Do-Over Log Jam

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One of my first ventures into the trenches of Genealogy in 1997 (about) was meeting with my mother's cousin who had done TONS and TONS of work on our shared line.  She very generously shared by copying all her files that included newspaper clippings and handwritten memories.  So I started as a name collector with that huge file of handwritten family group sheets.  But what I did NOT do was sourcing.  I had no idea where that name or date originated.  I negated the work done by others by not giving credit to the original.

As I go back through those pages plus other collections, I'm looking at a lifetime of work by many as well as record of who came before me.  I'm not a name collector.  Rather I'm honoring the work of my relatives.  The years and years of their efforts (typing, organizing, going to libraries) are worth the hours of effort by me.  Their love of family and history deserves preservation.  What I'm hoping to pass down to my descendants is a well organized record of my work, including names and faces and stories of those who came before,

Birthdays Through the Years

Grandma and her oldest granddaughter

So I worked on a "secret" project last year (2012) for my older sister Deb (not pictured).  My sister has done many many birthday cakes over the years for the kids of her siblings, plus others.  My job was to help her find a new cake each time so I had a ton of different cake ideas on my computer.  So I printed out recipes for all these different cakes and then made prints from all the kids birthdays.  We did parties from when they were 1 until they were 10 years old.  I actually was able to find almost all of them except for the three oldest because that was before I was regularly taking pictures.  I had the project done by Christmas time and gave it to her then.  She was so surprised!  She said it was her favorite gift and she really enjoyed looking at the book, as did everyone else at the party.

So that got me thinking that it would be really cool if I could find a picture of myself for every birthday.  And if I could, I would make a little photo album and it might be fun to get out every year.  Of coarse, I am almost positive I didn't celebrate every birthday as an adult.  So what would I do for those years??

The farm I grew up on

Me - 1976

It is hard sometimes to explain the farm I grew up on.  It was more of a hobby farm in some ways, except we did eat them.  My father liked animals so we had animals: goats, chickens, cows (for a bit), sheep, geese, ducks, and pigs.  Not all the animals at the same time, but this and that for a while.  I saw piglets being born and the start of the butchering of sheep.  (I freaked out and couldn't watch.)  I collected eggs and "helped" butcher chickens by pulling the feathers.  (My mother had this awful knife that she used to cut heads of chickens that was all nicked and dented.)  But most of this happened before I turned 10 years old.  (I was the youngest of five kids.)  Around that age my father got a more steady job, my brothers started working for the farm next door (bye-bye pigs) and we all grew up!

Halloween pasts

Okay - time for another challenge from Genea-Musings. The question is what was your most memorable Halloween.

I don't think we did up Halloweens much in our family. I do remember going trick or treating around my Grandmothers trailer park and I have pictures of me dressed up etc. These days I do enjoy going to my kids school and seeing all the kids dressed up and having fun. But the most memorable probably is still one from high school. A few of us were studying. (I think we had the ACT test coming up). And we decided to put our shortest friend (Martha) into a mask and drive around to people we knew and send her up to the house on her knees to see if they would give her candy. It was quite funny to see my friend doing this! Most people had no idea. I think one person caught on because her nails were always so long which isn't normal for a grade schooler.

The pumpkins are my brothers creation!