Wednesday, December 30, 2009

not too much to say...

i am still working on getting the family tree organized with documentation, getting it added to my file sharing site, and getting ready to share it with the world - if they ask :) so today is going to be focused on my art websites. hopefully i will have something to add here soon, because in gathering all my documentation, who knows what i will find.
peace and luv
laura

thoughts for today

so, i am watching the news this morning and they took a moment to mention kwanzaa. here are the princeples of kwanzaa from wikipedia:
Principles of Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa celebrates what its founder called the seven principles of Kwanzaa, or Nguzo Saba (originally Nguzu Saba—the seven principles of blackness), which Karenga said "is a communitarian African philosophy," consisting of what Karenga called "the best of African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world." These seven principles comprise Kawaida, a Swahili term for tradition and reason. Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the following principles, as follows:

* Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
* Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
* Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems, and to solve them together.
* Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
* Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
* Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
* Imani (Faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

now in looking over these, i am thinking that all people need to take the week between christmas and new years to also look over these aspects of their lives. this should be a time of reflection and hope for us anyway, so why not use the princeples of kwanzaa to help us organize our thoughts and help us make goals for the new year? so today's is Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness. ok i dont need to restore my people to their traditional greatness, although maybe we as a whole need to remember where it is we came from and how we got to where we are today. but building and developing our community is a good thing to focus on. what - as an individual - can i do to make my community better? do i have the time to volunteer for anything? do i see a need that i could perhaps fill? I have decided that when i go to look for my apartment in port townsend i am going to try for a larger apartment so that i can get licensed for foster care. i may not be able to do a lot in the way of work and volunteering right now but i can take in a child who needs a home and give them all the love they can soak up while they are with me. I am also going to spend the day revamping my websites and getting them ready for a relaunch on new years day. so take some time today and focus on what you - as an individual - can do to improve your community.
that is all for today,
peace and luv
laura

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

new year coming up fast

so with new years coming up at the end of the week i am trying to decide where i want to go with this blog. my thoughts are to keep it as is and try to post a photo or scrapbook page for each day of the year or i can turn it into more of an internet diary about what all i go through with my disability and such. or i can combine them both into something. also thinking about my goals for the new year. i want to get all my family tree people documented correctly. i want to get way better at taking photos of lights and fireworks. i want to do my best to do what the dr's tell me to do even when i am not going to want to do it.
anyway that is about all for today,
peace and luv,
laura

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas Everyone

Well Christmas Eve, but close enough!! I have posted photos today, this first one is sunrise on Dec 18th in Port Townsend. it was my best friend Vicky's birthday so I was happy that it was so beautiful.
this next photo is my other mom's grave - it was her one year anniversary on the 20th so Jamee and I went out to put one rose at her grave. Jamee said she hopes to do this every year adding a rose each year.
Other than that, I have actually been busy in the family tree this week. I sent a copy to one of the cousins, who asked if i could then do her husband's line as well. So i did - it is always a great joy to go and find new information and I got it back to her - minus the copies of actual documentation - yesterday so that they can take it with them for Christmas at her hubby's family. I really hope they enjoy it. Today I do have a Christmas story for you - and it is the story of Christmas 2009. That is right, it is about this year. I figured that this year we would just be thankful to have a roof over our heads, and perhaps hit a dollar store for a few little gifts. But my God and my family had other plans I guess. for starters, you should know that up until last year when I was struggling to even do Christmas being on unemployment, my family has always chosen either a foster child or family to give to. Even when jesse was a toddler, we would clean out all his toys and clothes and he would help to donate them so that some other child could have a good Christmas. So that being said, my son Jesse was online in his favorite anime chat room and they were all talking about Christmas and what they were all hoping for. Jesse said that he was hoping for nothing, and was happy that he had a roof over his head, food for his tummy and family that loved him around. So his one friend that lives in New Jersey asks him, if you could have a gift, anything, what would it be. Jesse's answer? A PS3 with 4 controllers and Little Big Planet so that my mom and family can all play it together. it is the one game my mom has been excited about in years and i want to see her happy. The guy sent it to us. All brand new. Then Jamee, who is just ending her first year of grief after losing both her parents, found out that her brother's pug had puppies. All she could talk about was puppies and how much she wanted one. So David, her hubby, and I rationalized all the reasons why a puppy was not a good idea at this point in her life. So we waited for her to go house sit for a co worker and David went and got her a chocolate lab puppy. She will be here this afternoon and will get puppy just a little early. We are all so excited for her to see the puppy.
anyway, i am off to play with the puppy, and get the house ready for Christmas,
peace and luv,
Laura

Merry Christmas Everyone

Well it is actually only Christmas eve but still. And how cute is my great-niece Kailiana? Yesterday my sister and I had a deep discussion about the pro's and con's of teaching your kids to believe in Santa. Her view - Santa is a lie and you should not lie to your kids because they will resent you for it in the end. My view - Santa is based on a real person, Saint Nicholas, who was granted sainthood due to his spirit of giving, and that by teaching kids to "believe" in Santa you instill in them early childhood faith - believing in something you cannot see. Then as they get old enough to let them know that mom and dad are Santa, you explain that Santa is based on Saint Nicholas and the spirit of giving and Always it is (in my house anyway) explained that Christmas is first and formost about Christ. That you may not get everything you want, but by giving to those less fortunate than you, you will get the gift of peace in your heart. In the end we agreed to disagree - as we do with most things political/religious. But that is ok. In life it is good to have discussions like this with people who completely disagree because it confirms for all to see how deeply you believe in something. Anyway, Merry Christmas to you all,
Peace and luv,
Laura

