I have an ancestor that fits each and every…

one…

Today on his blog, the Genealogue posted the top ten reasons our ancestors came to America
10. Took wrong turn at Bering land bridge.

Pretty sure I have a few ancestors that were caught up in #10 and they later became known as Lannoms. Those poor people still don’t know their lefts from their rights.

3. Sick of having unpronounceable names.
Heck, I married for this reason alone. LOL

2. Wanted the right to vote on behalf of their wives.
And get property on behalf of their wives and make decisions and ….

1. Hoped to one day be listed on Ellis Island website.
Unfortunately, not one of my ancestors had this desire. Not one. In fact, all of my ancestors were living it what would become the United States by the time it became the United States, with the exception of two lines I haven’t traced back far enough to be sure if they were or not. If they are the children of the people I think they are, they were here as well.

If you haven’t checked out the genealogue, I highly suggest you do though. He has the funniest look at genealogy I have ever seen.

As for my ancestors. Most of them came here in ships, settled in places with names like New Amsterdam, migrated as new states were formed and ended up in TN shortly before it became a state, where they stayed for about 7 generations until I was born. Not an exciting genealogy, but one that follows the history of a nation. And on this 4th of July weekend, I have to wonder, where in history were each of my ancestors, common men and women. They weren’t writing declarations of independence, they were just farming and raising children and living their lives, much as Hubby and I are now. More affected by what was going on in their own household than by the politics of the day, like what was for supper and was the laundry done than westward expansion or Lewis and Clark. Yup, I come from just good ole common folk. Who came from other places, to here to have a better life and like most everyone else’s ancestors who did the same, they made here a better place to live. They did it by farming and selling their goods, teaching their children their values and living their simply lives. Not sure what their reasons really were for coming to America. Just glad that they did.

Why are printers and ink cheaper than…

just ink?

I’ve been out of ink and so is #3, so Hubby and I went to get new ink. I got mine and Hubby was going to get the ink for #3 when he realized to buy a pack of ink for her printer was more expensive than it was to buy a complete new printer that comes with completely full ink cartridges. These aren’t those sample cartridges that run out while you print the first image, no these are the same ones you buy as refills off the shelf. For a lot less than buying the refills.

Now where is the economic sense in that. As a genealogist, I love my hobby, but it can get expensive quickly and I try to save money on things like postage, ink, labels, etc wherever I can. But for the sake of our planet, do we really need people saving money by throwing out perfectly good printers, because it’s cheaper to throw away a printer and use the ink in the box than buy refills? Do our landfills need printers that only printed one ink cartridge before they were delegated to the junk heap? And if I buy the cheap printer/ink combo, and then donate the printer, aren’t I encouraging someone less off than me to make a bad economic choice by purchasing expensive ink?

I may regret my decision to not buy a new printer. I upgraded to Vista this week. The old printer may not work. Wish me luck. I hope to get back on to some genealogy research this week after a much unneeded sabbatical. At least now I can print out what I find.

Why is it genealogy related?….

A commenter wanted to know why a post was marked genealogy related, when she apparently didn’t think the post had anything to do with genealogy. Well you see, dear poster, this is my blog. It is about me researching my ancestors. Or rather, why I sometimes don’t get to research my ancestors. Okay, most of the time it is about why I don’t get to research my ancestors over how I do.

You see, dear poster, I have three kids, an elderly mother, a part time job, a devoted husband, a dog with an allergy to yeast, a cat who apparently can only grow hair outside and when she does, she does it to extreme, an active church life… need I go on. At times, I have every intention of doing genealogy. I even post how tomorrow I am going to work on genealogy all day.

Then I get up, and realize I will not be doing genealogy, because one of my many fine descendants is well, to put it mildly, throwing up. And that my one remaining ancestress needs me to come immediately (mom never needs me to come later this week) to help her with something. And so genealogy once again goes on the back burner.

But I think it’s that way for most of us, dear poster. Most of us love our hobbies, and think we would love to do them 24/7 with no interruptions whatsoever, but we would find if we were locked in a room with only our computers, microfilm, an ancestry.com membership and countless hours of free time that our hobby would cease to be a hobby and rather would become a chore. No, it is when I am dealing with a crises set in motion by one of my many fine descendants that I realize I want to know more about the ancestors that have gone before me. Which ancestor before me didn’t seem to be able to get up in the morning? Which had the inability to keep their home clean? It is in those hours sitting in carpool lines that I long for time to sit and just enter new data.

But it’s true, sometimes I blog about things that aren’t about my research as much as about the things that keep me from my research.

So, Why is the post marked genealogy related?
Because it’s my blog, and I mark them all that way.

No other good reason but that.

Please don’t clean my desk…

While Hubby, #1 and I were away at registration the girls were gracious enough to clean the house. I mean they cleaned! But they also cleaned my desk. Now my desk is the only place in the house I allow clutter and disorganization, because well, to me it makes sense. I have piles for church, piles for genealogy and piles for kids stuff. Now I have a perfectly clean desk. And I can’t find a thing. Not one freaking thing.

