First off, it’s said a lot but I have to say that I am truly a lover and not a fighter! That doesn’t mean I am a lady’s man, that means I would rather get along than fight! I do love my family (all of them) and it is no surprise to me that I decided to start researching our roots and have something to pass on to my children. The more I research the more I love my family!

When it comes to fighting, I think I had my last “fist-fight” when I was in fifth grade! Shortly after that, my friend that I had been fighting with was ran over as he crossed the street heading toward my house! To this day I still know he was on his way to apologize to me and he was taken from us that day! Shortly after that I decided to live by the words that my teacher told me, “It takes a bigger man to walk away from a fight than to start one” and I have done just that! It is truly amazing at how people will react when you walk away from them. In the long run I have earned the respect of those who were wanting to hurt me just a while before!

Anyways, enough on that subject. What else should I reveal? Here’s one that might surprise everyone! This is not to try to start problems, this is to help everyone who thinks they know me realize that they don’t know me as well as they think they do! Are you ready?

Since I was almost 15, I’ve felt like the forgotten sibling!

What?

First off, I love my little sister! I love her kiddos and I even love her husband! I am so glad that she is here and I know what it is like to be a big brother!

However, for the first 14 and 1/2 years of my life I was the baby of the family! That meant that all my big brothers and sisters were often looking out for me! Most of the time this was good and very rarely I would think I was being suffocated! Either way, it was nice being the baby brother!

When my sister was born, I was just getting ready to enter High School. It was a time when I was transitioning and I often thought that it would have been nice to have had a sibling to lean on. However, I found myself feeling like I was on the outside looking in. My little sister was the new star of the family and everyone wanted to do this and that for her. At the same time, my older brothers and sisters were starting their own families and didn’t have much time for me.

My life followed the typical trail of someone who is feeling lost. I sought out a way to hide from it all. It wasn’t long until I found myself doing drugs, not worrying about school (I had been a straight A student before this) and just searching for someone who wanted to spend some time with me!

I think that this time in  my life would set the tone for what would happen to me later in life. When I say that I mean that I was one of the lucky ones who got away from all the drugs but it was by discovering religion. Of course, the religion I discovered was radical and more enslaving than freeing. The one good thing to come out of it was that I met my wife while in the church!

Anyways, back to what I was saying. I think that this time in life could have been a time when I could have went down a bad street and never came out of it. Instead, I think I was able to discover just how strong I can be by myself. I made a lot of choices during that time. I looked at those around me and how their lives were unfolding and I decided that I would not be that way! Strange isn’t it? I am partying with a bunch of dopers and I’m loathing their lifestyle! I can’t explain it but it was a time in my life that formed who I would be later on.

For my siblings, I love you all! Being where I am at today I can understand that you were pretty occupied with your own families at the time. I hold nothing against you at all! I love you all and I am so glad to have you all in my life, as little as it might be! We are a good family and, even though we have our problems, I know we stand together. I know I can depend on you when I need you and you have proven this to me in the past. I’m not casting stones at you, I’m just stating these things because I want you to understand ME!

When I write, all that is within me comes out. The things I experienced as a child will be reflected in my writing. I can’t hardly say that my childhood was awesome because I feel like my childhood was stripped away from me! Some things I can say and some things I can’t. When I brag on my children, it’s not because I’m saying they are the greatest (my kids have problems just like every kid) but it’s because I rarely had anyone bragging on me when I was younger! When I hug my kids as often as possible, it’s because I was rarely hugged when I was younger!

Yipes, I’ve gone way out there, haven’t I? Let me just bring this to a close! I’ll try to fix this situation later!

Love and best wishes to all!

So, where to start? Why not the basics? If you haven’t figured it out yet, my name is Ken Spangler. I am 49, married, and have 3 children. My children range in age from 17 to 22. None of them are married at this time. I have one grandson, Isaiah, who will turn 3 in March.

I was born and raised in and around Dallas, Texas. I spent most of my life in Texas. It’s been almost 3 years since we first moved to North Carolina and tried to start anew. The first attempt didn’t work out too well and we were back in Texas in less than 6 months. This attempt has been more fruitful. We moved back to NC in April of 2010 and are still here! Approaching 2 years now!

I work a full-time job, second shift. My hours are from 3:30 until midnight, Monday through Friday. I work the occasional weekend but recently they have been cutting back on OT. Most of my life I have worked in warehouses, driving a forklift and pulling orders or processing orders. Here, I am gaining my first manufacturing experience! I must say that I truly enjoy my current job, enough so that I rarely complain about my job to anyone!

