One's life in pictures

An interesting discussion yesterday in my blog about the photo albums - interesting for me at least. When we returned from our trips overseas I would create a powerpoint presentation to show our children what we had seen and where we had been. I didn't really notice at the time until much later in our traveling sprees that Edward was going over those presentations time and again enjoying them. He had asked me to put all of the pictures into the presentation and give them to him (I just did a short version to present to the children) and I had done that and accidentally one day whilst I was working away on his DNA extractions from Ancestry I found something really interesting and went in to his man cave and told him. I discovered he had out one of the boxes we had put together of items we purchased (mostly him I am not really a buyer) and was looking at one of the slide sets and bringing out what had been purchased and reliving in essence the trip once again. He would have liked to have gone every year I think to Europe after our first trip. But I found a trip every couple of years was more doable so that I could still get my own work done. It was a lot of work to prepare to go (I wanted to see everything around the hotels where we stayed) and then a lot of work to do when we got home again with preparing the slide presentation and putting together the box to remind us of the trip (and I thought I was doing that for our children actually). Anyway he did really enjoy those trips overseas even more than his trips across Canada and the United States. As it turned out going to Mexico proved to be a real highlight as well although initially he didn't really want to go there ever but our children were going for a wedding of a sibling and he just wanted to be there with them. 

More work on the photo albums today and the Siderfin book. I did not hear back as to whether or not the Church would like the presentations for their 50th but I am like a ghost from the past likely and the future does determine how things flow. I sent it to the person (via the church as I did not know his email - he retired) who had done our wills years ago and then I had him do mine again (twice actually as I felt the first was too specific) so twice the cost but one must be organized. Since it was Edward's work the children will enjoy having the portability of that presentation as well so I would have done it anyway.

Thanksgiving Dinner was most enjoyable, my eldest and I spent perhaps four hours during the preparation time for the meal, the actual meal and then our usual evening chat and so the celebration went on separated by a couple of thousand miles. Interesting what modern technology gives to you. My father would have loved to have spent a Christmas with his relatives in England via such a method. Crossing the Atlantic was enough for him as a child; he never really wanted to do a return trip and he never flew. It just wasn't something he wanted to do. But the marvels of modern technology are a treat for old people really. 

Cleaning day again today and it is the main floor. Yesterday I finished off the red paint that I wanted to do. I painted the post at the bottom of the stairs. I just have to touch up the banister with  stain as it has worn over the years. I could paint the basement floor once again as we did going on 47 years ago but I suspect I will not do that. I will leave it clean and mostly painted within the last few years but other than that changes are not something I do. It doesn't really interest me and Edward had a lot of fun putting in the extra details that interested him. 

Last night the moon was bright but did not see the second moon (the first was probably too bright plus the view is obscured by the trees). As it turns out I do love the trees and the tradeoff is not that great - one does get the shade they offer in the summer. In the winter the viewing is better and perhaps we will get the telescope out again to have a look at the universe through the winter when the trees are bare and the visibility considerably better except for the bright lights of the city. 

It is early; just before 6 a.m. and 4 degrees celsius. The day begins and lots to do as always. Breakfast and then latin and then cleaning for this day in God's world. Blessed for the God of Creation and may we always remember that He is the Judge of all; not ourselves. We must judge in order to protect society from those who would do ill but the final judgement is made by God.

I see Russia has opened Pandora's Box - North Korean soldiers fighting in Ukraine

 Not surprising but sad really as wars heat up in our world; Russia is using North Korean soldiers (not mercenaries, actually military of another belligerent country) to fight in Ukraine. To me a line is crossed, anything goes now and it is Russia, as usual, in their greedy land stealing way trying to commit genocide against the Ukrainian people because they do not want to be Russian; they already have a citizenship that suits them. But it is all one person, a dictator, the psychopathic Nazi Putin and his enablers and how did he become a dictator? One might ask. People let him do it; they gradually gave up their freedoms for his smiles and promises of a better life. All the while he turned the police services of the country against their own people which  is unbelievable that anyone would think it was okay to beat the youth of a country just for disagreeing. He did it with his smiles and promises of a better life. He failed Russia; dictators always do that look at what Hitler did to Germany. At the end Hitler hated the Germans for not winning the war for him and he put the German children on the walls of Berlin to defend the city - what a sick coward.

