Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:* Tell us about your "other" hobbies or interests outside of genealogy and family history research, writing, speaking, etc. Be mindful of your family's privacy, though!

* Write a blog post of your own, respond with a comment to this post, or write a Facebook status post or a Google+ Stream post.

Randy Seaver over at Genea-Musings has a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun and this one is an easy one for me, so here goes.

 

Many of you know I am also a quilter, and I have had my quilting blog since Thanksgiving day of 2008.  I enjoy all aspects of quilting, and I do many different quilting methods.  I took my first quilting class with a friend, that was in the summer of 1995, and the rest is history.  In 1997 my friend opened a quilt stop and she asked me to teach quilting, I knew how to paper piece, a technique she didn't know.  I have been teaching ever since.  Right now the only class I am teaching is a quilting software class.  The software is called Electric Quilt or EQ for short.  I have taught a variety of classes.

 

My other new interest is scrapbooking.  I this about two years ago to document my parents' lives, and share stories that I know about my ancestors and to save my genealogy in an interesting format.  It has almost taken over my quilting time.  I like the hands on experience of using paper and punches.  My latest project has been a wedding album for my daughter and her husband.  It isn't finished yet but my daughter saw it at Christmas and she really liked it.  You can see some of the album pages here.  That is only the beginning of the album, there is a lot more. 

 

Another picture from the Wedding Album

I am also active at church, go every Sunday and have a calling.  I am a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It was one of my smartest decisions I ever made in my life.  I joined the church at age 29 and severed a welfare mission to Santa Cruz Bolivia. 

 

My main job now that I am retired, I was a nurse for 46 years, is to be a wife.

 

Well there you go a little bit more about me.

 

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History: Hobbies

Week 38: Hobbies. Did you have any hobbies as a child? Which ones?

When I first went read this week's topic about childhood hobbies, I thought I didn't have any hobbies as the kid; all I like to do was read. Matter of fact my mother thought I read too much and she would yell at me to," go outside and dust the off cobwebs".


My Stamp Album

A little later I remember I did have a hobby, I had a stamp collection. I believe I started collecting stamps after we moved to Florida when I was 11. If I remember correctly the stamp album was a Christmas gift. I had an interest in stamp collecting well until my late 20s.

The scary thing was this morning when I remembered about my stamp collection I knew exactly where to look for my stamp album as well as my shoebox full of stamps.

My Collection Today

In reality I still have an interest in stamps as I still tear off every new or interesting stamp that comes to my house in the mail. Once I tear them off of the envelopes they go into my desk drawer. I have envelopes full of stamps that need to be soaked off of the paper and sorted.


Index Dividers

I must have been pretty organized at one time because I have stamps that are in little envelopes by country and they are in alphabetical order and divided by dividers in my stamp collection shoebox. You will notice in the picture that Poland has jumped the fence.I must have shared this interest with other people as I have the envelope with a note on it; to Ms. Hartmann 30 stamps no duplicates. Then each country and the numbers stamps for that country are listed on the front of the envelope.
It is sad to realize how much I have forgotten about my own life.  And shows me how import it is to journal to remember these things. 


Refill pages $1.25

Check out the cost of those refill pages only a dollar 25. In the second picture you will notice that the mounting sleeves were only $.49 per package.










Here is a picture of one of my USA stamp pages.

Thanks to Amy for these weekly prompts they have really helped me to write the stories of my life.




Hosted by Geneabloggers: http://www.geneabloggers.com/
Created by Amy Coffin http://wetree.blogspot.com/

Advent Calendar: Christmas Cookies

Did your family or ancestors make Christmas Cookies? How did you help? Did you have a favorite cookie?



Cookie Press and cookies



My Mom made Christmas cookies, the ones I remember are sugar cookies with icing colored green and red or with green, red and white sprinkles on them.   She also used one of those tube thingy with the different shapes and you squeezed the dough out of it.  I guess the correct name is a cookie press.  And look they still make them and some of them are even electric.

I helped by putting the icing on or the sprinkles.  This memory is only from New York and think when we moved to Florida we didn't make them any more.  I never made them after I left home.  My patients gave me so many gifts of cookies, chocolate, fudge and wonderful stuff that I just didn't need any cookies at my house. 

I think one of my favorite cookies is the wedding cookie.  The funny thing is sugar cookies are my least favorite and I don't like icing.

Memory Jogger: Lessons and Hobbies

I forgot which blog I found this suggestion, and I started this post back in May and just found it again.  I haven't been doing much on my blogs too busy with work, organizing my Genealogy files, both paper and computer.  What a time consuming activity that is.  So I'm going to finish this now, why waste the potential.

This was a good memory jogger for me, it was about lessons or hobbies we did in our families. I wanted piano lessons as a kid and wasn't able to have them.  My parents didn't have extra money for something they didn't think I would stick to.  When I was in my late 20's I started lessons.  When I told my Dad I was taking lessons he was curious as to why I would do that since I would never be a concert pianist.  Like that is the only reason why someone should learn how to play the piano. The little bit of talent and ability I had came in handy while I was on my mission in Bolivia.  I used my basic piano skills to teach the first book of piano lessons to the kids in my mission and my companions who were more accomplished did the more advance students. It worked very well. I took more lessons when I came home. But when I married a fellow with 3 kids that was the end of my piano time. Some day I would like to pick it up again.

The similar thing happened with sewing I begged my Mom to teach me how to sew but she didn't want to, I really don't remember the reason.  One afternoon Mom and Dad went out and I took a part one of my full skirts and made a pair of culottes out of the skirt.  I cut out the pieces for the culottes by following the pattern and sewed all the seams back up.  I even had the waste band back on.  The only thing it didn't have was the zipper.  My Mom was so surprised she decide I really wanted to sew and she took me to J.C. Penny's for sewing lessons.  I can remember buying fabric on sale for $0.50/yard around 63.  I sewed all my own cloths for many years, I made a lot of my cloths in high school, my formal for the senior prom, all my cloths for my mission and I made cloths into my 30's.  Now I can't stand sewing cloths.  I made some holiday scrub tops about 10 years ago and that was the end of that.  I much rather make quilts. 

Mary 1965 Graduation Day, in a dress I made.

When I made that culottes my Dad said, "Mary must get her sewing talent from her great grandfather."  My great grandfather Joseph Hartmann was a tailor.