Which means I have no clue what I did with the papers I needed to give to the new VBS director. So I need to reprint them, which is fine, but I am out of printer ink, so I am going to have to go to Staples to get more ink.

Which means I have no clue what happened to all the papers I was using to deal with mom’s house. Luckily most everything is on the computer, so I just have to find it and print it again, but did you read the paragraph above?

Which means I have no clue what happened to the things I was working on with my genealogy before school got out. Where they put all these papers has become a mystery to me. I have been trying to find the three phone books (that have been in a cabinet above where the fish tank used to be (we had fish 5 years ago, yet still call that the cabinet over where the fish used to be-it’s a Southern thing) ) for a week now. God only knows where they put the phone books, but I can no longer call anyone, unless their number is stored in my cell phone, which thankfully was on me when the girls started cleaning.

Which means I have no clue what happened to any number of things I had stacked on my dresser until I had time to deal with them once school started back, because when I got home my dresser was clear of all debris of a mother’s life too. Gone were the senior pictures that needed framing. Gone was the article I was saving for a friend about her new grandchild. Gone was the stack of books I had read that I was saving for mom.

Yes, I like cleanliness, I hate clutter. But I need to know where in the heck is my genealogy stuff? Where’d you put the phone books? Where’s my used books? Why can’t I find the things I need by knocking over a stack of things I don’t need?

Ah, take a breath. Slowly I am rebuilding the piles. The kid pile has a brochure from the university cafe on lunch menus. The church pile has the church calendar so I can work on the church website. The genealogy pile is full of microfilm because I was trying to come up with an order so I’d have some new films by the time school started back, since that looks like the first time I am going to have time to do some real research. Leave me to my own designs, and I will have me some nice new piles in no time flat.

And hopefully, the phone books will show up soon.

This is my life…

Okay, so here it is in all it’s furry detail. What I have done today:
Taken a bath.
Called the doctor to fill a prescription-they weren’t in.
Driven to the local community college with #1 to have the classes he took in high school transferred to his college. They were closed.
Got hit by a rock that broke his windshield.
Groomed a cat
Bathed a dog.

Yup, that is the excitement that is my summer. The cat was bald when we put her outside a year ago. She literally had no fur on her at all. She would groom and groom until she was totally bald. Today, I threatened to shave her bald. She has been so happy outside that she’s apparently too busy to groom at all. So we had to hold her down and comb all those mats out of her long haired behind. And does she ever have a mouth on her.

The dog is a little easier. He has a choice. Sit on the back deck alone in 92 degree heat, or get a bath and play with the kids inside in the AC. Guess which one he takes. He loves to take a bath. The only problem I have with him is I hate sending him out to potty once he’s done because I know he’s going to find the first mud hole he can find.

So there you have it. The most exciting summer vacation ever. Wonder if TLC would like to film my family 24/7. We don’t yell at each other. We bathe animals, and try to get into decent colleges. We try and keep the kitchen clean and laundry caught up. The kids art work from Kindergarten (no joke) is still hanging in my office, the kids are 18,17, 11.
We aren’t hard to follow. #1 is in front of his TV watching old movies about space. #2 is at a friend’s house, #3 is in front of the computer, building her roller coaster. Me, I am on the couch, reading a book. The camera crew could set up cameras on tripods and take month long vacations. LOL

They’d need one more camera for the kitchen to record the constant stream of kids eating. The main conversation at our house these days is “What’s for Lunch, Dinner?” My reply, “I don’t know, what sounds good?” Because I know, no matter what I suggest, someone isn’t going to want it. So we have been eating whatever we want for the last week. You are on your on. You fix it, you eat it, you clean up after it. It’s so hot, really nothing sounds good. We’d eat watermelon three meals a day, except for it’s not all that nutritiously sound. So we try and fill in with soups, salads, tuna. Light easy to fix meals that don’t require stoves. Yup, it’s the dog days of summer. So give the pooch a bath, let him suck up some AC while he dries, throw some cold meat on the table for dinner, and take a nap with a good book on the couch. Our caveman ancestors would have done the same thing.

Where were you?…

I can still remember where I was when Elvis died. Well not when he actually died, but the weekend afterward. I was stuck in the back seat of a station wagon with 10 other girls traveling to Juliet Lowe’s home in Atlanta, GA with my 40 something Girl Scout leaders, who were of the age to have been teenager’s when Elvis was at his heyday. They were distraught to say the least, but it could have been as much about being in a station wagon (with paneling none the less) traveling with ten girls on a girl scout trip than over the death of the King, but at the time, it seemed like it was definitely the King they were mourning, because they played his music non-stop on their 8 track tape decks and we poor girls were left to listen to them sing along and cry with the King as he droned on and on about Blue Suede Shoes and Hound Dogs.

