Monday, March 12, 2012

Where I've Been

I am here......it's just I am not all here.

I am just not myself lately.
Since my Daughter's meltdown I just haven't had any 'umph'.
My energy is just drained.  I guess you'd say my energy is being used up in the worrying about her.
I just know there isn't much of me leftover for much else.  I drag through the day and do the bare minimum I need to do like fixing food, bathing, moving clutter around in the house and planning meals.
Oh, I am just a great big ball of FUN lately, aren't I?

I do have enough "whatever" to sit here and read blogs though, but I just can't bring myself to call up enough brain power to comment much.  Yeah, I run my mouth on a blog post here and there but I'm getting into a very negative place in the space between my ears and yeah, nobody wants to read crap I write when I am in that spot.
So I just don't.

I am having a hard time focusing on anything much.....except for genealogy.

I took another blog I started to be a clearing house for rebate offers and turned it into a personal journal where I can post about the shit I've been through in life and family stuff and how I see the family stuff.
Most of that sounds very negative as well but I feel I need to vent it or explode some days.  Maybe it will help me work through some stuff I feel....maybe not.   I just know that I need to get this stuff out of my head some days.

I have always been a big fan of that show "So Who Do You Think You Are?" on NBC.  Saw all 6 of the 1st Season episodes a couple years ago and was HOOKED.  It got me to begin searching around for my family history.  Of course I didn't know WHAT I WAS DOING AT ALL! and over the last 2 years I would start and stop over and over again looking casually online for family. 

I found a distant relative who is something like 94 years old 2 years ago who had done a shit ton of research on 1 line of my ancestors.  This gentleman's great grandfather was the  younger brother of my great great grandfather....or we share a great grandfather born in 1825...his is a 2x great, mine a 3 x great.  He even charted the lines of all the descendants from this shared relative.  His great uncle(my 3 x great gf)was so prolific that the gentleman I am related to had to put my branch of this family on it's own web page. hehehehe

Here is a photo of my great great great grandparents, Hugh and Sarah "Sally" Vassar.  Hugh died in 1895(Sally in 1902)so this was taken around 1880.


I also found Hugh & family on the 1860 census(pre Civil War VA)with my then 5 year old 2x great grandfather, John "Jack" Alfred and his siblings living on a farm near Scottsburg, VA in what was then Halifax County. 

Anyway, finding out all that made me hungry for more crumbs of information, so about a week ago I dropped a wad of cash and finally joined Ancestry dotcom.
So this should speed up my search.
Especially since I am finding it the biggest SUCKHOLE for my time, bar none!!!

I can sit here for HOURS sifting through Censuses and crap....it is not funny the time I can waste!

The BEST(very sarcastic here!) thing is......Hubs could give a rat's ass about genealogy and family history.  Of course he doesn't know much about his family's past but he is all good with that.

I even spent some time trying to suck him in but searching on his families(Hey! I told him I'm doing this for our kids, so they know about their ancestors on BOTH sides!).  He put up with helping/being interested with it for one evening and now he is done listening to me talk about this.  I start and he gets this look on his face of annoyance.  Now he knows how I've felt all these years when he went on and on about his job or his co-workers(people I don't give a rat's ass about!)and was forced to pretend to be interested. ;-)
So I guess I have to shut up about it with Hubs and just tell my other blog and all of y'all instead.....until y'all get tired and stop reading me.lolol


Sluggy

11 comments:

  1. I could never get tired of listening to you!!! I know how much energy your daughter is sucking out of you and just know that we are here..

    My mom is into ancestry.com also and sometimes we have to tell her what time it is because she gets lost in it

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  2. I am into my 3rd year on ancestry.com and this year I just plunked down the $$$ to get the high-falutin' international edition so that I could go even further.

    Then I went ahead and got the family tree maker software so that I could have all this information on my own computer and not have to pay ancestry every year for the rest of my days.

    It is a great hobby. I have learned a LOT of things and want to know even more. We should compare trees sometime and see if we overlap anywhere! : )

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  3. Genealogy is a dangerous habit. In 10th grade we had to make a family tree, so I asked my mom to help me with it. Everyone else brought in a 8.5x11 sheet of paper, mine was on rolled craft paper and stretched across the room, and my mom just got more obsessed from there.

    Next thing you know, our family vacation photos included pictures of tombstones and the people at the state archive know my mom by name. Not her name, but the surnames she's related to.

    Have you seen the "find a grave" site? It's just as addictive as ancestry.com.

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  4. I should totally join Ancestor.com. I have vague knowledge of my Mom's side of the Family and of my adoptive Dad's side. I have no clue what's happening on my birthfather's side.
    Cheer up!
    m.

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  5. The genealogy and ancestry sounds so interesting. I was thinking of doing a separate blog just as a personal journal, too, for the days I want to scream and cry! Sorry you are having trouble with your daughter.

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  6. I've been a member of ancestry.com for quite a few years and LOVE doing the detective work involved to find yet another branch of the family. It's fascinating!
    That being said, those folks in the old photo look to be about as much fun as a bag of hammers lol!

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  7. I hope you get to feeling better. Hugs

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  8. Love the picture of Hugh and Sally! If you happen to cross paths with Nelly while you're both trapped in the suckhole of Ancestry.com, please tell her I say hi. I'm not sure she heard a word I spoke to her all weekend as she investigated all the new leaves on her family tree.

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  9. Sluggy, Our oldest daughter rec'd a full ride scholarship when she was 15 (yes 15) to WSU a pack 10 well respected school. We were thrilled. The scholarship was for opera. A four year performance degree. My twin sister was an opera singer. J came home the end of her SR. year and told us she had turned down the scholarship for a full ride at another school. U of I. Not nearly as prestigious. We had lived for 4 years with the idea that she would go to WSU. How dare she, think of the status the fame, the glory. But it was her life. We were upset, blue, angry. But it turned out to be the right thing. The WSU program folded her freshman year. They had this terrific music program and they just did away with it. You have to trust your kids. J has an incredible voice and is wonderful on stage but she is also a very good attorney. She is doing what she wants and she is successful. It is hard to give up a dream for a kid. But she will rally. You just wait an see.

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  10. I'm so glad that you found something to occupy some of your time. I think that is exactly what you need. I find that when I have a stressful situation to deal with at home, I need a hobby to take me away from it.
    Anna is home this week so I may join you on the hunt for other family members-you know people that don't suck the life out of you!

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  11. Sluggy, huge co-inkydink that I was searching my Grandma's family tree. She is getting really forgetful and I wanted to share pictures of where her mom came from and where her aunts and uncles settled. There are a whackload of relatives in Missula Montana area.(well they were there in the early 1900's) I had no idea until last week. I google mapped the area that she was born in Austria (was Russia) and it is beautiful. The stuff you find out! My extended family is sucking the life out of me right now. All of these family I'm finding online are "dearly departed" so they don't upset me!

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