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

the days roll by.......

so here we are 10 days till christmas. who knew!! probably everyone except for those of us who are just thankful to have a roof over their head for the holidays. so jamee and i went into town the other night for groceries and stopped to take photos of the pretty lights that they have in downtown sequim - and of course i am still not so great at taking pictures of the lights but i try and i will eventually get it right. this top one i just decided to move the camera on purpose i think it looks really cool.
this photo i didnt mean to move, but of course i did :)

so tonight is store run night again, i really am not used to not being able to go to the store whenever i want yet, and when i get my apartment in port townsend i will be much more mobile since they have a good bus system. also, i am looking forward to january. i know it is crazy but i know by the end of january i will start to notice the days getting longer again. i love living in washington and dont want to live in any other state, but the dark winter days really get to me. i need to call the dr's office back to make an apointment with dr nelson so i can be good with dshs as well as getting some of this stuff started like different meds for pain management and making sure that the dr's will have all my medical info even from my dr from years ago when this knee/back stuff really started getting bad - and that was like 5 years ago. anyway, that is my life this week, making phone calls and taking bad light photos lol maybe i will get out for a walk today. i have not been doing my walks since it was icy out for a week, plus i am kinda scared of getting myself lost out here. so i hope you are all having a good week,
peace and love
laura

Friday, December 11, 2009

happy friday to all

so, not working, friday does not mean that much to me anymore - except that it is one more day i have survived. I am trying to work on the family tree but at times find myself falling asleep due to it being the same thing over and over - not really getting that rush of finding new things. so i took a while today and worked on my second cousin's wife's family - that was interesting. i will have to add all that i found and make a report for his daughter so that she can show it off for the holidays. also, it dawned on me i have not been adding family stories lately. so today you get one :) for my little family - remember until my mom remarried when i was 14 it was just her, me and my brother and grandma lived very close by - we had a rule for christmas and birthdays. christmas was for things you want and birthdays were for things you need. so christmas - toys and birthdays - clothes. so christmas was just that much more special to us as kids because we knew we would get something that we wanted. so every year we got the sears holiday toy catalog and would spend hours going through it. making a first draft of the list, then taking off what you knew would just never happen or that you realized you could live without. then a revised list - due to media influences. then when it was time to go see santa you showed mom your final list so "she could make sure that santa made all those things" and you went proudly up to that jolly old man's lap knowing you had worked hard on your list and that something from it would indoubtably end up under the tree with that magic "from Santa" tag on it. i am happy that the babies in the family will be getting to that age way sooner than we would like because it is so much more fun when you see the light in their eyes because they understand just how special it is.
anyway, i am off on my family searches
peace and luv,
laura

charlie brown christmas trees

so, anyone who really knows me, knows that i have an affinity for charlie brown christmas trees. you know the ones - literally a branch that you try to decorate to look like a full blown christmas tree. so when i was taking photos of our dusting of snow (which is still here due to the cold temperatures) and saw this little baby tree trying to survive i had to take its photo. that is an ultimate charlie brown christmas tree. i hope you all love it as much as i do :)
anyway off to my boring life which i am loving
peace and luv,
laura

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

still cold out

the cold snap continues here. our daily highs are not even reaching freezing (32 degrees ferinheight) but it makes for pretty photos. this was not what i was trying to do, i was trying to focus on the ornament, but it focused on the branches - for a "mistake" i like how it turned out.

anyway, i am off to work on the family tree - great indoor thing on these cold dark days :)
peace and luv,
laura

wow kinda done

so i am done adding all the stuff i already had in files to office live to test out with a few people hopefully i can get a few recruits and some good feedback on what i did right and what i need to improve on. then it is on to making sure i have everything for every person in the family tree - this will also be good for me making sure that things are verified correctly. luckily right now the days are short and cold so i have no desire to even go for a short walk - just work work work on the family tree. anyway, i am off to do more research,
peace and luv,
laura

Monday, December 7, 2009

organization update

so i am making headway now on my organization of the family tree. i have come up with a spreadsheet that has a checklist, census info and other info on it, as well as my research sheet that will show what i have as well as what i am still researching and looking for. i have started loading some files onto officelive which is an awesome way for me to share all this information with the family - even if they dont have access to office products. and while i have been using this program for a while now for other ventures, i cannot wait for google to go live with their version of it. so for the next few days i will be adding what i have already added to the files - then i will have jesse go through and let me know what all needs added still - make sure each one has a checklist as well as a research sheet kinda thing. then i will get that part done and will be able to start going through the family tree again adding files but it will be easier knowing exactly what i want in there. oh and i need to add photos too :) that will be a big undertaking as well. but if i am gonna do this, i want to do it right. also, jamee has been spending time sitting with me while i am organizing stuff and she is going through the trees on ancestry looking through the hints for me. which is actually nice. we both may be sitting in silence working on kinda our own stuff, but we are doing it together and getting it done. so all that being said, i am off to do my "work" for today - which includes starting the christmas card addressing - so.......
peace and luv,
Laura

