ruminations 2 Comments

Baking a Cake for my Pity Party

So, I got called out by a few people on my woe-is-me post the other day. Some comments were more along the lines of “I’m right with ya,” but others were fine attempts to bring me out of this funk. I also got an e-mail from my friend Kris, who suggested I start by writing a Gratitude List.

I thought that was a fine idea, and decided to make my Gratitude List public. Here goes:

  1. I am healthy. I take no prescription meds, I am ambulatory, I am able to take an hour-long brisk walk (or longer), I have full use of all my limbs and all my senses. I can even choose to have a 30-minute kickboxing workout if I so desire, like today.
  2. I have a husband who loves me. Aaron and I really are like peas and carrots, and that makes us luckier — and happier — than a lot of spouses. We enjoy many of the same things, like music, and anime, and sci-fi, and computers. He tolerates my negative points, and I can sometimes identify his. 😉
  3. We own a home. Our house, although mortgaged, is ours. The roof is only a few years old, the interior stays temperate without excessive A/C, and it’s plenty big for the two of us… and when we finally have a third.
  4. I am educated. I have a bachelor’s degree, I can proofread, I know random facts and have even been known to do some computer programming on occasion. I am one of the first members of my family to obtain a college degree (beaten by only a couple of years by my cousin, Misty Dawn, whom I’ve never met).
  5. My job is interesting. Somehow, I managed to stumble into database development and administration from my job as a loan flunky. Despite how much I may complain about the speed of bureaucracy in getting me my new title and potential raise, I still enjoy what I do. Hard-core problem-solving is much more fulfilling to me than simple keystrokes to waive a late fee or extend the maturity date of a loan.
  6. I have engaging hobbies. Granted, sometimes I have too many hobbies… but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. My mother says I’m a good photographer (which I’m inclined to believe, since she is a portrait photographer by trade). I enjoy researching my ancestry and my family. I design web pages. I podcast. I have many other talents that I should rediscover, as well, like drawing and singing and writing and other creative things.
  7. I do have friends. Aaron is my best friend. Through him, I’ve gained other friends, like Kris Fries and Kris Heath and Mark and Garza. Some of my co-workers have nearly become friends, like Heather and James… even though we don’t really hang out. I also have college friends, like Amy (my best friend apart from my husband) and Sheryl and Mary and Beth and Donna and so many others. My high school friends have drifted away, as friends sometimes will, and some old friends have become acquaintances. But I know that there are people out there who care about me and are interested in my life and my well-being, even if I don’t speak to them or see them very often.

Some of these things may seem like pretty standard Count Your Blessings fare. There’s a reason for that, though, and it’s that we should all be grateful for the small things.

After the kickboxing workout I had today, I’m going to be particularly grateful for the shower I’m going to take in about an hour.

randomness 1 Comment

Turning A Shitty Mood Around

Woke up this morning to discover that my alarm clock was set for 7:30am, not 7:10am as I had thought.

Drove through my ‘hood to get to work, and had to make a minor detour to get around the garbage truck that likes to drive down the middle of the street. Instead, I got caught by a school bus. Those things, along with random stupid drivers, made me late to work.

Ate two Little Debbie Double Decker Oatmeal Cream Pies to counteract the pissy mood I’d developed. Knew it was a poor idea, and did it anyway.

Heard two co-workers across the way say that, as a habit, they never read the long explanatory e-mails we send them about the changes THEY REQUESTED to the database. This after they asked how to do something in the database, not realizing that a new feature had been added, per their request. Got so mad that I: 1.) thrust my head into my clenched, clawed hands; 2.) swung my mouse around like a bullroar; 3.) put my hands down below the cube wall, out of sight, and gave the co-workers the double-bird, along with a hearty silent FUCK YOU several times over. And don’t forget the varied thrusting hand motions, both vertical and lateral.

Didn’t eat lunch. Took a 45-minute walk instead. Ate a South Beach Cereal Bar (originally intended for breakfast) as a late lunch / early afternoon snack.

To calm down after work? Civilization IV: Warlords. Couldn’t even get *that* right — the first game I started got me almost annihilated in the first few turns, so I restarted; the second game crashed and had to force quit; and the third game also got me close to annihilated, but I stuck it out and managed to survive with my three little cities until the end.

I think I feel better now, though.

ruminations 4 Comments

A Realization

I read blogs because I miss having friends to hang out with.

Granted, I enjoy having time to myself in the evenings, but I mislike having no options for socialization at all. That’s why I spend all my time on the computer, trying desperately to feel connected. I can read accounts of my faraway friends and feel like I’m still a part of their lives. Of course, most of my friends have stopped posting regularly to their blogs, and some of them never did in the first place.

Sure, I launch up AIM maybe twice a month, and I see my friends logged in every now and then. But part of me wants *them* to take the initiative and contact *me*, instead of me feeling like I’m interrupting some important conversation they’re probably having with someone else.

