The Bright Side

The Latest Happenings

2009-05-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

I had jury duty today. I really wanted to get picked. It was a trial to determine if this lady is competent to stand trial. My only chance was to get picked as an alternate, but I didn't. Oh well. Maybe next year.

I'm going to be a supervisor at work. I'm really wanting to stop delivering mail. It's getting difficult physically with my fibromyalgia so when my supervisor approached me about it I decided to do it. I'm glad I won't have to get sweaty anymore. Maybe I'll get nails again. I'll definately get new clothes!!

Brittany moved out yesterday. She put some clothes in a back pack and got on the bus and sent me a text message in the evening letting us know. She's in an apartment with a bunch of friends on the other side of town. This evening they all came over with a truck and got most of the rest of her stuff.

Now I have to clean my own house. Maybe when I start getting supervisor pay I'll hire a real house cleaner. Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do.

Lawrence and I have been planting a lot of trees and flowers in the front yard and my garden looks great! I'll post some pictures when the plants get a little bigger.

In case anyone didn't know, Stacy moved back home a few months ago. So now she can get out of the storage room and have a bedroom. See, there's always a bright side.

Spring

2009-04-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

It looks like my blogging has gotten seasonal. Since it is now spring, I show you what's been going on:

There's a new kid in town: Sydney Brooke Olsen born Jan 16.

Living and Dying

2008-12-16T16:17:00.000-08:00

I'm listening to that song on the website that the Terry's pictures are on and there's one verse that reminds me of Grandpa Leishman:

"Now I'm old and feeling gray
I don't know what's left to say
About this life I'm willing to leave
I lived it full and I lived it well
There's many tales I lived to tell
I'm ready now
I'm ready now
I'm ready now to fly
from the highest swing
I had a dream."

To hear the song click the link at right - Dream by Priscilla Ahn
I only hope that the end of my life is as good as his.

Making Merry

2008-12-15T16:27:00.000-08:00

The last few Christmases in the rental house I didn't like doing the decorating. It just wasn't fun in that dingy house. But this year it's been fun and exciting. It's taken a couple of weeks to get it all done and I'm now behind on my Christmas shopping. I know it will all get done somehow, so I'm not worried - yet.

We got a new tree this year. Lawrence got a great deal on it. It was half price. Way to go, Dear! We put it in the living room in front of the window, and as you can see it's all done in red and gold.

We got this tree when Grandpa Ellis passed away in January. It's what you might call "vintage". You have to put the branches in one by one and I guess they used to be color coded so you know what order to put them on in only there were no instructions and I thought I had them in the right order, but I guess not. But, I wanted to put up the good old ornaments that we've collected over the years so I put this tree up in the family room. This is where the presents will go and the fireplace is in here so it will be more nice and cozy when we unwrap our gifts on Christmas morning.

I just had to take a picture of the fireplace and mantel. I thought it turned out nice.

On Saturday we got the call that Grandpa Leishman has passed on. It seems the morning after his birthday party he was pretty grumpy that he woke up and was still here. The next week he wanted his doctors to take out his pace maker. They wouldn't do it. Last week he asked his son-in-law, Don, to give him a blessing that he could go. He did, and not long afterward he went. He was done, he was through. He asked the Lord if he could come home and the Lord said, "Yes". We will certainly miss him as we have been missing Grandma. Somehow, the world seems a little dimmer without them. How thankful I am for the knowledge of Eternal Life. How grateful I am to have known Frank and Nellie Leishman.

Giving Thanks

2008-12-15T16:18:00.000-08:00

I wrot this blog in the car about 40 miles from Reno, but I'm just getting around to posting it. Better late than never, right?

We had a really great trip to Cache Valley for Thanksgiving, but more importantly to celebrate Lawrence’s grandfather’s 100th birthday. Can any of us imagine living that long? If I were guaranteed that I could live it like Frank Leishman, with my mind intact and my body functioning as well as could be expected for someone of his age, not having to live in a nursing home, I’d be ok with it. You’re never gonna find two people who are more loving, warm, humble, accepting, funny, gospel centered, fun, or hospitable than Grandma and Grandma Leishman . All you have to do is be in a room with their family to know this is true. I always felt like a blood relative at a Leishman reunion.