first snow

so sequim got it's first light snow of the season, and while pretty for me it is dangerous. i have developed a huge fear of falling. it seems to me that right before my grandma had to go to the hospital/nursing home and all she started falling and before my mom admitted she needed to go to a nursing home because she couldnt take care of herself anymore (even though she never made it to a nursing home) she started falling, so i dont want to start falling as that seems to be the beginning of the complete end. so i know it sounds crazy but anyone who knows me knows that that is not crazy for me lol so here is a photo of the snow :) and now i am off to my other blog for my genealogy then back to family tree organization - time consuming but necessary.
peace and luv
laura

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

December 1?? How did that happen??

Good morning everyone,
I am not sure how it happened but it is December 1st. My sister has been busy decorating her yard, but it is still not complete yet. but i have been using what she has done to practice my photo taking of lights in the dark. still not so great yet, but am liking the movement look i get at times. perhaps i will go out today in the sunshine and take photos of what is out there - you never know. my son says i need to wander down the street some after dark cuz there is another house all done up. we will see :) anyway, off to do some graphic work :)
peace and luv,
laura

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

Well here it is thanksgiving. not much happening on the family tree - mostly working on the organization of all that i already have so that i will know better what i need to work on. it is very time consuming, but in the learning process of life, i have learned to keep things organized as i go instead of going back to do it when i have 3000 people to deal with!! so that being said i will just tell my story of the day and then be off to do whatever it is i do all day lol :) so when we were little thanksgiving was usually at my aunt sue's house. they did two long tables in an l shape as well as an extra table but it was not a kids table cuz i was usually at the long table by my mom. and while i cant say for sure what all was served, i do know it was controled chaos feeding the whole family like that. and i do remember that the deserts were always in the kitchen until after dinner was done, cleared, cleaned up after, and if you were good you could sneak some of the dessert before it was time and with all us kids running around no one ever got caught cuz it was too hard to prove who did what lol. and during food intermission - the time between dinner and dessert - all us kids would go into the basement and we could play with the huge train set or the hamsters - their cage was huge!! but it was all fun and only once a year :) and sometimes i miss the innocence of it all. but would not trade my life for anything - no matter how down i get or how dark things seem it is still my life and i am thankful for all of it.
peace and luv
laura

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

Well everyone today is thanksgiving - day of feasting in order to celebrate what we are thankful for. We will be feasting tomorrow as Jamee and David already had plans for today with their good friends. But I did want to touch on what today is really supposed to be about - thankfulness. Today I am thankful for - my family, my friends, a rood over my head, my relative health, that I will be seeing a better dr than in renton, that i hopefully will have my own apartment soon, that my cats are adjusting well, that my best friend is only a half hour away now, that i am getting my stress level down to something that can be considered normal, that crowded stores here are nothing compared to renton/seattle :). so as you can all see i have a lot to be thankful for. my plans for today are to spend some time with my family before they head out to their friends house, do some prep work so that cooking tomorrow will not be so crazy, try to get all the sides done so that they just need heated up. should be an awesome 4 days together :) today's photo is of a deer in my sister's yard. my cat really cannot figure out what kind of dog the deer are but it is funny to watch her when they are in the yard. there were three the other day, but my sister says dont be shocked if there are like 6 or so out there. so to everyone that has touched my life or mine has touched theirs,
peace and luv this holiday season,
laura

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

killing time in a library

one of my favorite hobbies!! you dont need a card to sit in there and read or do research. so yesterday i had several hours to kill in port townsend so i ended up at the library since it was threatening to get really icky outside and i had been doing outside stuff for a while anyway. so i headed to the library. my original plan - find a book i know i own and a comfy chair and read the windy afternoon away. what i ended up doing was heading to the genealogy section and grabbing a book - again was just gonna read - and taking several pages of notes. a bunch of new websites to check out and some organizational tips. and before you know it it was almost time to go. it is good to know that i can do that on days i am there with no way back to sequim until i get into an apartment in port townsend. if only they had a napping room!! :) so today - if i am working on family tree stuff i have new stuff to look at and look into. YAY!! but not sure if i am gonna be working on it today. and no story today - sorry, just not feeling it today.
peace and luv,
laura

new beginings and fresh starts

so - technically yesterday was the new begining and all but was not on the computer yesterday so there you go. today i just have a few phone calls to make - dr appt, getting my prescriptions transferred stuff like that. so thinking about where i go from here, how i get there, stuff like that. oh and making a list for shopping for thanksgiving dinner. we will be having it on friday since jamee and david had plans with friends already on thursday. so jesse and i will have some time to think and talk and they will have some time away with their friends and all. but all in all so far so good - we are all just still tired and adjusting - and i think all praying i can get into an apartment really quick!! i know the cats are not really liking living in our room, but they have to for now. and they will get over it. today's photo is my cat baby - she was not impressed with something jamee did to her so i took a picture of the face she was making at me.
well i am outta here for today,
peace and luv,
laura

Thursday, November 19, 2009

raining in seattle?

