The Quest

If I won the lottery I'd open a genealogy shop. Sometimes I just want something that represents my interest in family research, but when I try to shop for fun things online there's no really cool central place to get these things. You can go to etsy or zazzle and find things that individuals have made... and then you can find some really dated looking things on other random websites. But wouldn't it be great to have a shop (both online and in real life... maybe Downtown Grapevine?) that carries all things genealogy? Books, scrapbooking, software, t-shirts, jewelry, etc.? And even a research room where people could come to get started? And a meeting room where the genealogical society can meet? This would be the greatest thing!! Wonder how much that would cost to get started? I don't figure it would be profitable, but if I won the lottery I wouldn't need the money... right? *sigh* If only...

I think it's highly inconsiderate to post a picture on Find-A-Grave when someone else has already claimed it and not tell them that you did. So today I go out in the rain to get a picture of a headstone that was requested in Bear Creek Cemetery. I claimed it the day the request was posted. Today is three days later. You are asked to take pictures within two weeks of the day you claim them. When I get to the cemetery (which, by the way, was NOT on my way to anywhere today), I pull up the Find-A-Grave site on my phone to verify the name and vital stats of the person I'm looking for. And what to my wondering eyes did appear... but two photos of said person's grave! Thanks, Todd Peters (contributor #47844210). If you had taken a moment to just shoot me a message saying you'd already taken care of it, I could have saved myself a rainy trip! OR even post the pictures through the "fulfill" link on the request. Common courtesy: a thing of the past. Rant over.

Obesity. This particular issue is something that hits close to home for me. Not only have I been overweight all my life, but many of my family members and friends are as well. As I look back on my life, I can point to several instances in which I was insulted for my weight. I have often been told that I would be happier and healthier if I was thin. And there's no shortage of messages that tell me (and everyone else in the world) that fat is bad and thin is good. But in reality, fat is just a description, not an indictment. I'm brunette, with blueish eyes, and lots of fat. Recently, I have become aware of a group of people called "Fat Activists" who are working hard to convince the world that fat is okay... That fat people are people too... That "declaring war" on obesity is declaring war on actual people. It's the new [old] discrimination. In fact, it's one of the few ways in which the general population thinks it's okay to discriminate. Some...

"Mawage. Mawage is what bwings us togevah today...." Okay so maybe no one else finds a Princess Bride  quote appropriate. But... marriage is what has brought me to this blog today. I'm going to try to make this one short and sweet. Republicans: "We believe that... marriage, the union of one man and one woman must be upheld as the national standard." Democrats:  "We support the full inclusion of all families, including same-sex couples, in the life of our nation, and support equal responsibility, benefits, and protections." There's no question where the political parties stand on gay marriage.  There is some question as to where Christians stand. I know a lot of Christians who support gay rights. And I know even more  who don't. This one... I don't really even have to think about because I already know what I think (and you probably do too). Here's why I support gay marriage: Christian marriage is supposed to be about one pe...

One of the tenets of the RNC platform is an embrace of American Exceptionalism. American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is different from other countries in that it has a specific world mission to spread liberty and democracy. There is quite a lot in the RNC platform statement on this point... it covers everything from fighting wars to supporting veterans to being involved in human rights issues around the globe. When I first heard that American Exceptionalism was a tenet of the RNC platform, I balked. Why? Because I think many people in the United States think they are better than everyone else in the world... and this belief is rooted in exceptionalism. ( Read more about the concept... ) We are better because we are the experts on democracy and liberty and everyone should just do everything our way. It is this belief that drives us to invade other countries for the presumed purpose of freeing them from evil dictators... whether they want to be freed or not. ...

There is a lot of talk about taxes.... tax breaks for the poor, the middle class, for the wealthy, for corporations. I couldn't even begin to decipher the tax code, the economics of national debt, the pros and cons of the Democratic or Republican economic theories. (I could give it more effort than I have, but numbers bore me and it's not a priority to me, as I'll explain further in a moment). But I would hazard a guess that both parties have a hefty percentage of factual information laced with an equally hefty percentage of spin. I don't believe that either party has the solution to all of our economic and financial "woes" or that either is going to have the magic formula that will make everyone else happy. The thing that struck me while I was listening to the speakers at the RNC was how much of the rhetoric was about money, economics, wealth, prosperity. I wouldn't say that these are exclusively American values, but they are distinctly American. Some...

Abortion has been at the forefront of social debates for as long as I can remember... my entire lifetime, for sure. Most people separate this debate into two sides: Pro-Choice and Pro-Life. But what is one to do if they are both  pro-choice and pro-life? In fact, my faith tells me that God is both pro-choice and pro-life. I would venture to say God is pro-choice because he* - to a fault - always lets us choose. But he also created life, and therefore I would imagine is pro-life. And so the debate goes 'round and 'round. Every life has value. Every woman has the freedom to choose what to do with her body. Let's look at the politics. The Republican party stance is: "The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed." Republicans oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or to fund organizations that perform or advocate abortions. It says the party will not fund or subsidize health care that includes abortio...

This is how my morning started... I posted the following as my status update on Facebook: I tried really hard to sleep in late this morning... but my thoughts kept drifting back to that man who's living in his truck while waiting for his first paycheck from a new job (that probably pays minimum wage). My privileged mind just couldn't keep laying in my queen-sized bed, in my air-conditioned house, with my better-off-than-most-people dogs. Issues are weighing heavily on me after the the past week of blog-reading, listening/reading about political platforms, and sitting in my office trying to imagine how that homeless man is living with such a positive attitude. I feel some blogs coming on. Not that writing will change anything, but it will help me get my thoughts out of my head. Time to get started. A few things happened this week that have me pensive. Here's the list: In staff meeting we heard about a book called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. We also heard abo...