End of Week #28 . . . Still Hot

That's right -- twenty-eight weeks of the 52 for this year have gone by so far in 2017. It's day 196 so about 53.7% of the year has passed. And it is hot again (still). Today and tomorrow are projected to be over 100° and in the next two weeks the coolest day is somewhere around 90° . . .

We keep our fingers crossed for the a/c system and the ice maker (we've had to replace that twice already in five years).

The above flowers love the heat and four out of the five are found in our yard along with several others. The center flower is the Edelweiss and just the name alone brings emotional tugs.

I saw the Edelweiss when I visited my son in Germany many years ago. And of course the song in "The Sound of Music" is a keeper.

We continue to read every night before slumber strikes and this week we just finished "Driving Miss Norma" which is a book that we found very interesting to read.

Miss Norma was a 90-year-old woman who when given a terminal diagnosis had the option of traveling the country with her son and daughter-in-law in their RV or be hospitalized and go through chemotherapy and other measures.

She chose to go driving and she had wonderful adventures that are well documented throughout the book.

Now we started reading "Finding Gobi" and it relates the true story of a long distance runner who meets and befriends a little dog while running a mega marathon in the Gobi Desert.

We have only just begun the story and are finding it intriguing. Of course, we love dogs -- not so much fans of running marathons that are well over 100 miles in length (under 100 just fine) of course we are . . . we look forward to living the adventure along with "Gobi".

Unfortunately this week my son, Chris is at this moment in the ICU unit at Swedish Hospital (Cherry Hill Location) in Seattle.

He had brain surgery two days ago and has made it through this first stage and may face an additional surgery next week.

We are distraught over these developments and are so anxious to hear that he is mending.

Of course, I have not been able to talk with him and I  just get the briefest of updates as to his condition.

The next few days are critical as to keep him free of any infection or other things hampering his recovery. It is difficult to not be able to do things that might help him. Our hopes are in the hands of his doctors.

I did send the above flower arrangement to him for possibly a bright visual way of encouragement when he "comes to" from the surgery -- however, the ICU would not accept the floral gift.

We will keep a positive outlook for him in the coming days and weeks. Unfortunately, Seattle might as well be on the other side of the world as far as visiting. We have our own difficulties as to be free to travel . . .

I have managed to do some genealogy work this week, but only a little. As I have mentioned before genealogy is one way that I can escape any unfavorable aspects of daily life for a little while.

This week I have been struggling to deal with the above two programs, both of which have introduced new versions that offer new features. The main feature for me is the ability to "sync" the trees in each program with the tree that I maintain on Ancestry.com.

There is a learning curve for both programs and I have used FTM as my main program for years with RootsMagic as a good backup.

What I do generally is to work in Ancestry.com and then sync the tree in FTM and in RootsMagic.
Those actions take incredible skills on the part of the programming to make it happen.

I just need to spend more time getting the kinks worked out -- but once that is done -- what a great feature. But wait, there is more . . .

We still have been watching baseball and the Giants struggle this year.

What a difference to see the Giants almost lose every other game that they play.

Today, the Giants play the Padres. And MadBum (Madison Bumgarner) is slated to be the starting pitcher.

This will be his first game this year -- in the preseason he foolishly rode a dirt bike and fell off injuring his shoulder.

He has been in rehab ever since -- some think it may have finished his career -- but we will get an indication today when he steps onto the mound. The "snot-rocket" king will have a chance to prove that he is still "in-the-game".  We hope so.

Lastly, I know that I am not alone when I mention that working on family genealogy is a "lonely" hobby, but it comes with a ton of personal satisfaction for me. And so that keeps me working on the trees.

I happened to notice this question somewhere in my searching recently and I have to agree that almost never do I hear from family regarding any aspect of my searching.

I recall when I first started working on family history and I told my father about that and he replied: "Why would anyone want to do that?"  and that is another reason that I keep at it . . .

That is a bit of our week, see you all "in a few"!