ok so the seattle area has been slam-bassted with storms this week. it is thursday and we have had 3 wind/rain storms since monday. now here in my renton apartment my power has been safe, but i know after moving to port townsend my power will be in jeapordy every time we have a wind storm. but it will be worth it to be able to see the water as often as i want all year round. but it is just another adventure in this thing we all call life. so here are a few photos from the bremerton water park (not sure what it is actually called). it is behind the naval museum - which i want to check out one day - and you get a great view of it from the ferry while waiting to head out to seattle. it is really kewl to see the random water fly up and crash down. anyway, off to work hard on the family tree organization - still need boxes so packing is on hold today. and also today i need to head to the store and get stuff to cook for early thanksgiving dinner on sunday :) so i hope everyone has a great day,
peace and luv,
laura




Wednesday, November 18, 2009

been working on organizing

it is funny how as you start organizing you start with someone else's idea on how you should document things and note things. then as you go you realize you want to add this and take off that so some things look different from beginning to end. but it is all part of life and life is constant learning and change and being able to adapt to it. so - 100 plus people into creating individual files for all 3000 people in my tree i am starting to realize that the basic form i saved is great, but i need to add some other things to the files, such as family group sheets for each person, timelines, as well as the record that shows what i have found and what i still need to research. also, will be gradually adding copies of documentation that i have available to me and photos so that i can click on any one persons file and see everything i have on them. this is a huge undertaking and gets bigger daily as i go to add a person and realize they have ten hints on ancestry.com which in turn add more people to the tree..... but it is all good. when i am done i will be able to gather my documents and get them in order for several books - a whitehouse book, a johnson book, a moberley book for my son's father's lines, a runion book for jamee's mom's line, a friend book for all my step siblings, a mcclurg book for those step siblings, and on and on and on lol thank god i can still do this even with my pain - the difference from doing data entry/research for a job is that when i have a bad day i dont have to work on it, or i can take 4 hours and go lay down and take a pain pill. whereas with a job i get fired for missing too much work cuz i am in too much pain to be there. so now you are all caught up on what i am working on lately. story for today???? when my brother and i were little - like i was 5 and he was 3 i think - we lived in yesler terrace in seattle. these apartments are low income townhouses with little yards. so this one day my friend maria was over and we were playing inside probably because of rain. my mom was sleeping since she worked nights and we decided that we wanted to play snow. so we looked around the house and decided that the flour looked a lot like snow when we threw it so back upstairs to the playroom we headed. we threw 10 pounds of flour all over the room, all over each other, all over everything before my mom realized we were too quiet with random giggles. i honestly dont know how hard it was to clean i just remember mom washing my hair about 5 times trying to get all the flour out of it. it was one of those situations that at the time she was livid but as time flew by she realized the humor of it all.
hope you all have a great day,
peace and luv,
laura

ok ranting for the day

Ok, so i am surfing the web this morning and come across this article about how people who own their own homes are being told that they cannot/should not hang their laundry in their own yard. this is one of the major reasons i have no desire to ever own a house. if it is mine - and by mine i mean i have paid or am paying over 200000.00 for it - i should be able to do as i please with it so long as it is not unsanitary. i dont think that other people in my neighborhood should have the right to say what i can do in my yard - if i want to go over the top for christmas with lights and what have you then i will. if i want to hang my laundry out to dry and save a little part of the environment then i will. if i want to have a full blown graveyard in my yard for halloween i will. these things do not bring down the value of my home or yours. they show that i love my home as well as my holidays. so i for one will never be looking to own a home. if i have to abide by all these rules i might as well stay in an apartment where at least i dont have to pay extra for getting things fixed - like leaks, roofs, broken windows, blown hot water heaters.
ok rant done - my photo is looking back at bremerton on the ferry.
peace and luv
laura

Monday, November 16, 2009

so much to do today

so today i have to call uhaul and reserve my truck, i have to call the dr and see if i can bump my appointment up to this week instead of next week, i need to call cable, i need to call the electric company, and if i dont have paperwork from dshs in the mail today i need to call them too. so, i am on here posting :) i will be moving on the 28th, probably into my sister's place until i can find an apartment that is low income - but cant really look for that until i have my paperwork from dshs saying how much i will be getting monthly. it is kinda a catch 22. in the meantime, i am getting what i can packed up and will be all ready when the 28th rolls around. also need to repost my stuff for sale on craigslist. i know someone will pay for my table, my big tv and entertainment center, and my desk. the rest i will post for free next weekend - and hopefully have places for people to sit and eat on sunday lol. so my photo today is from the 7th on the ferry back from bremerton. this is the bridge going from one side of bremerton to the other with the foothills of the olympics and clouds in the background. hope you enjoy,
peace and luv
laura

Friday, November 13, 2009

friday the 13th

so, today is friday the 13th. i dont know why people get weirded out about it. i have been in a lot of pain this week, and today is no different. just happy cuz getting boxes and so i should be able to get all packed this weekend. just need my approval from dshs so that i can get my ass out of here. i hope that i can get into an apartment really quickly. i dont want to be a burden on my sister for any longer than i have to. but i cannot switch doctors or even call about apartments until i get my approval. and while i am waiting on that i am sitting in an apartment that i have been evicted from. no - no stress there. hopefully with the high blood pressure meds my blood pressure will be back at a normal so that i wont have to stress that too. anyway, enough of that, here is a photo i took in the pouring rain through the window of the ferry. it is the smith tower in seattle as we are pulling out.
peace and luv,
laura