Earlier tonight, #2 came through and said, “Mom, I think Michael Jackson has died.” With that, an Icon from my childhood has pass on. It’s up to me to sing his songs and cry. Should I get a car load of kids together and travel for hours, while I make them listen to me sing Billy Jean on my Ipod?

Nope, I don’t think I am going to be mourning the King of Pop. I mourned the King of Rock and Roll. Besides, I am not sure where I’d get a station wagon these days, and I’m pretty sure my minivan won’t handle 10 kids and a road trip these days.

It’s been months…

I rarely watch daytime TV. In fact, the last time I did watch, I think the kids were home from school for a snow day. So it’s been a few months. Today, I was so tired I decided to just take a day off and watch daytime soaps. And I was caught up in one hour. It seems that while I have been living my life, Lannview, and Springfield, and where ever it is that they all live, has been caught in this limbo where they have all aged 10 years, yet time has only progressed a few months.

It’s weird to see Erika Kane being interested in Ryan Lavery, who just a few years ago, was dating her daughter. In my world, that would just be creepy. I am sorry, but no matter how old my son’s friends get, they will still be the same sweaty, boys that eat too many of my groceries now, and I hope I will still be the women who makes them pick up their clothes and take out the trash when she’s in a bad mood. (Okay, sometimes I just pretend to be in a bad mood. I’m not really grouchy every Thursday night.)

In soap world, you stop aging at about 32, and everyone else catches up with you and then everyone can date everyone, despite the fact that if you look at their pedigree charts, they are actually carrying the same DNA. Now don’t get me wrong. I married my 6th cousin. I understand about family trees without branches, but when your family tree is only a trunk, that is just too weird.

So now you see why I don’t watch much daytime TV. LOL Back to the real world for me.
Here teenage boys are only interested in their friend’s mom if:
1) she is bringing groceries in from the car
2) they are out of gas and she is headed the way they need to go
3) they want to host a party at her house.
Here moms are only interested in teenage boys if:
1) she has something heavy (not groceries) that need carrying
2) she needs something dug up or moved
3) she wants to know who is responsible for the mess in her kitchen.
4) it’s the night before garbage day

Registered….

It’s been an incredibly busy week as #1, Hubby and I spent it going to Student Orientation. We spent two hot, humid, mind numbing days learning every thing we could about his new college. He is now registered for classes, has a meal plan, a room mate that we haven’t met yet, a dorm room, but we don’t know the number, will have books ordered in a few days, waiting on the colleges computers. He’s seems like he’s matured a year in 48 hours.

It was so hard driving him up there, and dropping him off. Immediately they sought to divide and conquer. Our group, Hubby and I, had to go in one line, he and his group another. Once we were done with registering, our lines were in two different rooms and we didn’t see him again until the next night.

But it was good for us. All of our questions were answered and we feel like he’s ready for this grand adventure. He seems taller, his voice deeper. My worry lines, stronger. The gray no longer just at the temple. LOL

Tomorrow he starts his very first job. No longer his he my baby. Oh, he’ll always be my little boy, but I can see the man he is going to be and you know. I really think I am going to like him, a lot. I’ve always loved the little boy. Enjoyed his company, his outlook on life, his smile, his laugh. But this man is strong of character, soft spoken, gentle, kind.

I am going to miss having him around the house. Can you get childsick? I know he’s only about 80 minutes away, but he’s going to be busy, and he’s got that new life with new friends. Hopefully, he’ll get a little homesick from time to time and come home and see us. We can pretend we didn’t miss him, while he pretends he just needed to do some laundry. And all will be right in the land of teenagedom around here for another school year.

Oh, yeah, that’s right, I forgot, I have another senior. Did I mention that yet? Here we go again. And did I mention the senior citizen who plans on driving me crazy as well?

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my dad’s birthday. Just wanted to say Happy Birthday to my favorite guy even though he’s no longer with us. The kids really miss him and today is especially hard being father’s day too.

It’s hot finally…

Summer finally decide to come and we are enjoying the hot, humid weather outside. I am starting to show that part of my heritage that isn’t Scots-Irish. (Okay, I am neither blond haired, nor blue eyed (except when I am very angry)) I am enjoying getting my exercise in the pool instead of on the Wii, and the Wii man was not nice about it being 14 days since he saw me last.

Which reminds me. I set a goal on the Wii every two weeks. Since when is two weeks, not fourteen days. Apparently in Wii land, it’s not, because he told me I’d been away 14 days, yet I had been gone too long for my last goal. Which I made by the way. But no hurrah from Wii man, because in his world 14 days in not two weeks.

So that’s what I have been up to lately. Reading books, swimming, tanning, and not Wiing. (or is it Wiiing?)
Hope all you dad’s out there have a very special Father’s day. It would’ve been a big one for my dad if he were still here, but since he’s not, I will be spending it with my two favorite boys.