Our Thanksgiving dinner was just wonderfully delicious. Donnetta does a fantastic job with her Thanksgiving dinner. I am proud to say that although it would have been very easy to eat my self sick, I restrained my self. On Friday we went shopping “because that is what we do when we travel” according to Lawrence. It’s just that there are great stores is Utah that we don’t have in Bakersfield. We HAVE to go to Goessner’s and get squeaky cheese, root beer milk and other goodies. I like to go to Deseret Book and we usually go to the distribution center, but we ran out of time and energy and didn’t make it there. It’s so hard for me to get out shopping at home, that when we travel I have more time and energy to spend shopping so I like to take advantage of the opportunity.

Grandpa Leishman’s 100th birthday party was just wonderful and I got all overklempt. I should have worn waterproof mascara. They played a DVD that was taped previously of Gpa Leishman talking about his memories. One poignant story was of when his mother died young of blood poisoning from stepping on a rusty nail; of how her nine children gathered around her bed weeping as she passed during a lunar eclipse. Just as the sun passed over the moon the light of their lives was extinguished.

One of the cousins, Dana sang some of Grandpa’s favorite songs and she sounded so mush like Grandma Leishman (when she was younger, I’m sure) and she even sang some songs in a “duet” with some of Grandma Leishman’s recorded songs (she passed away this past January). That really made the tears flow freely.

One interesting fact: Grandpa’s brother, Norman, went to Scotland where the Leishman clan originated from. It seems a lot of the early Leishmans were doctors in the time when they use leeches for blood letting. Hence the name Leishman.

Grandpa has been that he wants to live until his birthday and after that, he would be ready to go. To which Lawrence’s Aunt Geniel replied, “It isn’t up to you”. That was quintessentially Geniel. As hard is it will be to let him go, I hope he gets to go be with his precious Nellie before too long. It has been a blessing and a privilege to have known him and Grandma Leishman.
As this is a season for giving thanks, I’ve listed my blessing at right:

Daphne, Dreams and Polka Dots

2008-11-20T19:51:00.000-08:00

Amberly and John had a wedding to go to in Phoenix and no kids were invited so we had the opportunity to have her for a couple of days. She was too cute. We had lots of fun and it was hard to let her leave. Amberly made it worse by calling me up and directing me to a website where photos that they had taken previously were up for viewing. The link is to the left and is only available for 2 weeks. When you are on the site click on "enter site" then "clients" down at the bottom then type in "terry" for the password then click on submit. This really pretty song starts playing as you watch the slide show. I started crying lots of tears watching those beautiful pictures and thinking about how far away Daphne is. I love the song so I googled it and came across a great music video. Check that out, too. It really tugs at your hearstrings.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and everyone drive safely.

Why don't things happen the way they're supposed to?

2008-11-11T20:57:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to post a video today. I've been working on it for 5 hours. Don't hold your breath. Sigh.

Well it's about time!

2008-11-10T16:26:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you've all been wondering why I've been awol for so long. It's been a busy summer. The biggest part of it was that we bought a new house and moved. I hope we never move again, but who knows. If California becomes too outrageously liberal we might consider it. Speaking of which, many of you have probably heard about the protest that was held at the Los Angeles Temple last week. The temple was shut down on Thurs. afternoon just to be safe. It was reported that over 2,000 people gathered in front of the temple with signs and harrassed Yes on Prop 8 supporters. For a full report and pictures click on this link. http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081110hate.html We had Stake Conference this weekend and went to the temple Friday night. While we were in the chapel session the 2nd counselor in the temple presidency told us that Thurs. morning they had one person there doing their own endowment. No one was scheduled for Thurs. afternoon when the protest was. Friday and Saturday they had own endowments and weddings all day long. What a coincidence. There have been other protests at other temples, also.

Back to the house. We just got done putting up trim around all our windows and putting up hard window treatments. Next will come the soft treatments to add some color. I will not attempt to try to catch everyone up on everything since last June as that would just take too much time and probably would be boring to boot. I will try to post more regularly in the future. I will post a video tour of the house shortly. Our new address is 8307 Sterling Grove Ln. Everything else is the same.