Friday the 13th :)

so i have had a big week in family tree news. i found a lead on the line of ancestors from my son's dad's mom. while this might not seem big to most, we have not seen or heard from his dad in like 7 years. his family does not really recognize my son as part of their family, so i have nothing to go on except for his parents names (and didnt have the maiden name of his mom) and the fact that he is adopted. so, finding her info with her maiden name as well as her parents names was huge for me. jesse now knows that his ancestry on that part of his family is italian and german. so i have been focusing on that area of the family tree. i have also been busy documenting all that i have already done so that i will stop duplicating work. should have been doing this all along, but as always, life is a learning experience. so story for today - the year that i was pregnant with jesse (1989) we didnt really do anything big for thanksgiving. but we did cook a turkey. my mom had to work wednesday and being pregnant and high risk to deliver early i was not to touch the 20 pound turkey. so she got home wednesday night and put the turkey in the oven intending to cook it slowly. she put the oven at like 275 or 250. put the turkey in upside down so she wouldnt have to baste it. all i know is while it was not a pretty turkey, it was the moistest, juiciest, best turkey we ever had.
anyway off to more research,
peace and luv,
laura

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

dr's visit and pretty sunset

so my dr's visit went well yesterday. well being that she feels that DSHS will approve my going on a GAU and starting the disability stuff. Not so great because it means that my MRI's were not good. I have advanced severe arthritis - bone on bone - in my right knee and mild to moderate arthritis in my back with a herniated disk. so yeah no wonder i have been in pain. but on the plus side, i should now get medical to at least help with dr appts and medicine to help control the pain. and i do have a beautiful new niece to spend time with too :) my photo today is the sunset from the ferry back to seattle last sunday when my niece was born. and people think it only rains in seattle!! we actually have a lot of very beautiful days every year and i try to photograph them all :)
anyway, have a busy day today,
peace and luv
laura

Monday, November 2, 2009

our newest family member

Kailiana Victoria Gomez was born 11/1/09 at 1:39pm 7 lbs 10 oz 20.4 inches long and absolutely perfect.

peace and luv
laura

November

November came in with a beautiful little girl. this is my great-niece Kailiana Victoria Gomez. she was born yesterday 11/1/09 and i was privileged enough to be in the room during her birth. i am completely in love with her so you will be seeing her a lot in here i am sure.
hope you all had a wonderful halloween
peace and luv
laura

Saturday, October 31, 2009

organizing still

OMG! i wish i had found these really helpful articles on documenting and research logs ages ago. but i didnt so now i am going through my family tree one person at a time and recording what information i have, where it came from, and what i still need. and this is going to be time consuming, but really needs to be done in case anyone ever wants to help or take over for me eventually. and it is good practice for me as i would really like to become certified at some point. today is halloween and i am very excited about it. i just love halloween. i can remember when my brother and i were little getting dressed up - the parade at school of everyone in costume - going around the apartments and getting candy and treats in our pillow cases. some memorable costumes - i liked being a gypsy, or witch and my brother did hobo a lot. we made due with what we had on hand and i think it made me appreciate the art of the costume more than the storebought ones would have. my mom was actually very creative and that helped a lot. i think in all the years my son has dressed up he has only had 3 store bought costumes - his first halloween when he was only about 9 months old he wore jammies with a skull cap i bought him, then one year he was sonic the hedgehog and one year he was jigglypuf from pokemon. i am so wishing that i had photos of the costumes through the years. but i still have the memories.
anyway, i hope you all have a great day today,
peace and luv,
laura

Happy Halloween Everyone

Yay, it is halloween. one of my favorite holidays. as promised yesterday here are some halloween photos from my neighborhood. some of the houses here go all out still, and that is really awesome in my opinion. honestly i kinda miss the days when my son was little and we would go trick or treating. oh well... halloween on a saturday night means fun times at the bar. i am going to try to make it out for a while and get some photos. but as with everything else in my life these days, it will depend on my pain levels tonight. anyway, i hope you enjoy the photos,
peace and luv,
laura





Friday, October 30, 2009

Halloween Eve

I really love fall. all the beauty of the leaves turning and falling, the colder weather bringing on the soups and stews that are comfort food, here in Washington the apples get nice and cheap and are perfectly ripe. and it brings so many memories - my grandma ate an apple every day, but she had to peel the skin off due to her dentures, so i always got to eat the extra apple skins. my mom making soup - chicken, turkey, beef and making that pot of soup last several meals. home made chili - my grandma's recipe but my mom making it - with spaghetti in it. i don't know why that is just how it is made :) this year i am working on a cookbook to give out to the family for Christmas gifts and the chili with spaghetti in it is one of the recipes in it from my aunt judy. i am adding my grandma's meatloaf - when i make it i make a double meatloaf so that the nest day we can have sandwiches as well as left over meatloaf chunked up makes for great meatballs in spaghetti! and now that Halloween is just about here i am starting to plan for thanksgiving, even knowing that i will probably not be at this apartment. i just love cooking for my friends and family. and the left overs the next day are unbelievable!! anyway, until next time,
peace and luv,
laura

