Updating exercise routine

 I updated my morning exercise routine over the last couple of months bringing together the two sets of exercises and doing them first thing on awaking. Working very well and amounts to 1 hour of exercise around 400 to 450 calories with a cardio load of 45 to 50. It was my daughter who inspired me actually to take on some exercises I never considered or even thought about. So it is 23 stages in total and the first nine stages are waking up and stretching and then a couple of YOGA type exercises and then I get up and touch my toes 30 times and at that point I add in 200 steps after each exercise set. I was having trouble with my shoulder aching which I just always attribute to my arthritis but she suggested that I might not be working the shoulder enough. There you go so I added in my exercises from the period when I was in physio after I tore my rotator cup. So another four sets of exercises which follow a walk of 200 steps and are ended by a walk of 200 steps. Then Reverse Warrior count of 30 on each side, a 200 step walk, then 40 squats, a 200 step walk and on to the Pose of Tranquility for two minutes and a 200 step walk. Then a new one that she had found is to sweep one foot in a circular motion forward and then back with the other foot firmly on the floor. This took a bit to accomplish but I discovered that when I really got the hang of it and doing it 30 times each way on each leg I didn't fall down skiing anymore. So a real bonus there. Then the 200 steps and I balance first on one foot and then on the other for 60 seconds and follow that with 200 steps. Then into the full plank for 1 and one half minutes followed by 200 steps and then a full squat as far down as I can go and hold it for 60 seconds with hands upward praying above your head but in front to keep the back straight (I think that is another yoga pose actually). That one is really hard and it took a while to get up to 60 seconds. Then walk 200 steps and do 100 jumping jacks followed by a 200 step walk. So that combined all of my exercises from the two sessions into one and then I have a snack and sit in front of the computer and write my blog, drink my tea and do my solitaire puzzles to exercise the brain. I do not recommend this all at once. It has taken me three months to combine my two sets of exercises and to add in the new exercises. I am very physically fit for sure but I always start small and work my way up that way you will not injure yourself. Consulting a doctor is always a good plan if you do not do regular exercise. 

My new FitBit is in tune with me now and I am happy with it. Has some new bells and whistles so to speak and a learning curve. The old FitBit was actually four years old and did very well. I have used a FitBit now for ten years I think although would have to check that. These ten years have been very different for me.  

 I accomplished nothing on the Newsletters yesterday but had a good day working on the matches. I must do the Newsletters they are past due now. I am up to the M's (first name) now in the matches and I have been busy collecting the Relatives in common for quite a few of the samples. AI will do a good job of creating a useful table for me to work with these matches. There are about 50 matches left to do or perhaps less I did not count them just estimated. There are still nine cousins known to me not yet added to the chart so that may affect some of the unknown matches with regard to solving the great grandparent. 

Just minus 10 degrees celsius today but another polar vortex is headed our way so February will be cold for a bit but the gradual movement upward to spring and heavier snows is likely coming our way. We will see. All of this snow is a good thing to fill up the reservoirs, the creeks, the rivers and the lakes. The run off will be horrific though if it is sudden so hoping for gradual and slow run off. 

Cleaning Day three and it is the top floor. Although I would very much like to move to a smaller house I do not see that happening in the near future. We have been here for nearly fifty years now; in the early spring it will be  fourty eight years exactly. The first set of houses was all that was here when we came and you could see the Ottawa River from our upstairs windows. Neighbours have come and gone through the years and when I went back to work outside the home (I proofread and copyedited for about fifteen years at home) in 1994 that was really the last time that I knew the neighbours beyond the houses beside me (although I do have this sort of occasional wave at neighbours as many of them are the same people) as I went off to work early and came home late and all my time went to my children and husband. Working away from home was great; I needed the change for my mental health for sure and I gradually slipped away from any and all volunteer activities. There just wasn't time although my husband regularly volunteered me to do items in his volunteer work. But now all that time is devoted to writing these books and keeping up my newsletters. 

Tea being drank and must do the solitaire puzzles. On to the day.  

