Kienow Family History and Heritage

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Here's What I Know : History 101
Posted by skenow on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 (6871 reads)

This has been passed along from a family history and research site, thanks to my dad -


The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor". But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot - they "didnt have a pot to piss in" and were the lowest of the low.

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Here's What I Know : Thanksgiving Is Not Just a 1-Day Event
Posted by skenow on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 (1997 reads)

Thanksgiving Day? Why wait until the 4th Thursday of November to be thankful? I think as a culture, we have unlearned how to be greatful for what we have. There isn't any other explanation for why hundreds of thousands of people would get up early on a Friday morning and brave cold weather in hopes of acquiring some new trinket.

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Here's What I Know : Back to School
Posted by skenow on Sun, 24 Aug 2008 (1818 reads)

This week, we took our youngest to college for the first time - something I didn't envision 18+ years ago, sitting in the hospital room. I didn't think that far ahead with any of our children, I was so wrapped up in the moment, enjoying them for who they were and the hope they represented. But, time passes, sometimes too quickly, and they have all grown in almost no time.

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Here's What I Know : Thanks.
Posted by skenow on Wed, 29 Nov 2006 (2420 reads)

By itself, the word 'thanks' doesn't convey the full intent of the writer. I was thinking about this over the last week and came to the conclusion that words alone aren't always sufficient to express our thoughts, our ideas, our fears, our dreams or our feelings. Current technology is pushing us back to written forms of communication - I think my kids use their phones more for text messaging than they do for talking!

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Here's What I Know : Getting 'Settled In' Starts With Being Unsettled
Posted by skenow on Fri, 30 Jun 2006 (2267 reads)

Well, here we are - at 'home' in our new house. A lot of packing and unpacking and sorting and moving finally brought us here, and we are getting 'settled in.' What we seemed to overlook, is that things were going to get pretty unsettled in the 2 miles we moved from our old house. While moving can lead to a lot of decluttering, it can also reveal a lot of emotions that hadn't been discovered, yet.

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