As for Iran, they deserve anything that Israel hits them with but I agree Israel should not attack the nuclear facilities or the oil facilities because of the environmental damage not because I feel any sympathy for Iran. They are a Satanist country dedicated to the eradication of everyone that isn't born Muslim in this world. Are you listening Russia? Eventually evil turns on everything that doesn't do exactly what it wants.

This is secular thanksgiving celebrated every year in Canada on the second Monday in October. Generally the trees have all changed colour and it is beautiful out there but this year the trees are still green somewhat; starting to change but  not nearly as far along as usual. The seasons have definitely changed. Is it forever or will we return to our usual succession of the seasons? Hard to say I guess; life has changed drastically since I was a young child but in some ways the weakness of man has returned as they take to the battlefield attacking their neighbours. The sickness that seems to be part of the makeup of some of the world population once again brings the world to the brink of annihilation. Russia threatening with nuclear weapons knowing the use of them is their own demise but it is called a bully standoff here (interesting really). Retaliation is swift and sweet and for those who wait for the Apocalypse a hint of seeing God and Jesus and the Holy Word incarnate in one God once again. That idea dominates part of the American culture and is seen in movies and music time and time again. 

Yesterday the second powerpoint project was started and consists of converting the family photo albums into presentations. These albums represent our life as a family starting back in the mid 1960s and continuing right up until the early 2000s. You can tell when we went anywhere and any special family activities that occurred throughout that time frame. I know that Edward loving putting them together and the girls when they were young would sit with him whilst he did that. But they are cumbersome and the way we live nowadays doesn't really make it practical to maintain the storage area that they require. That was why, of course, Edward stopped making them around 2002. Or perhaps he was sad that his eldest had gone off to do her PhD and his youngest was half way through university. They weren't his adoring little daughters who worshiped his every move at least it probably didn't feel like that. When they were here they were very attentive to him which he loved but that was not quite so frequent these days and when he retired his best friend became the bunny that he actually didn't really want us to buy. But after I went off to work each day they would spend the day together and he rather got attached to that bunny - Peter Rabbit. Finally after eight years the bunny attached himself to Edward as well having during the preceding time mostly avoided him but would jump on his papers just to annoy him I think. 

So today is a special day and a special meal usually in my youth. It was always a family gathering with so many people there when I was young and until I married and after as we came with our food donation to spend the day with my parents and siblings and their offspring (and ours). It will be Chicken Stew, my favourite, and I shall share the dinner time on Skype with my daughter. 

No work on the Siderfin book yesterday but will do that this afternoon likely. This morning cleaning day and it is the basement. I want to continue moving the summer shoes over to the rack that I brought in for that purpose. Today I shall clean the wooden bookcases of stuff just to keep the dust down. Must get outside and do some work; a little more frost perhaps and then the cutting down can begin.

Thanksgiving Sunday

Yesterday's post was really rambling I noticed through the day when I did some editing. Generally I am a one topic person but a whole lot of ideas are running around in my brain at the moment as I try to make decisions on these binders and other items. The binders occupy a large section of a couple of bookcases and eventually those bookcases will have other items to store as I continue to downsize. Perhaps it is my 79 years and that is why I was rambling. Interesting really. 

Thanksgiving Sunday and another bountiful harvest year. We are blessed with this earth by God. Although I do not really consider myself a gardener I do like to see the growing cycle which is part of the normal life around me. If needed I do help to work the ground because that is an important task in our life to help mother earth to produce the best that she is able.