I miss living in a neighborhood where I could walk to the local coffeeshop if I were feeling down, and I could get hyped on caffeine and sugar and be in a funky, depressed, hyperalert, counterculture mood all alone. I also miss having Amy around to hang out with. I also miss having the option to just call someone and ask, “What are you doing? Want to come over?” I miss that last year of school, after Amy graduated and I thought I’d be hopelessly antisocial — but, instead, I ended up hanging out with Beth and Donna and Timmay and Sheryl, though rarely in combination.

Is this what being a grown-up is all about? Spending evenings alone, thinking about The Good Old Days™?

If it is… fuck thirty.

genealogy

Help From the Genealogy Guys

I’ve left voicemails and e-mailed comments in to podcasts before, but I still go all a-squee when I hear MY E-MAIL being read on the air, so to speak.

Last week, I e-mailed the Genealogy Guys about finding Great-Aunt Phoebe’s service station. (Actually, she’s my great-great-aunt, but who’s counting?) Today, I listened to George and Drew give me (and hundreds of other genealogy buffs) some clues about where to go next:

  1. City directories? Establish the year it was founded and the year it went out of business or changed hands.
  2. Land and property records; perhaps a mortgage?
  3. Florida Secretary of State: Bureau of Measurements’ annual inspections, incorporations.
  4. Florida State Archives for archived gov’t records?
  5. Local genealogical society or historical societies
  6. Sanborn fire insurance maps? Chipley might not be large enough of a city to appear in one of those.

So, that gives me a pretty good start. The city directories were something I’d thought of myself, but I hadn’t considered going to the Secretary of State. Good idea, George!

Other fun things: Drew actually pronounced “Schnuth” correctly, and George started out by giving a mini-plug of my podcast, as I’d decided to sign my e-mail with my podcast’s name, as well as my own. Any publicity I can get is fine with me. 🙂

I’m off to go search for some Washington County libraries online…

genealogy

Pictures To Prove It

As we were swapping family photos over e-mail, a newly-discovered relative of mine told me, “I love photos also. In fact, when I am doing work on a family, I like to have their photo to look at. I think it brings reality to the numbers.”

I took that to heart this week and decided to research one particular photo I’d found online a few years ago. My great-great-grandmother, Grannie Maudie, two of her sisters, and her daughter pose in front of a 1940’s era service station. From what I read, Maudie’s sister, Phoebe, actually owned the station, but the researcher who posted the information didn’t know where the station was located.

Luckily, I discovered this back in 2001, and had plenty of time to approach Memaw about it before she passed. Maudie was Memaw’s grandmother, and Memaw had spoken enough about “they was a bunch of girls in that family” that I figured she might know something about the service station. After all, she used to say that Aunt Miney (MY-knee) was the first person in the family to own a car, and I believe she said it was a Model T. (I’m still not sure who Aunt Miney is, but I’ll piece it together someday.) So, I wasn’t surprised when she knew exactly what I was talking about, and told me that the station had been out on Route 10.

After that, I didn’t think about the service station for quite some time. I always knew I’d come back to it eventually, though.

This week, as I was pulling out family photos to inspire me in my genealogical research, I came across a print of the service station picture, and decided that I wanted to make it the cornerstone of my current project. I want to get as much information as possible about the women in the photograph, the service station, and how it came to be.

In getting my facts straight, I realized that I’d had a couple people recorded in the wrong families entirely, and that I didn’t have much information on these ladies. I had dates, thanks to Mrs. Smith’s research, but no sources. And I’ve become a stickler for sources lately.

So, tonight, I’m requesting death certificates for three of the four women in the picture: Phoebe, Delia, and Ida. I already have Maudie’s. I’m hoping to see whether they had Social Security Numbers — if they did, I can order up their Social Security Applications. Those will tell me where they were employed, if anywhere, at the time they applied for the SSN; their home address; their places of birth and their parents’ names; and a few other random goodies. Unfortunately, I’m fairly positive that Maudie never had a SSN, as her death certificate lists none, and she died in 1950, before it became mandatory for all U.S. residents to have a SSN. Phoebe also died relatively young, in 1957, at the age of 64; however, she may have had to have a SSN, since she was the owner of the service station. I have high hopes for Ida and Delia having SSNs, as they seem to have survived a little longer, and I think I’ve found them both in the Social Security Death Index.

I think I’ve geeked out on genealogy long enough for one night. I’m off to write three $5 checks to the Florida Department of Vital Statistics, record the requests in my research log, and get them ready to go in the mail tomorrow.

I’m hoping that having some focus in my research will help me untangle this confusing web of multiple marriages and not-quite-legal adoptions and divorces and separations and step-children and OMG. Why couldn’t these women be a little less strong-willed and a little more marriageable? 😉