Weekly Planner: Five Questions about Your Favorites

The five question challenge continues at Julianna Smith's 24/7 Family History Circle. This week we list some of our favorites.

• What is your favorite book and why?
• I can't name a single favorite book. My favorite series of books is the Stephanie Plum mysteries by Janet Evanovich. As a child I read voraciously. First all of the Nancy Drew Books and then all of my brother's Hardy Boys. I like series books because you get to know the characters and look forward to what might come next. Some of my other favorite authors; Jonathan Kellerman, Faye Kellerman, Patricia Cornwall, Frank Herbert and Isaac Asimov.
  
• What is your favorite movie and why?
• It's a Wonderful Life. It's just an amazing story. Who's life would have been different if I hadn't been born? How would my life have been different if someone else hadn't crossed my path at just the right time?
  
• Where is your favorite place in the world and why?
• Hawaii. We've been twice and I love the Big Island. Someday I'll probably do an entire series of post on our adventures there. But the biggest reason that it is such a special place for me is that on our first trip my Mother was able to join us and see the Pacific Ocean for the first time, at the age of 73. Being able to take her to Pearl Harbor is something that I'll never forget. That first trip we also traveled with Bean, her boyfriend, BJ, and Country Girl.
  
• What is your favorite time of day? Are you a morning person, an afternoon person, or a night owl?
• I'm definitely a morning person. I've never done well with late nights. My one job working third shift only lasted about a month. By afternoon I'm ready for a nap. My job right now does get me up a bit earlier than I'd like.
  
• What is your favorite holiday?
• Christmas! Time with family, food, presents, food, time off, presents.
  

Mom's favorites:

• Book - She couldn't pick one either. If she had to pick a favorite author it would be Isaac Asimov but she loves books; sci-fi, mysteries or just a good tale. When asked she didn't mention Janet Evonovich but she looks forward to the Stephanie Plum novels as much as I do.
• Movie - It's a Wonderful Life. A little fantasy and good wins over evil.
• Place - Hawaii. She says she still can't believe that she got to go and is thankful she was able to get there while her health was still good enough to enjoy herself and swim in the Pacific Ocean.
• Time of Day - Morning
• Holiday - Christmas! She actually loves the period from Halloween to Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Everything is decorated, people are in good spirits, lots of good food.

So I guess this proves that this apple didn't fall far from the tree!



Week #4
Family
Week #3
My Childhood Home
Carlisle Family Home
Syracuse Baby Camp

Week #2
Fun and Games in the 60's & 70's
Fun and Games in the 1930's

Week #1
My School Memories
Mom's School Memories

Weekly Planner: Five Questions about Your Family

The five question challenge continues at Julianna Smith's 24/7 Family History Circle. The questions this week deal with family.

• How has a member of your family influenced you?
• Put downs by family members have stuck with me all my life. My step mother always told me that I was the smart one and my sister the pretty one. I'm not exactly ugly and my sister is smart too. She was also the one that told me I had a brown thumb and it was only last year that I set out to prove her wrong. My dad convinced me that for a smart girl I was still pretty dumb.
  
• For a positive influence I would have to say first, my mom. She has shown me that I can deal with whatever life throws at me. Secondly my kids continue to force me to look at things in new and different ways. They have brought joy into my life.
  
• How often did you see extended family (e.g., aunts, uncles, cousins), and what was it like when you all got together?
• The only relatives that we saw on a regular basis were my paternal grandparents. I remember going to visit them by myself. As a family we would go to their house for dinner, probably on holidays. My father's brother and his family lived in Philadelphia, NY and we would see them once in a while when they came to Syracuse. My mother's family all lived out of state. I've seen my uncle and his son four times. I met my mother's sister once and I've never met her daughters. John has a very large, very close, extended family and I was quite overwhelmed at family gatherings when we first met.
  
• What kind of traditions did/does your family observe? Were there special ways you celebrated birthdays? Holidays?
• My brother and sister share a birthday. A local department store had a birthday club where you could get a pie for your birthday so we always had both cherry pie and birthday cake for their birthdays. Birthday cakes were special because they were full of treasure. After they were baked mom would cut slits and hide coins wrapped in waxed paper. She also had a set of little tokens that she hid as well. I looked for them at her house this week but couldn't find them. It was a fun tradition and I don't know why I didn't continue it with my kids.
  
• Did your family have pets?
• We had cats. They never really liked me much. I remember tying the Christmas tree to the drapery rod to keep the cat from knocking it over and hanging the glass ornaments up high to keep them from being batted around.
• John is allergic to cats so in 1990 we went to the shelter in Batavia and got a dog for the kids. She was just a mutt who didn't mind terribly well and I used to call her RottenMutt. The kids named her Amanda. She was great with the kids but didn't do as well with the grandkids when they came along. She moved with us three times and really became John's dog. She died two years ago and I miss her. When the grandkids were little they sorted out their grandparents by our dog's names. We were Grandma & Grandpa Amanda, my ex was Grandpa Phoenix, etc.
  
• What foods did you family enjoy? Was there a special dish that was always on the table at family get-togethers?
• When we were kids we had beef and potatoes almost every night except Friday when Dad would pick up haddock on his way home so I hated Fridays. I looked forward to holidays. Turkey for both Thanksgiving and Christmas and ham on Easter. We did always sit and eat as a family.
  
• We still eat together at the table. Turkey is no longer reserved for holiday's. Usually when we have a large group get together we have baked ziti. There is no one item that you can count on being on the table but you can count on there being too much! No one ever leaves the table until well stuffed with both food and conversation.

Mom didn't have too much to say this week about this topic. Maybe she'll be more receptive next week. I was surprised to learn that they had chicken or duck at Thanksgiving rather than turkey. She did say that the tradition of money in birthday cakes started with my grandma Berry. Mom then saw the tokens in a magazine ad and bought them to add.


