The picture is of Mary Secord and George Hughes (my great great grandparents on my Dad's side) Mary was full Irish and George was Welsh.

Today I am 45 years old. I woke up at five to my husband sopping up fresh cat urine from our bed. After an hour and a half of tossing and turning between the comforter and the scratchy mattress liner, I hauled out for a shower. Unfortunately, the husband had just started the washer...We talked about his plans for the day while I waited for the spin cycle to cease and I showered while he prepared the usual corned beef and omelette breakfast that generates two sinks full of dirty dishes. After breakfast he discovered that he had purchased the wrong brake shoes for his "other woman" - and went into town with Bigspawn. It's 6:00pm now...The steaks are still in the fridge. Spawn is thumping around in his room and El Hefe and Bigspawn are peering under the "other woman's" white hood. Hmpfh. I'm washing towels, pouring through internet sites and old papers and working on my second Hefeweisen. I had a bowl of cottage cheese for dinner.....lovely. And they wonder why there is a sadness that lingers in my soul...the residual haze of my ordinary DNA....

I've got 168 names up on Archives.com now. I've traced my Norwegian paternal roots all the way back to Norde Aurdal, Oppland, and Slidre - Valdres Norway. circa 1665. As for my mother's side - we go back supposedly to the House of Osborne - which migrated to Kent England with William the Conqueror in 1066. The actual names stop though in the late 1700's in Cornwall. It is unfathomable the number of John Goodwins residing in England in the 1800's who are parents to a daughter named Mary....Its so much easier to trace an Ingebret Odegaard than a Mary Goodwin...or worse - on my hub's side there will be the inevitable Smiths and Blacks...sigh.

Its a pleasant diversion - this foray into geneology. I'm not expecting to find anyone famous - in fact, the simple truth at times is amazing enough...The family of Christine Axness - twelve children - three of whom died almost immediately....so many young men between 1941 and 1945 serving overseas...I am the amalgamation of copper washers, miners, farmers and homesteaders....quiet lives lived simply...lived close to the bone.

I won't be sad. I am an adult, and beyond that I am formidable. But sometimes....a bit of sparkle - an adrenalin rush of joy - would be so nice.....so nice....

PEACE.