Two Newsletters

I do have two newsletters to write - H11 Newsletter and Kipp-Kipp Newsletter. They are both looking only at the DNA groups within the FT DNA study. I shall work away at them today. I always mean to do them as I used to a couple of days before the due date but writing books has distracted me from this task the last year or so.  In the case of the Kipp Newsletter I really do not know this family (it is my husband's family) and feel somewhat in left field working on it although I always did write a portion for Edward on the yDNA study that he managed at FT DNA. I took it over until someone does come forward to take it on. 

The basement completely cleaned yesterday and today it is the main floor and soon will begin that process. I also worked on the matches and I am about 1/3rd of the way through at this point I think. A new Rawlings/Cotterill match where the testing was at 23 and Me so a nice list of Relatives in common in this last batch. An interesting find in that the  Farley family does appear to have a Knight connection. This actually would be a step forward in solving one of my largest matches outside of family so we will see how that flows.  David Farley (son of John Farley and Mary (Yeates) Farley) married Mary Ann Blake (daughter of John Blake and Ann (Farmer) Blake) 12 Jun 1853 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire. Two known Blake matches were very handy as well. Today will see me working on the J's and there is a long list of them. I hope to complete Chromosome 2 this week and perhaps into Chromosome 1 which has over 250 matches and will take a good week or two to accomplish but then complete and I can start to use the file in ways that should give me interesting tables to explore with regard to the four great grandparents being noted in this particular rendition of the phasing as they match these five siblings tested (five tested out of three girls and four boys) of the great grandparents. I find I talk more about my brothers but they were all closer in age to me than my sisters (one sister is six years older and another sister is eight years younger). Just one brother is outside of that closeness to me as he is ten years younger. My prayers are very much with my older sister who had to have surgery lately and for a speedy recovery for her. 

I do feel a great desire to get back to writing the books Blake and Pincombe these days and a bit impatient to have that begin. But it is a process and will involve my transcribing the latin documents that I have at hand with regard to this Blake family way back in time. I feel I can progress from Robert Blake who left his will in 1521 living at Enham and will begin there initially. If I can take it back further I will but time will tell me that as I work through the material. With regard to the Pincombe book (which is really Pencombe as that was their surname when they arrived at North Molton it does appear) I can begin with John Pencombe who is on the Tax rolls and work my way forward but there to I have information on the Pencombe family of Pencombe Herefordshire which can be added in once I have transcribed the documents at hand. In this case I am working on a family that probably came from the modern Belgium area of the Continent perhaps in the early 1100s as there are records back that far. I  shall have to have a look at the archives there to see if there is anything. But the yDNA line points to a European line and not a Western Hunter Gatherer as is the case with my Blake line. 

But also I want to start scheduling myself to work on the index of the photo albums and to start collecting matches using Edward's present charts and the Excel files that I gave to him as I downloaded his matches from Ancestry. I need to see if any of them are on Gedmatch. Unfortunately collecting from 23 and Me did not happen in his case although he has many many excellent matches there. I may try writing to people to see if I can acquire the matching lengths to help with phasing his grandparents as it might interest people to have that information as well that are his 2nd cousins since they share great grandparents. For the other testing companies I have that material at hand and can search for those matches. It is a long shot for sure but I think it does make me feel happier about breaking up this set of fourty albums that covered all of his life really but they are all scanned. The early pictures I scanned for him maybe six months before he passed away and he found that to be something very pleasant to look at as he organized them in an online type of photo album so thinking about that does make me think he would like what I am doing. He and I belong to the generation that viewed everything in place not online. But this generation that will receive the photo albums  will view it online by preference. But perhaps in the future there will be a child who wants to see those original pictures in their binders; no one can know that. 

Vanilla tea all drank; a gift of my daughter, and now solitaire puzzles and then breakfast and the cleaning. I am a bit late today.  

 

  

 

Jasper following the fire

 The Prime Minister certainly has his fingers in many activities (managing the restoration and recovery of Jasper) he is quite amazing although he definitely works with his cabinet; with the other appointees not in the Cabinet and all of the party to get items done. I find him quite fascinating but then he has worked all of his life and brought to the government those skills and knowledge that he has gleaned during that lifetime of work on two continents since his work in the British Isles placed him right there in the midst of the EU and British Isles. 

