Waiting for God

 A favourite serial that my husband and I watched years ago now. I think it was just after Edward retired as I was still working and setting aside time for the show was a priority in my mind since he enjoyed watching it so much. He loved being retired; he was so much better at it than I was although I was pretty busy mostly because of all of his activities. I did have plans for retirement - I was going to watch the videos that I had purchased through the years and they numbered in the thousands and now we have none because we gave them all to Salvation Army. I think that giving them items which they can resell is good; it gives purchasing power to many people who would struggle to pay the full price and yet they have stuff too. Some things though cannot be recycled quite so readily like the tomato support cages which were getting rusty - when the boy asked for them I assumed he would bring his parents back to check them out since he seemed to want them but didn't take them with him. When I brought the garbage can in yesterday morning they were gone so assume they have picked them up. 

They were there earlier when I took out the recyclable food waste. I like to take my frozen food waste out in the morning so that it stays frozen part way through the day in the heat. Mind you I only have about one 2 litre milk container full a week. In the winter I eat mostly frozen vegetable or leave the skins on like potatoes etc when I cook them in my favourite chicken stew. My other activities planned for my retirement included smocking dresses to sell at the Church Bazaar at Christ Church Cathedral as well as knitting little sweaters, hats and booties for babies. My grandmother had done that and she made lovely sweater/legging sets for baskets that went to northern communities in Canada (I think that was the Salvation Army; my uncle was quite active in the Salvation Army). Instead in 2003 my cousin George DeKay asked me to write a Profile for my Pincombe family to put into the Westminster/Delaware History Book and completely changed the direction of my retirement as it turned out. Watching/helping Edward find information on his early American ancestors (most arrived in the 1600s) had not led me to do the same with my ancestors mostly because I knew who many of them were and it wasn't really until the use of DNA to look at male and female (yDNA and mtDNA) lines that my interest perked up. I was interested in my deep ancestry for sure. Most of my concentration is in DNA for my lines with four of my six siblings and myself tested at pretty much every testing service some here and some there but not in every for all five of us except FT DNA.

Yesterday, I vacuumed the basement collecting up all the dog hair until the next time. Although they do not come very often. This was a special twelve day stay and I must admit it was not easy for me in my old age to look after two large dogs. But they were good and helpful; always lifting their feet up to be washed and dried. They ate very well and slept very well. Their running competitions in the yard were fun to watch. The one dog is seven and the other is three I think but still considered a pup in her breed. 

I am into the 9th generation now with the Siderfin Family and in total I did 12 generations and will not take this companion book beyond the 12th generation either. We are into census and other tools so one should be able to get back to the 12th generation fairly readily.  

Other than that this is the last day of August and it is raining so I guess I will not do more bricks in the laneway today. Too bad but gardening is not a favourite task. I will be spending a lot of time though out there clearing away but mostly I will leave all the foliage to rot under the snow as that worked very well last year but there will be some that goes. I am realizing now that I moved my desk about a metre further away from the window which does make it look like the sky is less visible; forgot that. Really another year in this vantage point the sky will be covered by trees out this window if I am still here that is. I love the trees but it is also wonderful to see the sky. The wind blowing slightly in the trees tells us God is near watching and wondering will Homo sapiens ever find peace. I think so many of us want that it is a blight on the existence of Homo sapiens to have some people (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis funded by Iran and Russia trying to steal Ukraine) who make constant trouble in the world purely for selfish reasons  especially for money. 

Breakfast completed; Latin completed and I appear to be staying in the promotion zone to go to the Diamond League. I actually preferred the Obsidian League but we will see if I can stay in the Diamond League this time. I have used a different style of learning from my first time into Duolingo - I bought a membership as well which I think is very helpful. Certainly worth the $95.99 (Canadian) over a twelve month period. Just a quarter a day really to learn Latin and I will soon start reviewing my French and particularly my conversational. I am looking forward to that plus it will help me with my son in law's genealogy which goes back to the very beginnings of the French settlements in North America.