Winter scene

Another week of research and tax paper gathering and…oh yes, Indiana weather.

For all those reasons you get my rambling and unconnected thoughts on many random things, weather first.

A confession: I have a usually manageable condition called SAD which is an acronym for Seasonal  Affective Disorder. That stands for: I really don’t like winter very much.

I would love to handle winter like a bear does…go into my cave and sleep through it. I deal with it by staying in when I can, but still function normally by going to work, going to the store, doing what has to be done. I have no desire to travel to a warmer clime, I just want to get through the cold, snow and ice as quickly and safely as possible.

Our recent sub-sub-zero weather here in the Midwest, on a day when schools, stores and even colleges closed and the mailman refused to deliver, (the trash guys, bless their hearts, were on schedule), I was able to stay home with my mildly frozen pipes. Shout out to my favorite plumber who hacked his way under my home and shot warm air under there for about 20 minutes and did NOT give me too much grief for failing to leave my faucet running over night!

I’m trying to spend these home bound days gathering my papers together for the accountant to do my taxes. This is a chore I avoid like the plague, though once I sit down to it, goes fairly quickly and always gives me a sense of accomplishment when finished. I just would rather be doing anything else.

Now for a pet peeve, and I’m sorry if I offend anyone with this, but seriously…in the bundle of mail I finally received after the warm-up allowed the mailman to get to the mailboxes, I received a large packet of coupons that are totally worthless to me and go directly into the recycle box.

News flash to all the restaurants in the world…I’m one person and I cannot eat two of your sandwiches, two meals, or a 20″ pizza, so your coupons for those deals are worthless to me.

I realize there are a lot of families out there that need the coupons to be able to afford your food, but what about the one person who just does not feel like having another bowl of cereal or cheese sandwich for supper, and would love to get 50 cents or a dollar off one of your calorie laden sandwiches?

Honestly, it’s the principle of the deal that annoys me. When I want a sandwich I will buy one but it’s rather annoying to stand in line behind someone who is getting the same meal for half price just because they have a coupon and a friend. When I step up to the counter and say I just want one sandwich at half the coupon price (or can I mark one off, come in tomorrow and get the second one?) I get “the look.” You know the look…what are you crazy?

Look at it this way restaurant managers…there are 1) a lot of singles out here and 2) even some families where one member wants to eat something  besides what all the rest are eating. Can’t we have just one coupon per useless page of 2 for 1 coupons?

Okay, end of rant. You see what winter weather does to me…I get a little worked up about this.

And yes, I’m also spending some of my time researching family for future blogs, so just bear with me. I’m learning a lot of the history I apparently slept through as a child.

Just a hint about what I’m learning, these times we’re in now? Not so unique. There have been some pretty bad actors involved in some pretty shady deals, some dirty politics and some pretty devastating weather events.

If you yearn for the old days when things were simpler…sorry, you are badly mistaken!

And one more family note: I found a petition signed by several Kentucky territory residents asking authorities for land they had been promised as soldiers. Among the signers were William Elston Collings, his brother Spencer Collings and our friend George Crist.

Examining the list for any other familiar names, I came across the name Samuel Wells. That name is a common name on my mother’s side of my family and in my study of that line, I know the Wells branch came to Kentucky and lived near where my paternal family, the Collings settled!

What if both sides of my family have been crossing paths for over 200 years before coming together as my father and mother to make….me! How cool is that?