Category: Entertainment

Over the last few days I’ve been throwing myself into sorting through my ‘To Be Sorted’ folder. It’s only been years in the making. In fact I’m taking it a step further and cleaning out my whole second hard drive. I’m just starting with the ‘To Be Sorted’ folder. I have higher ambitions though. I want an organized computer and I won’t quit until I get it!

However, yesterday I took a break from the sorting, and I finally read a book I bought at a Cecil’s Country Store in town (I love that store!). You can read the St. Mary’s County Tourism blog’s press release on the book. I will admit that I don’t read many reference books. Most times I start getting lost in the technical jargon. However, that didn’t happen with this book. I don’t know if it’s because I took architecture classes in high school or if it’s the book, that doesn’t matter though! I haven’t read all of it yet, but I’m definitely going to make a concentrated effort over the next few weeks to read more bits of it.

Continue reading “I’m Goin’ Down County” →

As luck would have it, I’d already thought about this subject numerous times. This weekend I was going through my Google Reader feeds and I saw that Marian Pierre-Louis posted her ideal season of Who Do You Think You Are? She got the idea from Susan Peterson from Long Lost Relatives.net. So here’s my list, just for fun!

Robert Redford – I’ve grown up watching Robert Redford movies. He’s a great actor and it wasn’t until recently that my Aunt Lori mentioned that her mother (Florence Redford-Moore) always said there might be a connection between her family and the actor. I do know a lot of our Redford made the trek to Los Angeles, CA in the 1920s and 1930s. Even putting that aside, I think it’d be very interesting to see.

LeVar Burton – I love Roots. I love Star Trek. I loved Reading Rainbow. If you can’t tell, I have a love of LeVar Burton’s work. I think seeing “Kunta Kinte” researching his own family history could be very fun/interesting!

Bonnie Hunt – I’ve been a big fan of the funny Bonnie Hunt. The great thing about Bonnie is that she’s funny without it being at anyone’s expense. She’s as caring as she is funny. She’s very proud of her hometown of Chicago and I’d be interested to see how long her family has been there!

Matthew Fox – I was watching one of my favorite shows, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, one day and Matthew Fox was a guest. In the interview he talked about growing up in Wyoming. Again, I’d like to see how long his family had been there and maybe see a little more history of the middle and western sections of the country!

Susan Lucci – Let’s just face it, Susan Lucci is the queen of television! I’ve never watched All My Children, but I do know that a lot of people would be interested in seeing her in this!

Alan Alda – Who doesn’t love M*A*S*H? Alan Alda is one of the first actors I ever remember watching. Whether it was M*A*S*H, Canadian Bacon or Betsy’s Wedding!

Keifer Sutherland or Donald Sutherland – Or both! Wouldn’t that be amazing? Them going through it at the same time.

James Caan – Last but certainly not least is James Caan! The Godfather is on my top 5 list of my favorite movies. I can’t say it’s number one because I love the top 5 so much, I can’t choose a number 1!

So there’s my list! Who’s on your dream WDYTYA? list?

I’ll admit it. I’m missing my Ohio family something fierce! It used to be that we would only see each other every five years or so. It’s been less then a month since my Aunt Melinda and cousin Patty were here. It’s only been a week from that time that I was in Ohio visiting for a few days. I miss them though! It’s funny how when you’re a child and on a trip to a family reunion, all you can think about is your friends and what you’re missing back home.

I don’t think about any of that now! It’s been since October that I saw my cousins in New Jersey and New York. Longer than that for some of them. Probably since Aunt Diane’s funeral. I miss them too!

Here’s Aunt Melinda and Mom checking out something in the water at Point Lookout.

I love Point Lookout. I think Melinda was a little disappointed it wasn’t this huge, tall lighthouse. We don’t need those big ones here though. We’re right on the water! Nothing blocking the lighthouse but water!

I promise I won’t turn this into a quilting only blog, but I’ve recently learned that quilting has a very big footprint in my life. Everything I’ve ever come to really enjoy and cherish, has ended up having some place in my family history. It just so happens, quilting is also one of them. If I hadn’t hurt my ankle, I’d get Grandpa’s baby quilt down so I could take some pictures of it. That’s not going to happen today though.

Quilting actually has a much more recent footprint on my life. Two of my Aunts came to Maryland this Spring and taught me the basics I needed to know about quilting. They taught a third Aunt at the same time. It’s become such a passion for me, and I talk with my Aunts all the time about different patterns and fabrics. It’s a lot of fun for me.

I also learned a very valuable lesson from my Aunt when she sent me a box recently.

Continue reading “A Family Tradition” →

There is no better way to jump back into these prompts then with my childhood bedroom story!

Week 19. Bedroom. Describe your childhood bedroom. What furniture did it contain? Were there curtains, wallpaper or paint? Was it messy or clean? Did you share a room with your siblings?

I did indeed share my bedroom with a sibling. When I was in Kindergarten, the trailer we were renting was hit by lightning. I don’t think I remember much except my My Little Ponies burned up and that I was sharing the room with my sister and maybe even my brother. I can’t really remember and I’d have to ask my mother.

After that happened, we moved into the trailer that we would live in for the rest of my childhood. It was only a 3 bedroom trailer and not very big at all but it was what we had. I shared the middle bedroom with my older sister for many many years. I remember that we had stuffed two beds into the room but there was practically no room left after that. There was a built in dresser and closet. Part of the room was taken up by the hall “closet” which housed the furnace. I don’t actually remember our furnace ever working though. We always used kerosene heat from what I remember. A few years after we moved in, our neighbor was getting rid of his bunk beds and we immediately forced him to give them to us… Okay, so he was my brother’s best friend and he offered them. We needed them desperately though! So that’s when I think we started getting some breathing room in our shared environment.