I think as I listen and watch that he is a doer like the Parliamentarians of our early days when we took on huge commitments and tasks and completed them making us the country that we are now. But it is all the people pulling together to make us great that will help this to happen. When Rupert's Land was purchased the idea was to grow Canada and we did but it was always meant to be all of us (and then Newfoundland joined and added in their gifts) and the projected railroad was going to help with that and has. But the idea that so few would bring themselves to buy such a huge purchase and commit themselves to making this entire country work for all of us is really the secret of those times.

Although we enjoyed free trade with our neighbours to the south and north-west (USA (including Alaska) and Mexico) it did reduce our native industries making us dependent on other sources for so many of our say electrical appliances. Now the opportunity is there for our young people to create and rebuild that lost base of industry to support us as we move forward (it will help to replace the car industries although time may also replace those as the government of Canada has been busy). 

Sitting at a desk is not really the best for our young people - they need to be out and active and working with their minds and their bodies to remake some of those lost industries. It is true that you might train for something and end up doing another where my husband is a very good example as he trained to be a Scientist (PhD Chemistry) and then he did a Postdoc in Chemical Engineering for two years. Still no jobs and he did yet another skill he did his Masters in Library Science and was a Technical Librarian for the remainder of his working life. So do not let what your dreams were impede you from doing great work. The possibilities of having an interesting life are always there. 

The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition working together can do great things for Canada. Decision times can come when they need to come but in the meantime making us Tariff Proof is the most important item on the agenda. Increasing trade between the provinces and territories so very very important (apparently could be as much as 7% GDP over time). 

My shopping takes me twice as long as I read all the labels. Mind you I only buy food and maintain a place to live but I mostly buy basic ingredients just because I prefer to make all my own food from scratch. I do not buy packaged or frozen dinners. I do buy some frozen certainly - our wonderful summer vegetables which tide us through to the next summer so beautifully. But not all of them are frozen some of them stored like turnips, carrots, winter cabbages, brussel sprouts, and then there are the greenhouses now that bring us fresh vegetables all winter long. 

 

The value in working on the great grandparents.

 Really all that I will be doing is taking the set of phased grandparent chromosomes and labeling say the Blake portion subdividing it so to speak and showing where the Knight area is and where the Blake area is  - it will not really resemble the chromosome that a great grandparent  actually has. That would require my knowing a lot more about the matches of my cousins than how they match me. But it is interesting to see the area broken down into eight great grandparents. Worked on the 2nd chromosome yesterday and it did go fairly quickly through about the first 1/5th of the matches thus far simply because I have so many known cousin matches. 

The Sermon at Church was very interesting actually. He is a very knowledgeable speaker and quickly comes up with lots of linking comments on the early Christian Church since that is his specialty. I quite enjoyed the United Church Minister's sermons at Dominion Chalmers years ago and in the mid to late 90s until he retired. Edward spotted it in our bulletin at Orleans and we went to Dominion Chalmers just for the series but ended up staying there until that minister retired. He used to talk to Edward just for a few minutes after every service and following the death of his brother and then mother he really wanted that little chat each week.  The new minister was young and into a more folksy less old music service and /Edward asked if I wanted to go regularly to my own Church so we picked the Cathedral with its beautiful organ and wonderful choirs and went there and I still do except online. I do like to give God my 10% as He instructed and so the Sunday was a lovely day as always. God gave it to us as a day of rest and worship. 

Cleaning day today and it is the basement. I shall soon begin with the robot vacuuming the rug. No rush. My hour of exercise is complete and just breakfast to have whilst the robot cleans. 