Grandchildren Spoiled While You Wait

2008-06-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend! While Eric and Brooke spent the weekend celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary, so we had Alaura stay at our house. After anticipating this for about a month and thinking about where she would sleep, we went to Babies R Us and bought a toddler bed.

When Friday night finally came I couldn't wait to show Alaura her bed. Make that her "princess bed"! Needless to say, she loved it. We had a wedding reception to attend that evening, so she was late getting to bed but when it was time to get ready she went right into her routine and taught me how it went. She didn't want to settle down, in fact she was rather wound up. I kept trying to get her to settle down, but to no avail. Finally I just went out and shut the door and she eventually settled down and went to sleep.

We all slept in until 9:00 and then had pancakes for breakfast. The first thing on the agenda was to head for the Beach Club to go swimming. She patiently waited for me to get this shot of her before she got in the pool, which was amazing as she hardly stopped moving the whole weekend. I started to wonder if she is part shark!

I didn't have any pool toys to bring but no problem - Alaura found two "pineapples" that she threw into the pool and since they floated, threw them over and over and over again for me to retrieve. After doing that forever, I mean about 20 min I was tiring of that so I tried to think of some other things to do with them. When I made them "kiss" Alaura thought that was the funniest thing ever!

After the swimming we went home and made a FORT!! (That's right, Amberly, we made a fort)

I gave her a little bag of baby carrots, a book and a flashlight and Brittany and I stood there to see what she would do. After a couple of minutes we saw her little hand poke out from under the blanket and leave the bag of carrots outside. That was so funny!

Then, we went to Cold Stone for some ice cream. She had blue ice cream with rainbow sprinkles. And half of my smoothie!

After Cold Stone Alaura wanted to go look at the animals at Petco so that was our next stop.

She loves the little furry creatures.

She wasn't as excited about the birds, but she did like looking at the fish, especially the ones that look like Nemo.

One thing that I noticed was that she doesn't like to keep her shoes on. At first I thought it was that shoes like flip flops and clogs slip off, so I put on her sneakers. But she just kept taking them off. Another thing she liked to do was to show off her big girl panties.

After Petco it had gotten to be about 5:00 and the kid hadn't had a nap. I was afraid that at that point if she went to sleep we wouldn't be able to get her to go to sleep at bedtime so we went to Macaroni Grill for some dinner. What did she order? Macaroni and cheese, what else? She still had tons of energy and if you noticed that some of the pictures are a little blurry it's because she never stood still long enough to pose for a picture. I just had to snap away and hope for the best. :)

After dinner we went home and made cookies. Oh, not from scratch like I normally would. I was, uh, getting a little tired cuz I'm getting old. I had bought frozen cookie dough from someone at work who was selling for some kid's fundraiser and it's frozen into little balls and all you have to do is put them on the cookie sheet and bake them. She had 3 cookies (see, this is the spoiling part) and then she started to slow down. So I took that as a cue that it was time to get ready for bed which she did readily. This time she laid right down with her head on her pillow and didn't move. With a kiss goodnight I shut the door and she went right to sleep. Yes! Mission accomplished!

Today when she woke up and came downstairs for breakfast, she asked if we were going to church. How did she know it was Sunday? I hadn't said a thing, but she knew that today we would go to church. As many of you know, Lawrence has been called to be the 1st counselor in the singles branch and that meant that Alaura would be the only kid there. This wonderfully smart and talkative child would be the only kid in the whole branch. Luckily, another ward had just gotten out of Sacrament meeting so I asked if she could go to their nursery which of course, they said yes and Alaura had no qualms about going right in to play with the toys and have a snack. But, come time for Sunday School the other ward was done for the day so she came into the chapel with us for Sunday School. She did as well as could be expected and all went well until Lawrence suggested I take her to go potty since she has recently been potty trained and was wearing regular panties. So I whispered to her that we were going to go potty and she started yelling, "I don't have to go potty! I don't have to go potty!" Of course you could hear her all over the chapel. I quickly sat down and took her word for it. We finished the rest of the meetings and since we're at the singles branch we got to have nachos and cookies and kool aid pouches afterward for what is known as "Linger Longer". She quickly drank two pouches of kool aid and a cookie just in time before Eric and Brooke showed up to take her over to her other grandparent's for Brooke's birthday celebration. I knew she had a good time when she told her mom and dad that she wanted to go back to Mimi's house. In fact, when Eric and Brooke called several times to see how she was doing (read: Brooke was having separation anxiety, naturally) she was "too busy" to talk!