The whole trailer had wood paneling on the walls the whole time we lived there. A few years before the trailer was taken out by a tree, we had started rehabbing it. Taking the paneling down and putting up sheetrock. We never painted the paneling, but I will admit to wallpapering them at one point… with my Teen BOP posters. I’m pretty sure Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Devon Sawa were my wallpapers. Every month I’d rip some down and add some new ones. I was obsessed!

Sometime when I was in middle school, I think about the seventh grade, my brother made a huge decision and moved to Miami for love. He did it quietly and quickly. He bought his ticket and said I’m going! He packed his clothes and said goodbye to his bedroom… I let him get a mile down the road before I said, “IT’S MINE!” You have to understand. We were two teenage girls living in the same space, it was a necessity! I had to do it or one of us was going to kill the other. There was of course a hold on the room. If my brother came home with his tail between his legs, then the room was still his. Luckily for both of us, things worked out for him in Miami. Not the love thing, but life did and that’s just fine too!

I got even luckier when he left his room as he did, because he left it with his stereo, television, and computer. I had a computer all to myself! I remember when the internet hit our house. My brother was kind of a genius with computers from the beginning. He built his own first computers. Now he finds it easier to just buy them and upgrade them, but at the time it was extraordinary. We were all relieved when he built his computer because he was always on our family computer. Of course, I didn’t know what to do on a computer at the time anyway. There wasn’t much out there. I actually think when he left for Miami was right around the time I first started making websites on my own. Just flying by the seat of my pants, learning as I went.

So that’s the story of my childhood bedroom(s)!

I’m so late with this, and I apologize for that! I swear forgetfulness didn’t use to be a part of my daily life. I just get so caught up in what I’m doing that sometimes until I find a little post it note to remind me, some things get set aside for a bit. I’ve been busy preparing for Grandpa Moore’s arrival next week, and I’m going to have jury duty within the next month. I’m trying to get myself back on track and on schedule!

Recently, I was awarded the One Lovely Blog Award by two fellow bloggers! First from Joanne at Keeper of the Records and then from Jennifer at The Erudite Genealogist! I can’t express how excited I am that other people are enjoying what I put into this blog. My main reason for starting this blog was to keep my family connected on the things I was doing. Having others enjoy it is a great side effect! It’s also great because I enjoy both of their blogs!

Here are the rules that Joanne posted on her blog.

1. Add the logo to your blog.
2. Link to the person whom you received this award.
3. Nominate 7 or more blogs.
4. Leave a message on their blog, letting them know they are “One Lovely Blog”!

I’m going to add the logo onto my sidebar sometime today but now it’s time for the fun part. My 7 picks!

1. Begin with Craft – Love her blog! Valerie’s blog is what I hope mine also is. Just a little way of sharing how I’m learning and an “as I go through it” look at learning this whole genealogy thing.
2. Little Bytes of Life – My favorite part is her weekly posts with little tidbits from different spectrums. News, Blogs, Pop culture. She follows it all!
3. Marian’s Roots and Rambles – It’s rare that I don’t learn something or at least feel like I’m engaged in what Marian Pierre-Louis is writing!
4. Nutfield Genealogy – I love all Heather’s posts. I’m fascinated by the aspects of history that I never learned in school. I love the way Heather takes news articles or historical events and relates them to her family.
5. The You Go Genealogy Girls – This is such a fun blog to read. I was reading some back entries here when I realized, “Hey she has a research notebook, I should make a research notebook!” That sounds simple, but I’ve never made a list or grouping of what I’d like to research. I was flying by the seat of my pants! Well, not anymore, the notebook is now being constructed with an Excel file to boot!
6. The Family Recorder – Audrey Collins is a great resource for British genealogy. I should hope so since she works at The National Archives of the UK! Since I’m just learning about some English roots, I’ve often referred back to some tips and information she’s written about.
7. Greta’s Genealogy Blog – Last but not least by any means! Greta’s blog is a lot of fun. I particularly enjoy her What I Learned Wednesday posts. Most times, it’s something that I can stand to learn or acknowledge too!

So there’s my 7! If you aren’t already reading these, what are you waiting for?

Here are some pictures from the cemetery at Historic St. Mary’s City.

Not only did I learn about the past this weekend, but I learned about the present too. It seems our Maryland House of Delegates member, John Bohanan, can say his family has been in this county for a very long time!

One of the things I’ve longed to do with this blog is to talk about my local history. I’m not an expert, despite having lived here my whole life, but I’m fascinated by it none the less. This weekend, I needed to get out and relax a bit and my mother felt the same way. It had been a long time since either of us went somewhere just for the heck of it, without a shopping list in hand or goal in mind. So we just got in the car and drove around. It reminded me of the age of a lot of the historic sites around me. I know Jamestown and Williamsburg are very popular historic cities, but I wonder if many people realize St. Mary’s City is one of the first established cities in America. In fact, it’s easy for the citizens, like myself, to even forget the magnitude of history we’re sitting on in our county.

Continue reading “Local Flavor: Historic St. Mary’s City” →

Week 12: Movies. Did (or do you still) see many movies? Describe your favorites. Where did you see these films? Is the theater still there, or is there something else in its place?

Movies are probably the thing I’ve loved the longest. We’ve always been a movie family. We celebrate birthdays and holidays by having movie nights. My first job was actually working with my Mom in a locally owned video rental store. That store eventually sold their business to Movie Gallery, who subsequently got rid of all the stores. That’s alright, the video rental business isn’t going to be around much longer. Everything is going digital and I guess our original owner was smart enough to get out while the getting was good!

Yes I even made a scrapbook when I was leaving, I wanted to remember my special friends! Sadly, a lot of my regular customers are no longer living so it’s really nice to have a piece of them still with me!

Continue reading “52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History: Movies” →