'Tis The Season !

And it truly is. There isn't any snow on the ground around here and we are not expecting any, but there still are signs that it is Christmas time. We have put up some of our holiday decorations and will even put up a few more this weekend.

Actually, the weather is beautiful at times during the day -- like today it is sunny, bright but a little cool and getting windy (which we have learned is dangerous).

On the front page of our local paper today -- The Press-Democrat -- was the above picture which pretty much sums up the season for thousands of folks in our area. (photo by Derek Coleman)

This Santa Rosa family posed in front of the remaining chimney of their leveled home. How awful must it be to recall rosier times experienced in that same location.

Of the thousands of lots now being cleared, many families have chosen to sell the land and start over someplace else -- some in California and some in other states.

Unfortunately, Southern California is going through the horrors of the wildfires right now, just as we did in the past couple of months.

It will take several years for neighborhoods to rebuild and families to begin establishing their residences and for sure never forgetting the nightmares of October 2017.

It is somewhat embarrassing to relate the next story, though there is a relationship in timing due to the wildfires here locally.  Gail & I opened  had installed an early Christmas gift.  The project was delayed a few times because we were not sure if we would have a home or if our part of the town would be "gone".

Fortunately, we do have a home and this last week the delayed project was completed:

We now have what I describe as an "indoor hot-tub" -- actually it is one of those "walk-in" tubs that you see all the time on TV. We have tried it out and it is "NICE" and as we get more accustomed to it I'm sure we will say "we couldn't live without it" . . .

There are some things to adjust to though -- like running out of hot water while in the filling stage. Also setting aside the time necessary to have a relaxing experience is part of day planning.

And, Dino is not sure what we are doing as we have mostly been "shower" people. The warm and bubbly hydrotherapy action was really soothing with the after-glow satisfying as well.

I can no longer say "that I haven't had a bath in years . . ." and who knows, maybe later today I'll even have another one.

So, while parts of three days this week were devoted to overseeing the tub install, parts of two days were spent going to the post office with a load of packages.

It actually was not "that" bad with respect to the lines. In years past, there have been lines "out the door".  Lines were only three or four deep this last week.

I think that we are done with having to mail things via the post office for this year. Any other things will be directly sent by the company -- most likely Amazon.


Receiving packages this week also took up a fair amount of time as well.

This year the main delivery companies are working hard to make sure all packages get to their destinations before Christmas.

Since Christmas falls on a Monday, this puts pressure on deliveries to happen often by the Friday before. Though there will be deliveries happening on Saturday and Sunday as needed and as paid extra for . . .

Since we have deliveries on a lot of our basics as well as gifting purchases we have accumulated a "ton" of cardboard boxes. I keep a lot of them for a while "just in case", but am under pressure to get rid of them -- which I'll do probably at the first of the year.

Sadly, in the realm of genealogy, I was looking forward to the "Finding Your Roots" episode that featured Garrison Keillor.

Per an article in Dick Eastman's blog, shown on the right, I learned that that episode has been pulled.

I can't imagine what recourse some of these folks have if they are truly innocent of the accusations.  In this case, I think there was only one accusation and it sounded like "something inadvertent" -- but then we don't know the realities of what went on.

I do not feel bad for the truly guilty and the repeat offenders at all. It is time to stop all that business of harassment.

And so, I'll work on expanding my genealogist Christmas Tree.

During the week I jump into Ancestry.com and start working on some of the thousands of "hints" that appear in the form of shaking leaves on the tree.

I regularly add folks during the week and many times have deleted both duplicates and sometimes "wrong" folks from the tree.

Since I now have thousands of folks in that tree there is always an abundance of shaky leaves to check out.

And I look for photos of the folks as well. There is a great deal of satisfaction in putting a face to a name.

And this week again I have been sent a large number of DNA matches -- I can hardly keep up tracking them.


And so, that was a bit of our week. See you all "in a few" !