Two Noras: January 2, 1919 and January 2, 2025

Nora Bauer: Thursday, January 2, 1919

12 [degrees] above zero this morning. Helped invoice again today at the Drug Store. Gertrude is knitting me a tam tonight and I am working on Anna's sweater. Was awful sleepy and went to bed early. 

Nora Spitznogle: Thursday, January 2, 2025

Cold day, stayed in the 30s. Worked at Second Helpings, was the closing manager. Aaron helped me put the outdoor Christmas decorations away. I made turkey chili and divvied it up and froze for future lunches. 

It sounds like Grandma Nora was moonlighting at a drug store along with her bookkeeping job at Barns Construction.  

A tam is a beret-like hat, with a band around the bottom to hold it closer to your head - I can picture it, but I didn't know that it had a name. 

Anna is Grandma Nora's next oldest sister. 

Her siblings and ages in 1919:

William Francis Bauer, 30
Mamie E. Bauer, 28
Anna M. Bauer, 27
Nora, 24
Gertrude, 20 (twin)
Herman, 20 (twin) 

I worked at Second Helpings, where I am the Chief Program Officer. It was a light staff today - a lot of my co-workers took last week and this week off. I've certainly enjoyed the lack of meetings and I'm getting caught up on paperwork and emails. 

I'm *that* neighbor - the one with all of the yard decorations. I love these vintage blow molds - I had 18 of them on display this year. The wind knocked most of them over last night and the manger came apart also...as sure sign that it was time to put them away. 

In this case "away" is the crawl space in my unfinished basement. A third of the basement has a waist-level block wall that is filled with dirt. My blow mold collection (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, Independence Day, etc) is stored there. You can't can't stand up straight in there and I'm constantly bonking my head and come out with a backache. I was grateful to Aaron for walking the figures down the basement stairs - I don't know how I used to do it by myself. 

I made a pot of turkey chili to divy up for work lunches. I took advantage of the cold porch to cool the chili down enough to pop it in the freezer. 

Nora's cash account entry for this day shows: 

1-2    
                                                     Shoe Strings            .10   
                                                     Repair Shoes           .45