There will be time to work on Chromosome 2 and that will fit into the day of cleaning the basement as well. Just having a break and working on the matches and on this chromosome I have a known match with a 5th cousin Rawlins but she descends from one of the older Cotterill lines as well along with some other similar matches. What I can not readily determine is the division here between Rawlins and Cottrell in their lines. I think this is the only chromosome where I have that difficulty although will search it out. I am matching because they are Rawlins or because they are Cotterill/Cottrell? That is the question but it isn't that long a match and they do follow each other sequentially so certainly possible but would I get a good match that is the question because it is a number of generations back. It is a problem that I may not be able to solve! The ancestor of these two lines does appear to be a William Cotterel with two sons Stephen and William with Stephen marrying Mary Rawlins 28 Jan 1764 at Enford, Wiltshire a daughter of my 5x great grandparents William Rawlins and Mary Ford. William Cotterell married Elizabeth Kempton 3 May 1760 at Wilsford nr Pewsey, Wiltshire. An interesting conundrum for sure. It doesn't even help me that there is a good X chromosome match for Rawlins since DNA divides as it divides so some of it will be Rawlins/Rawlings and some of it will be Cotterell/Cotterill depending on your descent. I  mull this around since technically I would not inherit Cotterell from these earlier marriages since they are not in my line coming down from William Rawlins and Mary Ford. So am I seeing actual Cotterill in this match where my newer infusion of Cotterill is matching this older Cotterill/Cotterell  or is it simply Rawlings/Rawlins. I am particularly cognizant of the match with my known 5th cousin who does have Cotterell/Cotterill in her lines going back including both of the marriages Mary Rawlins with Stephen Cotterel and later William Rawlins and Mary Cottrell by 1842 (marriage not yet located by me and it may have been in Australia as all their children were born there commencing 22 Jun 1842 so she is looking at her 3x great grandparents in this case so how large a match would I anticipate - 16 cM does seem reasonable but we will see what I garner. I have a number of known matches in this instance in terms of how they descend from this couple William Rawlins and Mary Cottrell in Australia. 

Drinking tea and time to do the solitaire puzzles and I did accomplish that. Time to get some work done. 

 

Chromosome 3 completed

 A whirlwind day and the completion of Chromosome 3 made it a successful day. Plus I realized that I had finally thought through a methodology that would work for the photo albums. I will work with the indexes and create a full index of all the family photos and then create the photo books. The hard copy pictures that are not in the photo albums (7 or 8) will be shredded. That will be thousands of pictures I think. There are so many but remaining is a fully scanned set of pictures by date that fits into the indexes and the original slides prior to the digital cameras. It does sound much easier for me to take on except the eye work will be heavy but I can work away at that in batches not quite so long as working on the photo albums which are more of a physical work job plus mental it would appear. 

So today I begin Chromosome 2 and it has 116 matches with 20 known cousins. These cousins relate to my great grandparent lines with two Rawlings,  four Buller, four Pincombe, two Gray, four Knight and four Blake. I do not have any known Cotterill or Taylor lines. The spread is excellent across the chromosome with just a few breaks where it is unknown. That doesn't mean it will be fast because I will be downloading Relatives in common, Matches shared etc depending on the nomenclature of the various databases. 

I am deciding when I will begin the extraction of Edward's matches from the various databases using the same methodology as I have used. I did collect more information which at the time seemed superfluous but in the long run was a good idea. It will be a large task although I already extracted them into a list for Edward which I can use as a reference point to aid me along the path. 

 Sunday again and it is hard to believe how fast the weeks pass. I have my chicken all ready to make my chicken stew and that sounds delicious. Generally I eat chicken for four days and then fish or eggs for three days. It works well and my expenditure of time on planning meals is very short. My grocery list is ready for the next trip to the store but I want to scrub my refrigerator first this time. I like to clean it in the winter when it is less full. Although I wipe any spills when they happen generally but getting out the shelves and drawers really lets me give it a good cleaning. 

Church later this morning and I do enjoy going to Church very much online. I wonder sometimes if I ever will go back to in house worship and time will tell. We are meant to gather as Christians in our Churches and celebrate the gifts of God. It is  my constant omission for quite a while now (since before COVID for sure). Edward loved the music of the choirs and the organ at my Church although he did prefer his own United Church but certainly the draw of the music and the organ was very strong for him. 

Parliament back in and will watch Question Period next week. It is a time of hard work here in Canada as we work to make ourselves Tariff Proof. It is coming along but lots more to do. We need good jobs for our young people and I am hoping that they leap into creating new companies within Canada to make items like vacuum cleaners and other small appliances that we no longer make here. There are lots of new ideas on how to create and make things and it is the youth that will do that. What they see on their video games they need to now create in real life. They can do it; they are clever and well educated - creative thinking is what is needed to create items that exist digitally but give them that extra creativity to make them better, quieter, more efficient and Canadian. Go Canada Go. 

Drinking my tea and solitaire puzzles are next to wake up the brain.