the Perinton Nursery School. Part of the show is trying to spin one of my whirligig tops on the end of the stem of another one. It usually takes several tries to get it - sometimes I just give up. This year I got it on the first try for both the morning and the afternoon show! And the teacher captured the moment on my camera! Doing my top show is always something I love to do, and I really appreciate the fact that they have me back every year. Part of the reason it works out is that they pretty much only do 4 year olds, so it is a new group every year! Click here to see more about having me do my top show for your group!

CJ

Recent picture of grand child # 2 - Caesar James Sams VI - or CJ as we know him!

Let's not forget Maeve

Found this 8 year old ornament while decorating the tree. Can you believe this young lady is away at college now? We'll see her in a few days - can't wait!

And, while I forgot my camera last night, we went to Wayland-Cohocton High School for the annual holiday concert featuring our nephew Wyatt, and about 200 of his closest friends - ;-).

They put on a wonderful concert of course, but even if you didn't have a relative on stage, you would have been moved by these young people!

Maya Tuesday

Wonderful day! Maya came over to our place and helped decorate our tree. Then she and I made some cornbread for lunch, and after lunch we decorated some Christmas tree ornaments for the family next Sunday at the Palmeri family holiday open house!

I'll post a picture of the ornaments after the party!

New Tops!

Collecting Spinning Tops has been a big part of my life over the years - especially during my years as The Toycrafter. I recently got a nice batch of Mexican Spin tops through my association with a Spinning Top Forum on line. This is the first serious top purchase in several years, and a most exciting package to open. If you are into tops, click here to check out our forum, or here to check out the web site of the guy who runs the forum.

Double Negative

Since this sign says "Do not block this entrance" and "Do not sit or stand in front of door" AND has the international "Do Not" red circle with slash, I took this to mean that I definitely should block this entrance and either sit or stand in front of the door. The fact that this sign is on the door to the teacher's lounge in a school makes the double negative doubly interesting???

Another one!

This is just way too much fun!

Check below for other designs.

I'm working on a design with a business card for the central body - none cut out yet!

$20 including tax and shipping.