We had a great time bonding with Alaura and I can't wait to do it again. This grandma thing is great!

Virginia is for Lovers part 2 (read part 1 first)

2008-06-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

In the middle of Ridgeway there's an intersection where a guy makes and sells bird houses. His shop is a converted old gas station. I bought one for me and one for my dad.

I didn't end up finding the information I was looking for, but I did find information about some of Francis Gilley's descendants. So it was worth the trip. The next stop was the county courthouse in Rockingham County, North Carolina. We found some good stuff there, including cemetery records. We couldn't find any grave information any earlier than the late 1800s. From there was Leaksville Township where Alfred Gilley took his family sometime around 1855-57.

Leaksville is actually a little town with business and neighborhoods. Here is downtown Leaksville:

This is Dick's Drive-in, apparently the place the eat and hang out

I found the grave of one of Alfred's children - Pinkney, and his wife Julia and two of their children. They are at the church cemetery at the First Baptist Church. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a church in these parts and 95% of them are Baptist. What you see in these cemeteries is one big head stone with the family name on it and flat grave markers with the individuals names around the family headstone.

This is the church

I thought of saying that this was Alfred's house, but I knew no one would believe it

I saw this mural that had been painted on the side of a store

Leaksville is just outside of Eden. There are a lot of Gilleys in the area. This is Gilley Rd

And this is Gilley St

I visited a few cemeteries while Lawrence played 54 holes of golf. I went to about 4-5 cemeteries in Leaksville, Eden and Reidsville. In the middle of Reidsville there us a statue paying tribute to the Confederate solders of the Civil War.

Here are a few cemeteries I visited

I went to every cemetery in Eden and Leaksville that had Gilleys buried there. If I had more time I would have gone to the ones in Martinsville, too. I took pictures of every grave to make sure all my records have the correct dates. After spending all afternoon walking around cemeteries and Lawrence spent the same afternoon playing golf, we were ready for a good dinner. We found the only good restaurant in Martinsville. One thing we noticed about the area is that there is green everywhere. But nobody plants flowers in their yards. Outside our restaurant we saw some flowers.

I had to lie on my stomach to get this shot. The sidewalk was still warm and I got a lot of curious looks.

This is our sweet and adorable waitress, Joanna.

On our way back to the airport we stopped to take a shot of this sign

I could have stayed another week. Lawrence says that in a couple of years I can go back. I think I'll do it.

Virginia is for Lovers part 1

2008-06-15T21:08:00.000-07:00

Most people who know me know that I am really into family history, otherwise known as genealogy. My dad's line goes back 5 generations and we hit a brick wall at Alfred Gilley. We just can't find his father. So I figured that if I was ever going to find any records that reveal who his parents are, I'd have to go to Henry County, Virginia and look. Lawrence and I flew into Richmond without any problems and checked into a motel. We went to church in Richmond on Sunday which was nice, but included several testimonies about ticks. On Monday I dropped Lawrence off at a golf course and I went to the Library of Virginia. I didn't find anything there, so on Tuesday we headed west to Henry County and found a room at the Hampton Inn. Gotta love that government discount!
It had the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in!

After searching the records in the courthouse in Martinsville we went to Ridgeway where the first Gilleys settled. The first Gilley was Frances Gilley and he owned 1100 acres of land in an area called Turkey Cock Creek.

Here is the actual Turkey Cock Creek

Here are some structures that still stand from the 1800s

Here's one that someone actually lives in. There are "No Trespassing" signs all over.

We found a Gilley living in the area who directed us to some little country cemeteries where we might find some Gilley information. We didn't find any, though.

This is a house that has been rebuilt, but has the original chimney from 1822. William Buck Gilley lived there.