Halloween Eve

I truly love halloween! not only is it a day to be someone you are not and live that fantasy for a few hours, but the kids are just soooo cute!! a friend down the street posted a photo of his new baby in a pumpkin. so darling! so today i posted a few photos of pumpkins from around the neighborhood. i have some other photos to post tomorrow and then sunday or monday i will post photos of halloween night. as for me, today is a good day. the landlord spent 4 plus hours replacing my hot water heater yesterday. he had to completely move a pipe that had been installed after the hot water heater and blocked it from coming out. it was not fun - for anyone involved. so we didnt have dinner until after 9 due to the hot water heater being under the cupboard behind the stove so no stove access until he got done. but it is done now and hopefully it will be the last issue we have here before we end up moving.
anyway, i hope everyone has a great halloween weekend,
peace and luv,
laura




Thursday, October 29, 2009

family tree on hold today

my body is sore today, so i am going to just take today off. feeling more creative so will be playing in photoshop today i think. story for today - more of a reminiscence - i remember when i was little and we would go trick or treating, we got apples, popcorn balls, candy, pennies - and it was safe. then some idiot(s) had to go and ruin it by putting razor blades into apples and poison in candy - and yes i remember when that all happened. putting all parents on guard. only knock on doors of people you know, hard candy is the safest, mom has to check all the candy before you can eat any of it, and even going to the police station the day after to have the candy x-ray'd just to be safe. i miss the "safe" days of my childhood.
anyway peace and luv
laura
hi all,
well i got through my initial DSHS appointment yesterday morning - have to go to the dr and have a full physical next tuesday and have the dr fill out a lot of paperwork to send back to DSHS. Then went for my 2 MRI's yesterday evening. my body is so sore today from being on my back and still for almost an hour. i tend to wiggle a lot due to the pain in my back and knees so staying still so as not to ruin the images was hell. not to mention the fact that i am not a fan of enclosed spaces. but i lived through it and now it is done. hopefully we can go over them when i go back on tuesday. i also have to get my paperwork in for social security disability. and figure something out about housing. but today - i am resting at least through the morning.
here is a photo from walking the other day - it kinds emotes the way i feel today.
peace and luv
laura

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

getting re-organized

well, with me starting my descent into disability world, i should have time to update here regularly. I am learning a lot about intensive digging due to my subscribing to a newsletter called casefile clues [ www.casefileclues.com ] he talks about getting documentation I just really had never thought about. and tells how he comes to conclusions on things and such. I am greatly enjoying the learning every week. so, I have decided I need to reorganize my genealogy stuff. I am going to have a file for each and every person, it will include any photos I have of that person, documentation I have for them, and how they are related to either myself or my son - i have not decided yet on that part. this will also let me know what else i need for people as well as make sure i am not looking for something i already have. the first part of all this is going to be creating a folder for the main branches of my family - Johnson, Shackelford, Hoffmann, Wetzel - that is my father's side, Whitehouse, Kelley, Burns - that is my mother's side, Moberley - that is my son's father's family, Friend, McGlasson, Runion, Tritton - that is my little sisters natural family, McClurg, Whitlow - that is my little sisters adopted father and her stepbrother's mother, Gilliland, Chapman, Forbes - that is my little sisters husband's family, Gomez, Hunter - that is my nephew's mother's family. I think that is the main catagories. then it will just get more and more detailed from there. I will also be recording all documentation in a spreadsheet so that i will have it all in one easy place to look. this is a huge undertaking but it needs to be done, this is how we learn :) I have already discovered - just in talking to my dad that I dont have some documentation on my grandparents. I have recruited him in looking for the documentation for me. it will give him something to do. he could not figure out a hobby to keep him busy in his retirement so he got recruited. umm story for today ~~~ kinda storied out today. if i think of one later i will post it, if not, tomorrow is another day.
peace and luv,
laura

today is the first day of the rest of my life

today is the day after the dr appointment where I admitted that I need to go on disability. today is the day I got approved for MRI's on my back and right knee to see what we are dealing with. today I called DSHS for an appointment to sign up for disability. today is the beginning of me getting better or at least bearable with the pain. tomorrow I have my appointment with DSHS. tomorrow I have my MRI's. tomorrow I talk to my landlord as I will have to move to low income apartments. but today - I am at peace with my decision.
here is a photo I took Saturday on my way to Bremerton. I love the fog. I love the fall. I do not love how I can barely walk as our weather keeps changing from sunny to rainy and cold. my knees are just not taking it well this year at all. I am going to really work on writing in here daily what I am doing and going through - since dr's scare me to death and this is all going to be a lot of dr's. but this way I will have it to look back on and know it is just one more aspect of my life that I have gotten through.
Peace and Luv,
Laura

