Even though the temperature is around 90 I found the need to "do" a pot of chili. Nothing really helps me to focus more than creating a large pot of my favorite fixin's. And each time it is a little different and each time I think it will take less than the two hours of the previous times -- but it never does.
While chopping and stirring and choosing ingredients my mind wanders to the current searches that I am involved with on different genealogy sites. The two activities thus become interrelated in a weird way. In both activities I lose myself while actively heading toward my goal at hand.
Along the way I continually taste and am rewarded with what I'm looking for . . . with each pot I'm fairly certain that it is the best ever and with each find in the "tree" that find is the current "best ever" and encourages me to keep at it.
Recently my goal in genealogy is to seek out and find "tidbits" relating to the lives of my family. Just like the pot of chili, there are so many combinations possible. This week for example, my brother sent me a piece of information regarding insight into the life of my Great Grandfather, Captain Samuel Martin of Racine, Wisconsin. He was a captain on Lake Michigan and the article detailed the events surrounding the many ships under his command -- most were catastrophic and sheds light on how hard his life must have been.
Throwing that into the pot I stirred it along with discoveries of some daily activities of a cousin of mine who happened to be Governor of California 100 years ago -- James Norris Gillett, of Viroqua, Wisconsin. And so it goes stirring the pot each time with slightly different ingredients hopefully arriving at a satisfactory result -- so far so good -- but there is a long way to go and hopefully many more "pots" to stir.
From the greener leaves: the travelers to Portland have returned home along with stories of "whooping cough" not good . . . birthday celebrations this week include Chris (today) who turns the magical 39 and continues to enjoy the great Northwest (Seattle area), Dayton here in town who turned 17 a couple of days ago and even the Auggster turns 10 -- can you believe it?
What's for lunch, dinner, maybe a bowl or two of red . . .
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