 The theme of this Sunday's Service Church of England at the Church of St Peter in the Parish of St Helier in Jersey is "What do you Treasure?" I shall attend shortly. I think that my own Church Christ Church Cathedral is no longer having online Sunday services when I look at the website. It was nice that the services kept up after COVID but I can understand that it was a huge commitment to keep it going. I have attended two PWRDF services this past couple of weeks which have been most interesting and prayerful. When I do move I want to be close enough to walk to my Church. There are a lot of Anglican Churches in the area. Edward loved going to the Cathedral; I think it was the anonymity that appealed to me most but gradually he joined me in that experience of just thanking God for all that he does and praying that we would work harder to repair the world from climate change. 

Breakfast completed and Latin will be next. 

The Siderfin Book now 121 pages and I am on Page 41 indexing and revising. Not quite half way but coming along. When I finish the tenth generation I do not have any notes just charts and that will be much quicker following that.

What a beautiful service. I had forgotten that the Church Army is part of the Church of England in England. As a child I used to go to Salvation Army services with my maternal grandmother. She knitted outfits for newborns to go in packages for northern communities and that was prepared by the Salvation Army. Although I am Anglican I do love the music of the various other denominations. I especially love the Latin hymns mostly sung in the Roman Catholic Church but as a child in the choir we did learn a few that we sang. But the theme was discussed in a beautiful homily - What do you Treasure? For me it is my friendship with God. I love my family but my friendship with God has always come first in my mind from childhood; once my children were grown (as they came first as children and I felt commanded to put them first at all times). But I do not own my children; I want them to be free to be themselves to go where ever they want and do whatever works for them in their lives. But for me the day begins loving God and ends loving God and all through the day. He has given the world so much and we must help Him to do His work in the world. There are many different ways that God is worshiped by many different theologies including the Christian to which I belong as an Anglican, and Islam, Judaism, Creationists. I do  know there are many other theologies but I do not know if they are centred on God. I will be honest about that; I do lack knowledge of other theologies than the ones that I mentioned. What I know of Islam I learned from some residents that I worked with at the hospital. I have not read the Koran in its entirety. God reaches out in His own way through the centuries and we have to be but willing to hear what He has to say. What a wonderful way to have spent this part of Sunday for sure.

What we need is

 What we need is a doorbell that can be shut off whenever you want it shut off. Now a days who buys anything at the door? Who wants to have people shopping their wares at the door? I suspect pretty much no one. You just go on line discover where the product is you want and go and buy it. You can always drop brochures in the mailbox. I sort them out and put the junk in the recycling pretty much immediately. Unless I want something I am not going to read all of that literature but then I am old and really how much input do I have into society other than my surname studies which still generate 100 emails a day mostly thanking me for what I have put up on line. So far no one disagrees with my thoughts which in some ways is a disappointment as it means they have not looked at more documents than I have. However, the future lies ahead for others to do exactly what I did, revise the existing information if it needs it; I suspect it will always need updating over time. 

Of course the other input is that I do vote; I pay taxes and I am vocal on my blog if anyone reads it (and I do know some do as I receive emails from them but mostly this is for my family one day if they want to read it). I watched as the Fire Department had to break into a house a few doors away in order to make sure the firewall had held against the fire next door to it. So I did the obvious thing and made sure that at least one neighbour knew if I was away and they have my contact phone number which works. I can do the same when they are away.

My latest realization about Edward was that he wanted to be remembered into the future and we are trying to do that with our memorial donations for him. For me it is a sort of vague thing as slipping into anonymity has always been my aim in life and I continue to pursue that. But Edward liked to be known for what he could do and perhaps the reason was the loss of his father at the age of two and no one really talking about him as he grew up. It was something that he felt a bit sad about that this man who had cared for him; loved him was completely and totally gone in his memory and so he took on all sorts of things to let him feel what his father felt in life which is a good aim I think in one's life. Because I grew up with both parents and many siblings I never had those kinds of feelings of loss although two of my grandparents were deceased long before I was born but the two remaining grandparents talked about their spouses to me a great deal in my young childhood and in the case of my grandmother way into my teenage years so I had a concrete picture of these people although having it I never really thought about it until my cousin wanted this profile of the Pincombe family. And so I set my mind to the task of remembering all those things from childhood and it worked; sometimes I still dream about my grandparents and talking to me which is sort of funny but shows the strength of the subconscious mind I think. That is the strength of civilization; this remembering from one generation to the next particularly the goodness of that generation.