Monday, October 26, 2009

so many "new" relatives

i cannot believe how many cousins and second cousins i have on facebook. and how many have accepted my friend invites. i now have photos to put in my family tree of almost all my cousins and still need to look through photos on several people's pages to see if i can find the other family members in them. and talking to them all and getting to know them - and showing them all the information i have on the family tree. very exciting for me anyway. i also redid my computer over the weekend so it is running so nice and fast again. i just had so much on it and could not remember what was for what and what i could remove anymore. so my family tree is not really getting any bigger but my family that i know and am in contact with is getting huge!! story for today - when i was in high school at ingraham high in seattle (i went to 5 different high schools) my friends and i used to hang out on "the ave". for those of you not from here that is university way ne in seattle near the university of washington between about ne 40th and ne 50th streets. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ave ) who knew there was a wiki out there on it??? anyway, we hung out on "the ave" and were locally known as "ave rats" - teens - usually rocker to goth - that have nothing better to do than sit on a wall and watch the people with jobs scurry around. so a lot of times we would go to see the midnight movies at the neptune theater - usually b movies that were old - but they usually showed 2 movies so it got you in out of the night for about 3 - 4 hours and then it was only about another hour till the busses were running again and we could get home. this one night we decided to go see the midnight shows - it was eraserhead ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eraserhead ) and freaks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freaks ). i have to tell you - i still vividly remember the movies - and i still have nightmares with bits and peices of them in my dream state. who knew that old movies could be so disturbing???
anyway, that is enough of that for today :)
peace and luv
laura

trip to bremerton

ok, so this is a photo of seattle - but it is from on the ferry going into bremerton. i have always and will always love how the seattle skyline looks from the ferry. so i went to bremerton saturday to see if i could find josh and katrina. they live with her parents but are always out and about - and dont have a phone so that i can contact them. well we (me, my sister and her hubby) got there only to find out that josh is in jail and katrina was not home - probably out trying to get into the jail and see josh. so we chatted with her parents (the first time i met them) for a while then headed out to help david find his costume as they had a party saturday night as well as one on halloween. by the time i got home i could barely move. jesse met me at the bus stop with the walker, but once i reach a certain point the walker doesnt really help much. so it is monday and i am out from work once again (had the flu three days last week) to go see the dr and talk about pain management and disability. also to get a note for work if i am going back at all. i really want to say i am still able to work, but the few days i have done have been pure hell for me. it is time to admit that i need disability and just get everything set up and be done with it.
anyway, will know more later today,
peace and luv
laura

Thursday, October 22, 2009

happy me

well i have been out sick from work for two days now with what seems to be the flu. of course everyone including the dr says just stay at home. so since i can only lay in bed for so long before it starts hurting my back/legs more than usual, i decided to try to find cousins and second cousins on facebook. i mean it couldnt hurt right? so i found a lot of them and have recieved friend add's from 4 of them so far. 2 cousins on my dad's side, a second cousin on my dad's side and a second cousin on my mom's side. hopefully more will roll in. it is interesting seeing photos of people that i have either not met or not seen since i was like 10 and then it was only a day or two. so - usually my adventures are more in the death area of the family tree but this week it is the life area and i am really excited to get to know my relatives that live far away. so story for today --- my grandpa jim, my dad's dad, was a great and wonderful man. i am sure he had his faults, but living 2000 plus miles away from him, i didnt really get to see them. anyway, when he was about 70 he rode a motorcycle from florida up to kentucky or maryland. alone. and i remember when he told me about it i was angry at him for being risky like that. not that he rode a motorcycle, but that he didnt have at least one riding partner on a long trip like that. i mean you never know when an accident will happen and it is best to ride with a friend. he passed away a few years later, and i still miss him and my grandma edna. we might not have gotten to see each other very much in my life, but we did write quite often.
anyway, that is it for today,
peace and luv,
laura

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

busses are fun

so going back to work for me means a lot of time spent either riding or waiting for busses. and while I know most of t friends don't understand how I can live without a car, having never had one I don't miss it. and you can meet such interesting people on the bus. whether you want to or not lol. most people just avert their eyes or read - pretend they are alone on a bus. but then there are the colorful people that talk to anyone or the drunks that cannot shut up even though everyone is avoiding eye contact. and then there is usually a group of regulars that will sit together and talk about their life and work and just stuff. I always like to just sit back and watch the people. anyway posting from my phone on the bus - peace and luv - laura

Sunday, October 18, 2009

fall colors

some pretty fall colors for today. not sure what this all looks like now that we have had several days of wind and rain but perhaps since it is not raining today i will go check it out.
peace and luv
laura



Saturday, October 17, 2009

sometimes you learn something ....


that you deep down already knew. it just dawned on me that a "sister" from my family due to being in foster care with my sister's parents is actually blood related....... she is my sister's adopted brother's kid's mother's half sister. ok did everyone get all that?? :) today i am sharing a photo of me, my brother and my cousins in 1971. from left to right Jeff 9 years old (cousin), Johnny 2 years old (cousin), Carolyn 7 years old (cousin) holding Jeremy 1 year old (brother) and Laura 3 years old(me). we all grew up together spending lots of vacation time together and I have such fond memories of going to my aunt and uncle's house and their cabin. so instead of a story today life lessons: what i learned from Jeff - if you are on a tall guys shoulders duck when going through a doorway even if they say no you are clear. what i learned from Carolyn - everyone needs a makeover sometimes even barbie. what i learned from Johnny - sometimes being older has it's advantages. what i learned from Jeremy - sometimes being younger has it's advantages. something i hope we all learned together - family is forever.
well that is it for today,
peace and luv,
laura

