Rest in peace Holy Father

Today the entombment of the Holy Father Pope Francis at Santa Maria Maggiore near to the statue of Mary, mother of Jesus. The Bible Reading today from John 20: 19-31 tells us the story of Thomas - Doubting Thomas as he was called. Francis was one of those who believed without seeing and worked his entire adult life to improve the lives of his flock which gradually grew to include the entire world. He loved everyone. Rest in peace Holy Father. 

Yesterday good accomplishment on the matches. I found one truly idyllic one - a descendant of one of  my 2x great grandfather's siblings. A gift amongst just the normal matches that I have. These matches are gold in my phasing program as they are known to me and they generally match several of us at the same locations with good lengths (these lines have endogamy so they tend to be large matches even when they are fourth cousins). Perhaps in the 300 plus matches I will have maybe one to two dozen that I can pinpoint exactly in the lines that we share. There are now 50 in my unused folder but I have them labeled so that I can pull them up if ever I want to use them. For whatever reason they are incomplete simply because of the 1200 plus matches that I already have organized into my files.  

An interesting discussion on voting trends in ethnic groups yesterday on CBC. A mention that the Muslim community is moving towards the NDP. I found it interesting that their reason for doing so was lack of support for their genocide claim in Gaza from the Conservative and Liberal parties. The Liberals did provide a means for people to bring the children of Gaza here to protect them as we did in Canada during the Second World when children from the United Kingdom came here to live (I did not see any action to do that at all and it would  have needed to be the Muslim community doing that so the children would be comfortable so far from home; all that was needed was their DNA so that they could be readily returned to their families). The loss of those children who died will be mourned for a very long time. They were the fruit of the earth lost much too early. Hamas it does appear has raised the population of Gaza to support them no matter what Hamas does. Independence in thinking is important and that is what will solve the problem in Gaza that has been there for nearly four generations. The people of Gaza have land, interestingly the Rohingyas would love land and they would quickly farm it, industrialize it and make it work for their population they do not appear to be sitting there waiting to take revenge on their supposed losses (the UN was responsible for the redistribution of land in the Middle East in 1948). Instead the people in Gaza have nursed their supposed grievances against Israel through these generations attacking the small children of Israel in their school yards (since I was a child and I am nearly 80) and murdering them which culminated in the barbaric attack by Hamas on the Israeli peoples last 7 Oct 2023. The people of Gaza need to stop, look around and do something to produce a country instead of hating Israelis. The only genocide that exists is Hamas using the Palestinians for their own purpose and the Palestinians actually letting them (that is why there are nearly 50,000 Palestinians (and Hamas) dead from this war created by the Palestinian people who put Hamas in power in the first place). The people of Gaza have gained nothing and lost everything. They need to wake up, help eliminate Hamas literally and figuratively, free the hostages (keeping children hostage is so disgusting) and build a country that can be just as wealthy as Israel which they sit beside - same land. Amazingly, Israel would actually help them to create a great land for them to live upon.

Today, more matches to work on and more cleaning up outside. I will devote at least two one half hour sessions outside. Gardening has never been my thing ever but I do like order and neatness. 

For the first time in a few weeks I didn't walk up and buy a piece of fresh salmon but rather I opened a can of salmon and had a lovely salmon salad sandwich for my dinner along with peas and a tomato and cottage cheese. It was lovely and tonight will be a repeat as I can not eat an entire can of salmon myself. It is about the same price in terms of the amount of salmon whether it is fresh or canned. But it does me two meals so is quite reasonable costwise. Then chicken on Sunday and I will roast the four chicken thighs and have mashed turnip and mashed potatoes with it. The stew has been lovely but I just feel like something different. Then cold chicken for a couple of days (I can only eat one chicken thigh a day) and probably a salad using the left over turnip and potatoes and some of my frozen vegetables (Canadian produce). One does miss the lovely American fresh vegetables but life flows like that sometimes. 

I think perhaps today I will decide which wills to begin with. I would like to get that project completed as well. My husband and I used to chat about our projects. Mine were more in the beginning stages as I was relatively new to this idea of genealogy being more interested in the DNA side. His were wrapping up but I didn't realize that at the time - he talked like it was a project into the future but in reality he was wrapping things up to hand them over the people that could make use of them. He did not do that with his genealogy although he knew I did not have the training in American research to work on his family lines. But gradually I have found some homes for his work and the bulk of his library went to the Ontario Genealogical Society Ottawa Branch. The difference is huge. My set of books is in two small bookcases (and the rest in my head for the most part). I decided when I started into genealogy that it would be mostly on the computer which I back up very regularly. So the thousands of books we once had are no longer here. He had already started to downsize his library back in the early 2000s when he started his volunteer work with the Friends of Library and Archives Canada. That was something he kept up his entire time with the group I think about fourteen years actually. I started to go with him to make sure he did not do too much lifting back in 2012. I took on projects like the old school books which I put into the database - there were some real gems in the donations to the Friends. The cook books were something else that I just never could get into although did do some.  I did work on the history books to a certain extent but the four years that I was there passed quickly - it took a long time to do the text books actually there were so many (absolute gems all of them). It is fascinating to see what was taught to children in the 1800s.

The morning is advancing and my tea is complete. Must do my solitaire games next - my brain stimulation. Love Solitaire and it is a great gift of Microsoft to the world for sure in my eyes.