Life is very busy at times. We have one car and all my children live with me at the moment. My son has his own car but my two daughters don’t. My wife has been off work for the last few weeks due to foot surgery but when she is working, we are quite busy. She has to normally be at work around 6 in the morning. My oldest daughter has to be at college by 8 in the morning. She gets out anywhere from 10:45 until 1:45. My wife gets off normally at 2:30. I go to work at 3:30 and usually my oldest daughter goes to work around 4. It means that I sleep when I can, drive my daughter back and forth to college and, if needed, drop my wife off at work and then pick her up! It can get pretty hectic. I’m hoping to solve some of this by getting a second car soon!

On the weekends we try to get away as often as possible. Whether it be driving up the road to Greenville or heading to Jacksonville, we try to find new places to discover in our new environment. We also try to see my grandson as often as possible. It’s a busy life but we are enjoying it.

Recently, I took up playing Farmville again. I know, it’s a time waster but, for me, it’s also a stress-reliever. I just do it to have a little fun. I’m trying to limit my time I spend playing games but I figure if that is my worst bad habit, then it can’t be all that bad!

So, with this initial post, I have tried to introduce you to myself and to my family. I hope that you can start to see some of my reasoning for writing.

In my next few posts, I will try to go into more detail about me! What kind of details? Well, I’ll tell you a little more about me. My good points and my bad points. My dreams and my fears.

I simply want to try to let everyone know more about who I am and by doing so, you will be able to understand my writing a little better.

Here’s hoping everyone has a wonderful week ahead!

Let me say that again, WOW!!!!!

I guess I have been too busy with other things but I still need to make time to post a little something every now and then. Even if it is just a quick post about saving money with coupons or just a small update about my genealogy “re-organization”.

I apologize to all my readers for my inattentiveness to this blog.

I’m going to start posting again. I have been contemplating about introducing myself to my readers for quite a while. What is so special about that? Well, I want to take the time to let you get to know more about me. By knowing more about someone, you can relate a little better to their writing. You can understand more of where they are coming from.

So, what will I write about? I think it will just let it flow naturally. Whatever I feel I need to write about at that moment. It might relate to something that happened in childhood, it might relate to my family life, it might relate to the opinions that others have of me or it might just relate to whatever I am feeling that day.

I promise to try to make sure that this type of two-month hiatus will not happen again, if I can help it. There are some times when you can’t help it!

So, here’s hoping everyone is doing good and here’s to a renewed vigor for writing again!

Until next time…

Since my last post I have done a little but it’s not something you can really write about. I did succeed in getting a few of my genealogy items unpacked and put into binders, although they aren’t labeled and I believed they are really mixed up and part of three different lines! I also installed Family Tree Maker 2012 and started a brand new family tree file. At the moment I have only my wife, children, grandson and myself but I will add to it soon.

I’m gonna take it slow and make sure I take the time to find all the references for each person and have them filed before I move on. Along the way I will take the time to write about people who I am researching at the moment. If I don’t have obituaries posted for some, I will do so. If not then I will take the time to find where I wrote about it and link back to it in order to make sure my blog is updated!

I’m excited to get started again! Everything is different when you start over again. Maybe a fresh look will help unlock some things I couldn’t open before!

I hope that you will bear with me as I get all this going!

Ken

My only trip was to CVS, although I ended up going to 2 different CVS stores to get my deals. I won’t post all the specifics (8 different transactions, 2 different stores, lots of ECB deals done before getting toys, etc…) but I will post a couple of pictures. So, let’s start with this picture …

This first picture is to show the items I bought that were essentially free after the ECB (Extra Care Buck). I did 4 different transactions to keep my out of pocket to a minimum while building up more ECBs. They are items we will use, such as deodorant, toothpaste, flosser picks, Cepacol lozenges, Listerine PocketPaks, Carmex, and of course some candy bars! I started with no ECBs and $14.70 on a CVS gift card from a return I had done a few weeks back. Here’s a condensed breakdown of the transactions -

Transaction 1 – Total is $9.38 after coupons. I used my gift card to pay for this and got back $11.60 in ECBs.

Transaction 2 – Total is $5.70 after coupons and ECBs. I used the remaining $5.32 from my gift card and paid $.38 out of pocket (OOP) and got back $25.44 in ECBs.

Transaction 3 – Total is $1.80 after coupons and $17.46 in ECBs. This brought my total OOP to $2.18 and I got back $21.49 in ECBs. Added these to the $7.98 ECB I still had, bringing my total to $29.47.

Transaction 4 – Total is $1.05 after coupons and $19.98 in ECBs. This brought my total OOP to $3.23 and I got back $19.25 in ECBs. Added these to the $9.49 ECB I still had, bringing my total to $28.74.

