The Corner of Glory & Freedom

Today is Veteran's day and for me it deserves a little more than a 140 character remark on Twitter or a few sentences on Facebook.  We as Americans owe our Veterans.  They have protected us, they have fought for us and more importantly they have sacrificed themselves in various ways for our country.

Those of you that know me, know I've been researching my family tree, in conjunction with other members of the family who are all working on different branches.  What has struck me more than anything is the number of people in my family that not only served their country, but fought in wars.  I have family in Germany that fought in the Napoleonic wars, and then served as border guards in what is now Serbia, before they emigrated to the US.  Just last night I was reading the Revolutionary War Pension files for two of my relatives and found that all four of the brothers in that family fought in the Revolutionary War - one under George Washington's command according to the writing.  My great-great-great grandfather fought in the Seminole War.  I know of 4 that fought in the Civil War.  I can't even begin to give you the numbers for WWI and WWII, but one of the cousins was killed in action in Saipan.  My uncle fought in Vietnam.  My dad, was overseas as a Medic in the Army, thankfully not in any combat.  He spent 2 years active duty and 4 years in the Reserves.

I find when I walk through a cemetery and I always bend down and clean the headstone of a veteran.  Yesterday while walking through my favorite cemetery I stopped by the War of 1812 veteran to show my respect.  I found a gentleman who fought in the 14th Illinois Infantry during the Civil War who hadn't been listed in the databases so I placed him up online.  Maybe someone in his family will find out where he's buried now.

It shouldn't take a holiday to remind you that our veterans are special, remember them year around.

I feel blah

Today was one of those days I wanted to stay in bed and let pass by me, but I have carpool duty this week so I had to get out of bed.  I will say that I drove the kids to school in my pajamas and a robe - my rebellion for the day.  When I got home I jumped back into bed and stayed there until the phone got me up.  Even then I decided the cat that was curled up next to me needed some "extra" love so I stayed in bed for him.

I did accomplish a few things today.  I went to Target.  I needed a few of the important things, but not important enough that I had to go full-fledge grocery store.  I also managed to not look like a complete dump at pick-up.  It is a rare day that I pick up in anything other than "work-out" garb.  ( I put quotations around work-out because they are rarely used for that purpose.)  I also accomplished cooking dinner today, which usually falls to my most fabulous husband, mainly because he likes hot food and I lack imagination most days.

I got in a fight with my mom.  I get to go to a middle school meet & greet.  Woo Hoo!  Hopefully I won't wake up at 2 AM in a cold sweat remembering 7th grade.

Before & After Great-Great-Grandpa

Here's great-great grandpa before & after.  I'm totally impressed with my tie!  

Before and After

This week, we had a cousins reunion to work on our family tree.  The most wonderful gift of all was a large portrait of my great-great grandmother.  She was quite beat up when I first got her, but with a few hours of work, I think I've fixed her up nicely.  Can't wait to share it with everyone.  I can't wait to see what my mother said about my work.  

Thinking on a Thursday.

I so am going to start writing here more.  It has been at least 6 weeks - I've missed my blog therapy.  

To bring you up on what I am doing, well the easy answer is sliding slowly into oblivion.  Between school, my children, my husband - baseball, no basketball, hockey, dead people (ancestry) and work my life is pretty much insane.  My school is busy and almost finish - well at least this part of it.  The kids & my husband are a constant so that really isn't out of the ordinary, except that my husband is working constantly on influencing their sense of humor in ways that can only be described as LOUD.  Baseball - can't I just say TEXAS RANGERS and leave it at that?  No basketball, ugh.....hockey, I feel weird that it is hockey season without flipping channels to watch basketball during the commercials.  Work - well work is work.  I've been there 16 years so it really isn't that bad, just different.  The company has reorganized a bit and with the death of one of the founders.....sigh.....its sad to go in sometimes.

