Tag: ancestry

Sunday Report

On By Jo Mayne CaseyIn 2020, Winter at Sonnystone2 Comments

As we took down the Christmas decorations and cleaned, I just had to move around the furniture.  Clears the mind…

It’s harder than I thought to buy houseplants in the winter.  I traipsed around town looking in the usual spots– grocery floral departments– and even tried a new place (to me) Fresh Thyme, but found nothing.  Finally I went down the street to my neighborhood store and bought an orchid and a kalanchoe.  Later I went by Zeidler Floral and picked out some tiny plants for my Wardian case and a lovely jade plant just because.

I’m still on the lookout, so if you know a good spot to shop, tell me!

Mostly, though, I have slaved over at the Ancestry blog writing up Casey’s family.  Remember last year when I started my subscription to ancestrydotcom and said I’d use it for about six months and let it go?  Well, my last post was in July and I was just about to cancel it when I decided I should give Casey’s family a shot.  I started seriously studying in October, but there was so much research to be done—300 years of it — and then came the holidays so I decided to wait until Now to write it up and get it published.

I plan a series of a dozen or so posts and I probably should publish them weekly, but I’m in love with the story and don’t think I can hold back.  I tried to post four last night, but it didn’t go well and I was up until 3am un-doing and re-doing.  >sigh<  One at a time will work best…

So I cordially invite you to visit All My Ancestors and follow along as I trudge through another January digging up the roots o our Family Tree…

Start right here with Preface

Peace

Time’s a-flyin’…

On By Jo Mayne CaseyIn 2019, Weekly Wrap-Up, Winter at Sonnystone2 Comments

Having Casey home in winter has made it much less onerous, maybe even tolerable.  Before his retirement he worked long hours clearing the highways during snow and ice season.  We got bigger paychecks for it, so I didn’t complain, but got accustomed to spending winter days holed up in the house alone. Now he’s holed up here with me and I don’t have to talk to myself…of course, I still do..

He’s been working like a fiend upstairs, putting up beadboard, painting walls, and the cleaning that goes along with it all.  I thought it would take him longer, but he finished up yesterday.   It looks immensely better and tremendously brighter and cleaner…

These days we really don’t use the upper rooms except for guests and storage, so it will be a while before I actually pull this room back together. I think I might be selling some more furniture….  As long as it’s all habitable for Camp Sonnystone, it will be fine.

One rainy day last week, I was staring morosely outside and this caught my eye…

It’s a bad picture because I took it from my front door through the glass and then through the screen on the front porch, and it was pouring rain outside.  I believe it’s a young Cooper Hawk.  He looked dazed and was just standing there looking around.  Then he tried to spread his left wing and pulled it back in very quickly.  He walked around with a limp and pecked around.  I figured he was hurt, but would be able to fix himself, but I kept an eye on him.  It took him about 30 minutes before he finally flew to a low branch on a tree nearby, but he didn’t stay up there long and was back down on the ground about 15 minutes later.  Finally  a couple of hours after I first spotted him,  he was gone…  You never know what a storm will blow in…

The lack of sunshine around the Acres is killing me.  This year’s been particularly gloomy and I’d normally be whining to get on the road, but the genealogy obsession is making time fly…

I’m researching and compiling and writing so much that my carpal tunnel is flaring up.  (anybody use an ergonomic mouse they can recommend?)

Becoming reacquainted with American history from the vantage point of my age has been eye-opening.  High school Textbooks covered decades with a couple of paragraphs, it seems to me.  I don’t remember being all that excited about George Washington or the Revolutionary War.  It seemed very remote and not at all glamorous, and the whole wooden teeth thing turned me off of George.

Now I’m researching ancestors that lived in that time and as I read the names of Revolutionary War muster rolls it’s not so far away.  My fam is from Maryland, so I’ve learned all about the Maryland 400, who Gen. Washington praised for saving his a** at the Battle of Long Island.  My ancestor was not in that battle, but he was most likely in another Maryland regiment.

See?  I’m all about the ancestry thing right now… I have made some new blogger friends that share my genealogy fetish, but I don’t mean to leave all you Sonnystoners out of the fun.  Drop on by!

All My Ancestors

Peace

Weekly Gibberish

On By Jo Mayne CaseyIn 2019, Weekly Wrap-Up1 Comment

The Big News from Sonnystone this week is that Nothing Happened…

As the Polar Vortex bore down on us, we turned on the furnace to amend our fireplaces and stayed quite toasty.  Feeling a cold coming on, i looked around for some medicine, only to find that I was out of my usual Allegra.  There was a bottle of Claritin that had been prescribed a while back and it was only a little past expiration, so I downed one.  Accustomed to my 12-hour Allegra, which only works for 8 hours, I had no qualms taking another Claritin about 10 hours later.  The next 24 hours were spent nearly comatose, waking only to feel nauseous and afraid that I was having some Silent Event that I should worry about at my age and not toss off to od-ing on Claritin…  I got up for a couple of hours and sat in front of the computer, then worried that I might be losing my mind and went back to bed.

When I finally woke up (36 hours after taking the fateful pill), it was like a New Dawn.  I felt so refreshed, no cold symptoms, either.  If you have to give up a few days to sleep, crashing through a Winter Freeze is the time to do it.

It seems to me that January went by quickly, but I might be in the minority there.  February always seems longer than its 28 allotted days.  The taxes are begging to be filed, if I can pull myself away, and it is Birthday Month, so I expect to barely turn around and it will be time to leave for Florida in March.

In the meantime, I’ll be immersed, obsessed with the Ancestry.  I changed the link to All My Ancestors if you’d like to visit.  Between the research and the writing, that’s all I’m up to these days.

I gave up on the Photo Synthesis Picture a day… Engrossed in the ancestors and Stuck inside the house, I quickly tired of taking pictures of my walls.   I may have underestimated the Power of Genealogy Addiction..

Peace