So, now I’m done with my ECB deals and it’s time to get some toys for my Zae-Zae! Here’s a picture of what all  I got -

I know these may not be the gifts that everyone will be getting this year but my little grandson will love these toys! I got these in 4 different transactions and I had to go to 2 different stores. Here’s the breakdown at my first store.

Transaction 5 – Total is 10.90 after ECBs. This brought my total OOP to $14.13. Being as the two toys I got (the Ford F150 truck and the construction set) were part of a buy $30 and get a $10 gift card, I was able to get a $10 CVS gift card from this deal. Also, I had $9.98 credit toward another gift card!

Transaction 6 – Total is $11.21 after using my $10 gift card. This brought my total OOP to $25.34. This transaction included the 2 Zhu-Zhu pets, the Nerf set and the remote controlled tumbler car.

At this point, I walked out with no more ECBs and no gift cards and pretty much considered my shopping over with. I wanted to get a little Discovery Zone tent that they had advertised but they didn’t have any. I got home and looked up another CVS that would be close to me and found one in Grantsboro about 10 miles away. I called and they said they had the tent so I went to get it. Here are the two transactions at that store.

Transaction 7 – Total OOP is $21.34 after tax. This brings my total OOP to $46.68. Being as I already had $9.98 toward the $10 gift card deal, this enabled me to get another gift card. I used that for my next transaction.

Transaction 8 – Total is $.66 after using the $10 gift card. This brings my total OOP to $47.34. This transaction included two more gifts – a Cars bowling set and a Cars music set.

So, after all is said and done, what would have cost me $210.88 if I hadn’t used any coupons or managed my ECBs ended up actually costing me $47.34 OOP. That’s a savings of 77%.

Something I definitely wanted to brag about!

Here’s a picture of everything all together -

Oh, and one more thing. My desk was actually clean on Wednesday night but this is what it looked like on Thursday night -

I guess I have to get to work on cleaning it up again! That’s a lot of receipts to keep up with!

Here’s hoping you all had a great Thanksgiving and I wish you all a very special and joyful holiday season. No, I don’t have a problem saying Merry Christmas but I wish you a merry everyday from now until then!

]]> http://kenspangler.com/blog/2011/11/thanksgiving-shopping-brag-post/feed/ 1 http://kenspangler.com/blog/2011/11/tidbits-gathered-prompt-new-questions/ http://kenspangler.com/blog/2011/11/tidbits-gathered-prompt-new-questions/#comments Tue, 22 Nov 2011 18:05:08 +0000 Ken http://kenspangler.com/blog/?p=1032 Continue reading →]]> So, I said I was going to start going through my genealogy and, in a sense, I have. I must admit that I started to unpack some of my files and I quickly stopped when I realized that I didn’t even know who some of these folks were! Scary trying to pick up your research when it’s been packed up for 2 years!

Anyways, I decided I would check out Family Search and see what was going on there. As usual, I punched in my Dad’s name and did a search to see what I could find. I found a couple of new records that are from a new database, “Texas Birth Records, 1903-1934“. I’m excited to see what I can find in this collection.

When I began looking at what I found, it was quite interesting. I’ve seen a copy of my Father’s Birth Certificate before. I’ve often wondered about it because it looks like it says David Franklin Spangler, Jr. but then the Franklin is scratched out and above it is written “Isaic” and the “Jr.” is also scratched out. I’ve often wondered about how this could be accepted since there were so many alterations to it! Well, according to the original, my Dad’s name was Dave Spangler, Jr. and there were no changes made to it until Oct. 1941 when his dad decided to make a change to it. On that day he changed it to read “David Isaac Spangler” and the addendum was added to the original.

The interesting part is that on the same day there was also a change made to my Aunt’s Birth Certificate. My Aunt Irene is my Dad’s twin sister. Her original Birth Certificate has her as Ora Spangler but on that day in 1941, her father changed it to “Ora Irene Spangler”.

So now I have new questions. What prompted this change? They were both approaching there 13th birthday so maybe that had something to do with it. Did my Dad actually go by “Jr.” until then? Why would they add the “Isaac” and “Irene” to the names? The “Isaac” I can understand as my Great-Grandfather was James Isaic Spangler but where does the “Irene” come in?

There’s only one person I can think of who might possibly know the answer to this. Unfortunately, this isn’t a good time to ask her as she recently lost her daughter and the funeral is today!

I do need to try to contact her though. It’s not earth shattering info but if I do want to seek answers, the window for that is closing!

I’ll write back and let y’all know my results later.