I still get out and take pictures on a regular basis, but I find that I have less and less time to be creative.  I'm looking forward to a break in school so that I can concentrate on all I have gathered in my brain and do something with it.  Hopefully, I haven't worn my brain out or burned up too many brain cells stressing about stuff that won't matter tomorrow.

Humor Fail.

I have this lovely lovely person in my office - oh and by the way she's lost 3 inches in her waist - me I ate all the candy that my friend G left in my drawer at work, so I've basically screwed myself of all the calories that I worked of on Thursday during my walk.  Any way this awesomely wonderful girl, calls me today and says she's been reading my blog and tells me I'm so funny.

You realize that I have to post something funny - the problem is when you try to fail.  Miserably.  So in honor of me failing to be funny I'm going to post a link to the funniest blog post in the history of the universe (well, at least July).  Jan - read this......

Diet & Exercise Fail

I'm calling myself out - the kids went back to school and I'm still not exercising.  I'm still carrying the pregnancy weight from my youngest child and since he's hit 3rd grade, I probably need to get off my butt and quit talking about it.  The problem?

• carbs
• wine
• i'm on the wrong side of 40
• chocolate

I could go on and on and on, but that's not really an excuse.  I'm sucking it up and I'm off to walk at least 4 miles.  Well, as soon as I finish my coffee.

Things to do when the high is 110.

No that is not a typo - it was 110 degrees here today.  It was 109 yesterday and tomorrow it is going to be 111.  So if you don't live in a place that sees this kind of weather let me tell you what you should do.

STAY INSIDE AND READ, POST TOO MUCH RIDICULOUS THINGS ON FACEBOOK INCLUDING THE 7 DAY WEATHER OUTLOOK OR WATCH TOO MUCH BAD TV.

Well, I've done 2 of the 3, I will start #3 as soon as I'm done here.  Unfortunately this is NOT what I did today.  Here's what I did and whether it was smart or not.

• Drank hot coffee with breakfast even though it was already 95 degrees outside.  SMART, see caffeine.
• Took a shower & washed my hair.  NOT SMART, drying your hair causes you to sweat and need another shower.
• Take your child to the eye doctor & spend 3 hours in the office.  BOTH.  Smart, because H2 needs his eyes checked, Not-smart because when we got into the car it read 119 degrees.
• Going to a cemetery to take pictures of tombstones for find-a-grave at 4:45 in 109 degree weather.  You can figure this out, but the kids behaved pretty darn good in the funeral home & luckily the graves were in an air-conditioned mausoleum so not to bad.
• Water the yard.  NOT SMART.  See moving the water & the yard is already hay.

What did you do today?  And did you post a picture of your 7 day weather outlook?  Oh and notice the time on the iPhone when this was taken.

I'm so confused and I think I might be my own cousin.

I've been singing that song "I'm my own grandpa" all day.  Do you remember it? Well its stuck in my head.  Why you ask?  Well, I'm doing my family tree.  My mother did some work on my grandfather and then started on her own family tree with her cousin.  I got left my grandmother's family tree.  Well as you know when you are doing detective work - and trust me this is detective work - you hit dead ends and you turn around and go another direction.

So between the three main families that I'm researching - they intermarried 8 times, that I've found so far.  I realize back in the day you didn't travel far, but I mean spread out the gene pool.  Get some new blood.  I recently found a cousin who's descended from my great-grandfather's sister.  And I found that these families intermarried even more.  Granted when you have 8 or 9 kids it's not as bad as I make it out to be, but I think the family tree is kind of loopy.  I mean how do I show that one person's brother married that person's niece and her brother married that person's sister--in-law who is at the same time the first person's sister - or something along those lines.

I'm so confused I think I'd get lost in the lines traveling from one branch to the other.  I think I need an assistant or my mommy or something.  "Calgon, take me away!"

Everyday can't be a winner

Today has not been my day.  I can't win, I'd been thinking of some kind of phrase to start this off but I could decide between:

"Damn it all to hell!"

"Crap!"

or

"Well, shit."

