X is for eXtra

X is for eXtra...

in that I need a little eXtra time to complete my blog post. We had a very busy day today and I'm ready for a little R and R.

So until next time, have an eXceptional evening.

W is for Work, Work, Work

When I was in high school, I used to babysit for a little girl named Rebecca. She was always fun and loved books and songs. Her mother was a kindergarten teacher and thought kids didn't need to read early, so Rebecca didn't read until she went to school. However as soon as someone unlocked the reading code for her, she was reading at an 8th grade level within a year or so.

In the meantime, she loved to have books read to her and had memorized many books even chapter books. She would say to me, "Let's read the book about horses," and then go to find it. Rebecca would return a short while later and say, "I can't find the book, but I'll read it to you anyway." And then she would recite the entire book word for word.

She especially liked the books she could listen to that had songs intertwined with the story. She delighted in acting them out for me. She would don her "performance hair" (a dish towel over her head with rubber bands to make pigtails) and her microphone hairbrush and perform an entire book. Besides reciting the story, she would belt out the songs in a strong voice. She was quite good, actually.

There is one song to this day that I still sing that I learned from Rebecca. It is one where Cinderella is lamenting about all of the work she has to do. The chorus and first verse are below:

Work, work, work
I try not to complain
Washing, mending, stretching, bending
Every day's the same

Once I was just little Ella
That's how it began
Now I am a Cinderella
Always in my cinder place with ashes on my hands and face, I am!

(Unfortunately, I was not able to find credits for this or the tune on YouTube to include for you. Maybe after I understand my smart devices a little more, I'll sing it for you some day.)

The great thing about this song is that it's a fun way to complain. It's easy to insert whatever kind of work you're doing as well as your own name and complain while singing a catchy tune. I do it all of the time. In fact, I was singing it earlier while I was doing the laundry. And I think I will do another verse when I go wash the dishes. :)

Until tomorrow, when X is for...?

V is for Vicki

V is for Vicki, sort of

While going to sleep last night, I composed an entire post for V in my head about names. I was going to talk about how trends in names seem to skip a generation but take on their own version when they reappear. For example, the nickname for Victoria was Vicki a generation or two ago. Now the nickname for Victoria is Tori. I had several other examples and personal experiences to relate about how I was named for a neighbor when they were getting ready to turn in the birth certificate. I was the third baby and the third girl in the family. They were sure I was going to be a boy and didn't have a girl's name picked out. And so on.  I've had a busy day and it's time to go to bed again. So as not to be writing a post all night in my head, I'm going to put a quick one out now.

Sometime during the day, I realized my personal example wouldn't work with my alias name, so I decided to go in a bit of a different direction. I'm going to give you a few statistics from the Social Security data base for names in the US.

 First some parameters.
--They have data from 1879-present, but most of it is only compiled through 2017
--Many people born before 1937 did not apply for a card, so that group is under represented.
--They only use the top 1000 names each year. This represents about 75% (plus or minus) of the data at any one time.
--Different spellings of the same name were counted as different names. For example, Kelli, Kelly, and Kelley were all counted separately instead as one name.

So what are the most popular names of the last 100 years (1918-2017)? James and Mary
How about for 2017? Liam and Emma

But the most important statistics for this post are below.

For the last 100 years here the rankings for the V names that made the list:
Virginia 45
Victoria 58
Vincent 95, the only V name on the boys side
(1 is the most popular and 100 is the least popular.)

If you like numbers and want to check out some of your family names or name trends, this is an interesting site to visit.  Be forewarned, that it's an easy place to get sucked in for some time before you realize it. Don't ask me how I know. :)

U is for Under or Over

It's been a busy day with a lot of brain taxing activities which have turned it to mush. So no Unusual posts today. Just a visit to the past when U was for Under or Over.

U is for Under or Over

or How does your toilet paper roll?

I've spoken about this issue before--how do you install a roll of toilet paper?  Do you put it on so it unrolls from the bottom or unrolls from the top? This seems to be an issue that generates much argument.

Google patents

Recently "new" data has surfaced* that some claim has important bearing on this under/over argument. The information comes from the original patent application for a roll of  perforated toilet paper by Seth Wheeler in 1891. The perforations were seen as an inexpensive way to help prevent the waste of paper. Before this, waste prevention was done by expensive holders that were awkward to use.

But it seems that no one these days is much interested in Wheeler's clever use of perforations to tear toilet paper. Everyone seems to be interested in the pictures that went with the patent. In those pictures, the paper is rolled from the top. The proponents of the over method say that this is definitive evidence that over is the correct way for a roll to flow.

However, the under proponents are holding fast to their beliefs. They are making arguments that the way the pictures were oriented was only to demonstrate the points of the invention and aren't necessarily an endorsement by Wheeler.

So the debate continues. Which side are you on ?


*Recently, I have seen this picture on several social media sites. This also happened last year at this time. Of course, it's not new data since it's been around since 1891.

T is for Telephone

Recently, I saw a YouTube video of two 17 year old boys trying to figure out how to use a rotary  telephone. I had never thought about how different smart phones of today are from dial phones of yesteryear until I saw the video below.  And I had never really thought about how many logical ways you can try to dial a phone number with a rotary phone.

Watch the video below of the young men's attempts and see what you think.



After seeing this, I wondered if my kids knew how to use a rotary phone. Theo said that he had never used one before but knew how to use them from seeing them in movies and on TV. Wally said the same thing, but actually realized he didn't after watching the video.

The whole thing was very amusing to me and thought that it just must be the younger generation with the lack of knowledge. That was until I saw the sign below in the waiting room of an office.

I guess those boys weren't the only ones who didn't know that you needed to keep the receiver up to make a phone call on older phones. :) Do you still use a dial phone? Do your kids know how to use one?