I’ve been trying to make preparations for my new beginnings here at Beyond Fiction. Over the next few weeks I will begin unpacking my research, which has been packed up for almost 2 years now. It’s going to be a long process but I plan on sharing my progress with you as I do it.

Perhaps by re-organizing my research, I will be able to update my blog also. Since I lost a good portion of it a year or so ago, that would make it a little more useful for everyone!

So, bear with me and I will begin posting my progress soon!

Have a great week everyone!

Ken

Today, I have decided to write about something that I have been thinking about for a while now. What better time to do so than on my 49th birthday!

I am discovering that as we grow older we have to adjust to the many changes that are occurring in our life. I’m not a Spring chicken anymore! My body is not capable of some of the things I did when I was younger. My mind is not as sharp as it used to be. I’m not able to fight off sickness as easily as I used to.

I’m not saying that I am old and decrepit! I believe that you are only as old as you think you are but I also realize that you have to realize just how old you are sometimes also.

Which brings me to my next point. With all these changes that are going on in my life, it’s time for me to make some adjustments to compensate for those changes. Where I used to be able to do 10 things at a time, now I may have to limit it to only 5 things. Why? I need to limit the amount of stress in my life. I think the biggest problem I have had in the last few years is that I have had so much stress upon me. Some of it is just from growing older and some of it is because of me doing to much and thinking I can still keep up with the same pace I have always maintained.

I have to make some changes in my life. Will they be drastic? I don’t think so. I talked with my wife today and the topic was simply that I wanted to start taking time to enjoy life. I’m spending way too much time trying to do too much and I’m not able to enjoy anything I am doing because I have no time to.

So, in the next few weeks I will begin to try to make some of those changes. My plan is to try to lay a foundation for success in 2012 by limiting the number of things I have going on in my life. Work, bills, taxes and such like can’t really be controlled but things such as couponing, genealogy, time spent on the computer or watching TV can be controlled.

It is my plan to try to find a balance in all these things. I don’t need to be an extreme couponer, just a person who saves enough to make his budget a little easier to maintain! I don’t need to try to find my roots all the way back to the Garden of Eden, I just need to find what I can, one generation at a time and make sure that I document what I have found. I don’t need to mend all the bridges I have burned in the past, I just need to fix what I can one at a time!

I am so thankful for the 49 years I have been given so far. I’ve been blessed beyond measure! I could have never imagined having such a loving wife. I’m proud of my children, even though they do have a lot of growing up left to do. I just have to learn to be patient with them and let them make mistakes so that they can learn from them! I’m thankful for my grandson and all that God has brought him through in this past year.

I don’t know what the future holds for me. All I do know is that I want to learn to take the time to enjoy whatever it does bring me. I am confident that it will not be more than I can bear.

Times like today I really miss my Daddy! We never had a really close relationship but I did respect him. Now that my children are older I can relate to how he felt. I could really use some advice from him on that subject now! I don’t feel like a failure, I just feel like I need answers and I can’t really seem to find them.

Oh my, I find myself rambling! Suffice it to say that among the many changes that will occur I will soon be writing more often on my blog. Why? Because it is important for me to stay in touch with my family and I plan on using this blog as a tool for doing so. I’m not a phone person so I don’t make calls to everyone everyday. I do love to write and I look forward to writing many messages and sharing my life with my family and my many friends!

Thanks for bearing with me today. I hope you will stick around and see how these things work out for me!

Ken

Life has been busy lately. I don’t know so much as if it is my fault or if it is just the fact that we are all busy. Sometimes I wonder if I allow myself to be caught up in things that are time consuming but I could really do without!

I’ve got a lot of things to work out. Trying to find a balance between the demands of life, the things I want to do and the things that I feel I need to do is sometimes very hard! I’ve got an idea of how to work it out but it may take me a bit.

In the meantime, I think I will start a series in the next week that will allow my readers (mainly family) to get to know me better. Lots of folks think they know me but the fact is that most of my family and friends really don’t know me that well. I keep my feelings hidden pretty good and I rarely allow too many folks access to my world.

So, look for a few more posts soon and allow me a bit of leeway in order to introduce myself afresh to everyone!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week everyone!

Ken

I know my posts have been few and far between lately but I am hoping to change that soon. I know I have said that in the past but I am seriously wanting to make some changes in my life and part of those changes will be getting back to doing things that I really enjoy, not things I feel I have to do just because!

I’ll probably start off with a few personal blogs that will help everyone get to know me a little better and then I will move on to re-introducing my genealogy research. I will still occasionally post some deals on coupons and such but I really want to just get back to posting things about my life and all the things that are part of it!

Until then, I wish you all the best and I am thankful for all of those who have supported me even during my down time!

Have a great day!

Ken