So instead I'll say today has not been my day and leave it at that.  It's really more lady-like.  If you have a better idea, I'm happy to take suggestions.

Cemeteries, Boxer Shorts & Not Cooking Dinner

I forced my two young children to brave the heat and go cemetery hunting today.  I love cemetery hunting, there is always a good picture in a cemetery - well, most of the time.  And as I have been working on my family tree cemeteries have become even more of an obsession as of late.  So, I chose a cemetery I hadn't been to in a long time and tried to hunt down some photos for find-a-grave.  Well, no go.  My boys and I trudged up and down the rows looking for two little graves in the oldest catholic cemetery in Dallas without luck.  I often comment that I'm hunting dead people in my family tree search.  When you do that for yourself and you know how frustrating locating something can be you want to be able to help people do the same in their search.  If trudging through a cemetery can help someone else....who am I to deny myself the pleasure of helping someone else in their search.  It's really kind of pleasing to do something nice for other people.  In fact I wish more people thought of other people on a daily basis.

Now I'm totally thinking of myself after showering (trust me after an hour in the Texas sun in a cemetery it was needed) and dealing with my oldest's heat rash.  Seriously - its a million degrees in Texas, even before lunch.  It feels like hiking on the planet Mercury.  I'm sitting here wondering how I can get away with remaining in my husband's boxer shorts and promotional Dallas Stars t-shirt until bedtime; without coming across as completely anti-social or a boring old hag who has nothing better to do.  Well, I might not have anything better to do, I'm sure I could come up with something, but the heat has reduced my will to do nothing but maybe hold up my Kindle until I'm forced to try and get out of slaving over a hot stove for dinner.

WHO REALLY WANTS A HOT MEAL IN 104 DEGREE WEATHER?

Seriously.  Can't we just have a salad or wine, cheese & fresh bread.  Maybe a frozen margarita & chips and salsa.  Any of that works for me.  Will someone call my husband....

I'm a dangerous mom.

So my favorite family member that is not related to me, gave me & my boys the most wonderful book the last time I was in SA.  50 Dangerous Things (you should let your children do).  We've had so much fun doing little things that the book says are dangerous.  The kids even spent a little time doing blogposts themselves about their latest adventure.

Being extra adventurous this week, I cleaned out the hall closet and found an old printer that refused to print any more.  So we chose to have a little fun doing #34 Deconstructing an appliance.  My mom and Margie have bought some small ones for when we get back to SA, but this was good practice.  At first they just wanted to get it in pieces until I sat down with them and talked about learning how they are put together and what goes where and why.  The next time we do this we should learn so much more.

So far we've licked a 9-volt battery, driven a car, spent an hour blindfolded, and learn the art of swordplay.  Hmm, maybe we should whittle next - but hopefully with pa-pa in charge.

Question of the day

Why is it so incredibly hard to get kids to help around the house?  I have pondered this question over and over and over, all while plotting the demise of the children who ignore my existence while it is clean up time.  They won't go outside to save their lives - but if they can get out of picking up a wet towel they will brave 105 degree Texas heat to avoid the task.

I'd like to blame it on that guy I married my wonderful husband.  Actually he is quite wonderful - unless he is disciplining the children - which is NEVER - or if he's playing video games - because no one must interrupt video games.  NO ONE.  Although, I have less respect for the guys he plays Battlefield with, as last night I discovered they were drinking wine.  I love wine, but any self respecting soldier in the middle of war should not be drinking white-wine spritzers.  Beer, Bourbon or Scotch - that's pretty much the only options for soldiers.

Sorry, I got distracted, back to the lazy children.  How do you make lazy children clean up?

Enjoy Today

I haven't posted on this thing for a million years it seems like.  Maybe because life is going well and my need to vent is less than normal or maybe because I've melted in the heat in Texas.  I swear if you go outside with a Popsicle it will have dripped down your arm before you can walk three steps off the deck into the grass.  I'm looking forward to rainy September days, cold fronts & iced beverages.

Enjoy today!