Week #3
My Childhood Home
Carlisle Family Home
Syracuse Baby Camp

Week #2
Fun and Games in the 60's & 70's
Fun and Games in the 1930's

Week #1
My School Memories
Mom's School Memories

Five Question Challenge - Fun & Games

Julianna Smith, at 24/7 Family History Circle has challenged everyone to record the answers to five questions each week on a specific topic. The topic for Week #2 is Fun and Games.

• What was your favorite game when you were a child? Were you a board game enthusiast? A card shark? Or perhaps a kick-the-can kid?
• In our neighborhood we played a game that was a combination of kick the can, hide and seek and tag, played with two teams. Our front steps were the jail. We drove mom quite nuts but she knew where we were.
  
• Did you play any particular games with your family as a child? Easter egg hunts? Thanksgiving Day football games? Scavenger hunts? Charades?
• We had marathon sessions of Monopoly and RISK. When we were younger we played Crazy Eights "Grandma Burley style". Grandma Burley was my mother's best friend's mother. Most of us now know the game as UNO and my grandkids love to play.
  
• What were some fun places you visited as a child? Did your family go camping? Did you take family vacations? Was there a local destination that was a family favorite?
• We had an Apache pop-up camper and went lots of places in the Adirondacks and Vermont. My two favorite camp grounds were Half Moon Pond in Hubbardton, VT and Cranberry Lake in northern NY. At Half Moon Pond we always had a site right on the water and spent hours fishing. There were also side trips to visit marble quarries and ski resorts where we rode the gondolas up the mountains. At Cranberry Lake we could roam all over the huge camp ground and climb Bear Mountain.
  
• What activities did you do with family members? Did Grandma teach you to sew? Who taught you to cook? Did you go fishing with Grandpa? An uncle? Who coached your baseball team?
• My grandparents had a boat and would occasionally take us to Otisco Lake, where they once owned a camp. My grandmother had two sons, her third pregnancy ending in the stillborn birth of a girl. I was the first granddaughter, so I instantly became my grandmother's favorite and I spent many weekends at my grandparents home. I've always felt a bit guilty about the special time I had with my grandparents that my brother, sister and cousins didn't have. I went sledding on Woodland Reservoir with my cousins. My grandmother, who told me stories of skating on the Ottawa Canal and the Erie Canal attempted (without success) to teach me to ice skate.
  
• My mother taught me to sew and bake. Cooking I picked up as I went along.
  
• Did you enjoy watching professional sports? What was your favorite team? Do you have any special memories of sporting events?
• My grandfather would take us to hockey games at the state fair grounds and I used to love to watch them play. When we moved to Akron, John took me to a Buffalo Sabres game so I could see Wayne Gretzky play. The Buffalo fans were brutal and I was very uncomfortable in the stands. The sport is now too violent for my taste, both on and off the ice. I learned to like college basketball when I started dating John. Our wedding was planned around the S.U. basketball schedule. While living in Akron I loved to watch Curling on TV. I can no longer pick up the Canadian stations so I rarely get to watch. I would like to try me hand at it sometime.
  

Fun and Games in the 1930's - my mother's memories for week #2

Week #1
My School Memories
Mom's School Memories

Five Question Challenge - School Memories

Julianna Smith, at 24/7 Family History Circle, has challenged everyone to record the answers to five questions each week on a specific topic. The topic for Week #1 was School Memories.

I thought I'd try and take this one step further and also record my mother's memories for each week's topic although they won't follow the question format. Her school memories are here.

• What was your favorite subject in school?
• I didn't have a favorite subject, I loved learning. My least favorite would have been Trigonometry.

• In what extra-curricular activities did you participate? Sports? Drama? Music? Academics?
• In middle school I was in the chorus. I went to NYSMA competitions and scored very poorly, one of the only things I did not excel at. I still love to sing, as long as no one is grading me.
  
• I played in the band, alto clarinet and alto sax. The year I lived in Clayton, NC, I was in the marching band and remember practices where we had to march to a very quiet cadence when we approached the revival tent. I also still remember the trip to march in a parade in Wilmington. Because I hadn't been with the band in the spring, when they ordered uniforms, I marched in a navy concert blazer and really stood out from the rest! I had to practice in the barn and if I wanted to go to practices I had to get my own rides. Dad and Ann never came to a single concert or parade. When I moved back to NY with my mother she struggled to buy me a sax (I played a school instrument in NC, the school in NY wouldn't provide one) and she managed to get to every concert. I didn't join the marching band because of the cost and my work schedule.
  
• Did you go on field trips, and if so, what was your most memorable field trip?
• I went on lots of field trips. The two that were most memorable were a trip to the Everson Museum in Syracuse when I was in elementary school. They had pictures of naked people and I was shocked and quite worried that I'd be in trouble have having looked at them. The other memorable trip also involved nudity. In NC we went on a trip to Raleigh to see the movie Romeo and Juliet and there was a very steamy scene that we talked about for weeks. The bus broke down on the way back so we missed our ride home. That was the only time I was ever on a bus that broke down before I started driving them.
  
• What teacher influenced you the most?
• My fourth grade teacher is the only one that stands out. She taught me to be tough when the other kids picked on me. She also taught me to speed read so I could devour books at warp speed.
  
• Did you buy a lunch at school, or bring one from home? What kind of lunchbox? What was your favorite lunch?
• I know that I had several metal lunch boxes but I don't remember what was on them. They usually had a PB&J sandwich wrapped in wax paper and a leaky thermos. I did buy my lunch now and then, especially on pizza day. When I was in NC I discovered fried bolonga.