My newest venture is putting all those images (thousands and thousands of them) into powerpoint presentations instead of having  all those family binders from the mid 1960s (when we married) until Edward stopped making binders of printed family pictures in the early 2000s. That is a lot of binders and the indexes are absolutely superb and complete. Who would of thought one might get rid of the binders; probably not me I am a bit reluctant in that area as it was something that still lives and breathes Edward and when I took my vows all those years ago at our marriage it included taking care of him the rest of my days and somehow his items that he cherished have taken on that sort of a vow. So it is hard to pry them out of my hands in actuality. But I have begun that task and will regretfully let them go in order to make it possible for me to move sometime in the future. I can see now that I have the same reaction every time when my health is somewhat affected like by cataract surgery. Really it was a simple surgery but there is always a recovery time and like the recovery time after Edward passed, my first thought was I need to downsize and move to a smaller place. I do need to do that eventually but next summer not likely more likely the summer after or perhaps the summer after that. More grass  will help; grass is definitely easier to manage.

Some work on the Siderfin book yesterday and will continue that venture and I am on Page 32 which is a good sign and the book remains at 123 pages but the indexes will need to be added to that eventually and some of the charts may extend to two in order to improve their legibility. 

I am also working on the album from the mid 1983s to early 1984. I have found all the pictures and just setting up the template to put these pictures into a powerpoint presentation so that they can be viewed and a decision made on whether that is the way to go. The binder weighs perhaps 2 kilos give or take whereas the file that I create has pretty much zero weight and occupies a spot on the hard drive. It does mean over time eventually it could disappear but on the other hand the files that were created will eventually decay and if one enjoys these powerpoint presentations than the tendency to upgrade them regularly to newer systems does exist and somewhere down the line if indeed my line extends into the future there will be descendants who could enjoy looking at their ancient relatives. I have pictures as far back as my 2x great grandparents and Edward managed to find pictures for his going back to the third great grandparents level as well as paintings of some of them in colonial times. I do not think any paintings exist of any of my ancestors; they were basically small farmers  way back in time and any pictures back in time have disappeared from view plus I tend to be descendant of younger sons in most lines (the spares and I think it significant that it is in this past fifty years or so that all families haven't thought of their younger children as spares in reality). But smaller families have that result now a days and it is only in royal lines that a "spare" really becomes apparent and noticeable. That in itself is an interesting thought. 

On to the day it is nearly 7:00 a.m. and I have been up since about 6:10 a.m. as I overslept (usually I am awake just before six.

An interesting experience

 I was standing in line checking out my groceries (I prefer to use the cashier) when a woman came along and sort of pushed her cart at me implying she wanted to go before me. I consider that very rude and I said sorry but not doing that but the woman behind let her in (which was nice of her and she was quite chatty and would have enjoyed the conversation). Although this person had just a couple of things in their cart I could have done it but really there were five check out counters in the self checkout available and myself I would have just used one of them instead of inconveniencing someone who has stood in line waiting. I had waited through several large grocery orders and mine  was not actually that large. I was done in less than four minutes.  Really one shouldn't assume that you will be let in as everyone has schedules and is busy. I would always go to the end of the line myself; I am not one to ask for favours especially not in a busy grocery store. Mind you I would always let a young woman or man with young children go before me for sure. We old people need to be able to fend for ourselves really.  Interesting really dealing with people since the pandemic.