Tuesday, May 31, 2011

♪♫♥♫Mares Eat Oats, ♪♫♥♫ and Does Eat Oats ♪♫♥♫ and Little Lambs Eat Ivy ♪♫♫ A Kid'll Ivy, too ♪♫♥♫...

♪♫•♥Wouldn't you?♪♫•*¨*•♥•*¨*•♫

I've heard that little song my whole life.  It was a song written before I was born and my father was a sophomore in high school and became popular during WWII.  I think the words changed a bit along the way and may have started with a farmer and a nursery rhyme, but it morphed into a song that obviously wasn't from a person familiar with goats, sheep, and horses. It's poison.


A goat kid won't eat ivy. Our dog started eating grass just after she was chewing on an ivy branch. I handed the branch to the sheep to see if they would taste it and the sheep yanked the ivy branch out of my hand super quick. All the sheep in the pen got a good bite. Poison. My English Ivy that's so pretty and looks like green stars is not good for any animal.
Our little doeling meeting her neighbor lamb
 This post is not exactly about ivy but "ivy and animals" and an important lesson a pot of ivy can teach me. I really hate ivy. It's a bit like when I ate a "Big Mac" when I was pregnant with Dustin 38 years ago. I can look at a Big Mac from McDonald's commercial on TV and not even smell it in person. I feel instantly sick and it's just like looking down in the car and getting car-sick. I know it sounds like I was tasting ivy. I didn't eat the ivy because I do know better, now.

My feelings for ivy came about because the fast-creeping plant is like an alien creature trying to climb into my house. I suppose I've seen too many Sci-Fi movies, but ivy goes up into the kitchen windows and is coming up under my porch through the tiniest of cracks and that to me, is freaky. Ivy isn't coming up maybe an inch or two, it's 5 feet, 51/2 inches from the bottom of my porch to the deck and my window is even higher and ivy even finds places to stick it's ugly head into the basement. If I try and take-off the plant or peel it from the house, ivy takes the paint right-off with it or leaves ugly feet marks.
Marvel Comics
Ivy hides all kinds of scary bugs and snakes, even rattlesnakes and lots of black widows. One black widow bit got our dear Little-Dog and she suffered so much from the spider. Ivy hides big root/branches under the lush green leaves and the heavy twines have been trippers to each of my children and now my grandchildren. It is an innocent plant with evil designs, lurking to pull us down. Really and truly, I hate it and it actually scares me.

I think that it's odd that the ivy is used  for so many decorations at parties and wedding receptions and probably the most used plant for adding to bouquets and  landscape designs.

Years ago, I planted the north side of my house lovely arrangements of Nasturtiums and Impatients. They looked perfect there, welcoming everyone to our home and then something happened. I will try very hard to say it in just a few sentences. Try. A young new bride gave me a potted plant from her wedding reception as thank you for helping decorate the Church and then cleaning up after the reception was over. I planted it right there by the edge of my house and in the same plot as my flowers. I thought, this might grow-up and become my beautiful ivy and rose covered cottage that Brigham Young wrote about in the Discourses of Brigham Young. I know he wrote only about the climbing roses, I think I added the ivy.

Something happened. I don't know why or what, maybe the new bride thought the plants weren't hers to give away or she wanted a garden at her new home. I don't know, but she wanted the potted ivy back. So I replanted it and stuck it gently back in the bestest potting soil and when she arrived here, the ivy was ready and she whisked-off.

This is interesting....and I still perplexed at what happened to the ivy. My pot of ivy was on her front steps, in the shade, and still in it's pot 6 weeks later, brown and dead. She didn't say a word and probably forgot that she had even given it to me and I had gently dug-it-up and sent it back home to her. It didn't bother me because "low and behold" the ivy was still in my garden and in fact, becoming huge. I must have somehow forgot a little prolific root. Ivy liked it here. Years later, I look back and still see the vision of the dead ivy and it reminds me of her taking the ivy back and maybe not nurturing it. I think of the young man that loved her so much and she wanted so bad as a husband, but she left him behind as she moved on to another... leaving all. The nurturing of her children were left behind, too. I make no judgements here because I honestly don't understand, but it just reminds me that even though she had what she wanted, it wasn't enough. My mother-in-law has a saying for that and it's "Much Wants More" No matter what the situation. If a person receives a promotion, an unexpected windfall, or even a new car, or fancy house...it's the natural man or woman, to want another car, a bigger house, another promotion, and more money.

Yesterday I walked by the wall of ivy (my own "Little Shop of Horrors" and Seymour right there opening it's gaping  mouth)
 I yanked off his arm, an entwined bunch of ivy crawling up and in my face, at the end of the steps. I broke off the ivy branch and began flipping it back and forth in front of our puppy. He loved the game and was ripping it up. His little tongue drooled. The voice inside said to him, "Eat grass, eat grass!" "The taste will go away." Little Duelly made a little doody puddle on the path and I easily avoided stepping in it. I was on my way to feed the rest of the livestock and cats, chickens, etc. I became worried about Duelly even more as he cried and rubbed his mouth. My daughter Kiely and Matt arrived and fed the animals while I tended to the puppy. My thoughts were how all over English Ivy is now considered a weed and kills trees. It's probably a lot like the pest plant in the Southern States like Kudzu, but I don't think Kudzu is poison. Ivy is evil!

