My Thoughts

Surely, it cannot be said enough that Autumn is my absolute favorite time of year.  Today is the first day of Autumn, and here in Texas, it will be around 90 degrees.  We had a hint of Autumn last week with cooler days and drizzly rain, but this week the temperatures shot up again.  I anticipate boots and scarves, and not with much patience.  As much as I attempt waiting until October 1 to actually begin my Autumn decorating and cooking, these last few days of September offer little excitement for me.  So, perhaps getting an early start is not a bad idea. Since completing graduate school earlier this year, I feel somewhat lost.  Those J.R.R. Tolkien quotes "Not all who wander are lost" on pinterest continue to offer some solice to my fear that I have somehow become a horrible statistic.  Why is it that at this juncture in my life I feel the most lost?  Truly, completing a goal should provide contentment, not confusion.  Yet, I made a conscious decision to spend the next y

When I would think of my 4 grandparents, Berneice, Leo, Gladys and GJ, I always had a specific ethnicity attached to each one.  Berneice was Swedish, Leo, German.  Gladys was Native American and GJ, Irish.  Like many other Americans, the reality of my ancestry is a collection of different ethnicities and nationalities, and if you go backward far enough, the truth of what I had always thought then becomes true and verified.  Each family line presents its own unique research complications.  When I began this tribute to my 2nd great grandmothers, I did not intentionally postpone Charlotte "Lottie" Blomberg.  As it happens, if I had began this project with Lottie, I probably would've given up and not attempted the others.  What I have found through this project, however, is a strength of character and fierce determination in each of these women that I see in myself and in the eyes of each of my daughters.  I truly do not think it can be said enough that genealogical research

October mornings in the hill country are breathe taking, and as Deandra sat on her deck watching the sun rise over the hills, the light chill in the air was kept at bay by the handmade quilt her grandmother had given to her on her wedding day many years before.  Her mind drifted to him. . . always to him, not the man she had married, but the one her soul longed for.  Her mp3 player shuffled to Train's "Marry Me", and she could not stop the waves of emotion.  Knowing she should change the song and steer her memories and her longings in other directions, she instead closed her eyes.  Taking a deep breath, she held it and forced all of herself to another time and place, a sweet and happy place where she was deeply in love. She had changed her clothes so many times that she couldn't remember what she had tried on originally and her bed was covered with a small mountain of silky or lacy things in an array of colors.  Looking down at the shoes she wanted to wear, s