Finally the weekend!!

ok i cannot seem to load photos today - i think it is my internet connection!! anyway i will try back later. the rest of my week went ok at work. the more i work the more i think i need to apply for disability. this is really hard on my back and knees and my headaches are coming back with vision loss. so...... decisions to be made. still waiting on my nephew's baby to be born - due date is in 13 days so if she is a day late she will be a halloween baby!! :) that would be awesome - although even knowing she would have been early it would have been so cool if she had been born on my mom's birthday - but halloween is my aunt's birthday. anyway - off to my genealogy blog. then family tree stuff today.
peace and luv,
laura

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

ok so even every other day seems to be too much

work has been kicking my ass. i have basically just gotten up worked come home looked at my facebook/myspace and emails and gone to bed. it is just really hard on my body - a lot harder than i thought it would be. i really thought i would be ok as long as i had that 8 plus hours between my busses and waiting for busses. but i am not. so looking into disability at this point is going to be my best option i believe. i know that a lot of my family does not approve of my "using" disability. however, like the one commercial says - you have paid into it all your life and if you now cannot work you are entitled to it. anyway enough of that. so i have been looking into getting certified as a genealogist. i think that would be awesome, but i have a long way to go first. in the meantime i can still professionally do other peoples family trees just as an uncertified genealogist. family tree stuff.... not so much as i have been working and then sleeping and that is about it. story..... hmm i think i am gonna pass on doing a story today, perhaps i will come back later today and put one on here.
peace and luv
laura

work is kicking my ass!!!

so yeah work is kicking my ass. my knees are hurting and my back is killing me. i am home today because i had a migraine with vision loss - another sign of my back/neck hurting. so i am catching up on blogs and art and such. i talked to my sister today and we are going to go look at a low income apartment complex in port townsend this weekend since they dont have a wait list. i am thinking disability is what my only option is at this point since i couldnt even make it through week one - but i have not quit my job, nor am i planning to - yet. i will see what happens the rest of this week and into next week. so today photos from mt olivet cemetery in renton, wa. i am loving my cemetery explorations right now.
this is just a beautiful angel

a rosary and something that is now broken


really old headstones with roots moving them (where the zombies come out)

peaceful tree over a memorial bench


ever look down and see your own name????

well that is all for today
peace and luv
laura

Friday, October 9, 2009

time keeps on slippin.............

ok so not everyone is old enough to know that is a steve miller band song - go on look it up lol so i have been getting little bits here and there from my stepsister about the friend part of the family tree. so i have been busy researching some random members as well as adding the new information. also, it seems that one person that was a match on ancestry.com is not the correct person so now i need to research this person more. i also got a 6 month contract position and will have to put this back to hobby instead of spending so many hours a day on it as i have been. but that is ok. a job is a good thing. so story for today........ hmmm........ when my son was little we had wonderful next door neighbors. mark and michelle and their two girls amanda and kaylee. it worked out very nicely that we all got along because at that time i decided i was ready to go from being a stay at home mom to working again. i worked an early shift at my job because most of our customers were in texas not washington and my mom worked a later shift at her job because she was a night person and that worked better for her. so we only needed someone to sit with jesse for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evenings. michelle volunteered to do this and i didnt have to pay because we bartered - she watched jesse during the week (and any school holidays) and i watched their girls on saturday nights so that they could have date night. so during the summer they were going camping and wanted to take jesse. it was really the first time he had been away from me for any amount of time. but i let him go. so four days later they bring him home and pretty much he hops out, they kinda throw his stuff out and back up -- waving and saying out the window we will talk to you in a while. i thought they just really wanted to get home and shower - i know i would have since i am not the camping kind. but no, they knew that they brought jesse home with a skinned up leg. he was skateboarding on a gravel hill and crashed and burned!! so i took him in the house and disinfected him, called mark and michelle - who explained they knew i would freak out since i was so over protective lol - and got the story. looking back, not a big deal. but at the time i was totally freaked out!!
well that is it for today, have a lot to do today since it is my last day not working really. i will do my best to keep up the blog, but as we all know too well in this economy work comes first.
peace and luv.
laura

happy birthday mom

so yesterday i was just too busy to get to this. i got a 6 month contract job and had to go fill out all the paperwork for it in seattle and decided to go to the metro place and get my monthly pass and happy me it turned out that i could not only get october but november too. now i am good on the bus until december. so being raised with a catholic mother and grandmother and knowing my guilt just too much :) you get several photos!! also, today would have been my mom's 63rd birthday. i miss her so much still but am back to where i feel i can not only live life but enjoy it again. so, with this job starting next week, my blogging will have to move to the evenings and i might not be able to keep it up daily, but at least every other day i think i can handle.
hope you enjoy,
peace and luv,
laura
images are in reverse order of how they happened :)
the light bar from the police car at the transit center 10/8

pigeons roosting at the transit center 10/8

fall colors reflected in a window 10/8

the space needle - from outside where i did my paperwork 10/8

the moon still out at mid morning 10/8

fall colors 10/8

fall colors 10/8

perfect sunset 10/7

accident by my house 10/7

accident by my house 10/7