I was just playing tug with Duelly and I was using the worthless ivy branch that I had pulled off wall, as his toy. Duelly was loving the attention. Why do I innocently get all those around me and even myself in so much trouble here on Danger Ranch? Couldn't the ivy be good for just a few minutes?
Sally-Horse
The beautiful sunset had begun and my horse had just returned from training school. I grabbed a fist-full of carrots, yes... I washed my hands of the ivy. My horse was crunching away and under my new coral jumper was a little puppy feeling better with paws and toes covered in loose puppy poop. Here is quite a hyper-Queensland Heeler doing a funny dance on the whole inside of my dress. Poop covered from knees to hem. The horse didn't notice... she was in heaven eating carrots and when she was done I walked like a bow-legged cowboy back to the ranch house. I stink. I "dog-eyed" the ivy as I pass the front porch and say, "I'm meeting ya' here at noon tomorrow" "Your days are numbered, mister." We are having a big, heavy, spraying ROUND-UP on the side yard at Danger Ranch.  I really wish I had left ivy in the pot.

Sour Grass,  Oxalis, or called, Sorrel
Children, at least our family all love Sour Grass, but all grandmothers and mothers discourage chewing it. You never know what has visited the flowers when we weren't watching.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Taxidermy Crazy

All my life and including my first years of marriage I was surrounded by my own Natural History Museum. It was my grandfather's hobby to kill big game and have them mounted. He had so many horns that he ended-up just keeping the horns only and stacking them. Sheesh! I still have a bunch and they're hanging in different parts of the ranch.

Just for the sake of the Vegan's out there. I wish inform various family and random readers know, we don't even kill rattlesnakes, unless absolutely necessary. My husband loves almost all creatures .. spiders, NOOO! But, he does take the spiders outside, except for the Black Widow, Brown Widow, and Violin Spider. They go dead. Steve was bit by a Violin Spider on his mission and he became extremely sick. That's it. All our children don't hunt nor do my son-in-laws. Fishing is catch and release unless the family is really hungry. I was taught by my dad, even when we catch Grunion Fish we EAT them, every one. They are the size of maybe a smelt and let me tell you, after I cleaned 300 little fishes, by myself and in what amounted to, a metal tough, I wasn't so eager to catch even one more. Yes, they do taste wonderful, but my dad was cooking.

My grandfather was the opposite of Vegan. He killed all game animals and we ate them all. Eww. This is really old-time thinking, but he also had everything saved by way of taxidermy or tanned. His shop downtown, that included western wear and tack, was filled with heads of different animals that he had killed. It was Santa Paula's own Natural History Museum. And, even some of the animals were not just heads. There were birds, like quail,  full-sized coyote, spotted skunk, and of course the tacky Jack-A-Lope. Ahhh, I don't think I ate that morphed Jack Rabbit. They were all trophy animals carcasses. My grandfather's walls started filling-up with animals when my grandmother died. These included a big wolverine, a bear rug, a coyote skin, his Indian vests that were made with bear claws and handmade bone beads. The claws and beads were all made from animals that he had killed. Yes, bears from Canada.
He always had the stool with bull's feet and his lamp shade made-out of his own horse, Chico's hide. He loved his horse so much he painted the outside of his house, his car, and the fancy trailer all to match the horse.
Grandma & Grandpa's Strawberry Roan House
Grandpa Joe & Deputy Sheriffs The Santa Barbara Parade
I suppose in the 1950's and early 1960's dark rose was an okay decorating color. Pink Chico was George Putnum, the Los Angeles KTLA and KTTV newscaster's parade horse and was ridden a few times in the Rose Parade. Chico liked to run, as ropin' horses do ... and ol' George must've dropped the reins, once too many times. hahahah. Yes, I've ridden Chico bareback and dropped the reins. It was like this cartoon moment when Yogi Bear runs in the air and then drops. The horse took-off as signaled, and I was hanging in the air and then dropped on my "seater" and broke my tail-bone.
I'm Riding Chico In The Fillmore Parade & He Danced The Whole Way
I cringe when I think of the day when Chico was "put-down" and Grandpa Joe said he was not giving-up on his horse. Chico had become blind and had "spring-halt" and in so much pain. It all was so bad he could hardly step and according to Grandpa, he was just plain, was not going down. Grandpa Joe had Chico sent to Web McKelvey's taxidermy shop on Old Telegraph Road to be skinned. I think my parents snickered because that was so outlandish, it didn't even make sense. My mom, with a car-load of little kids and me in the front seat, made a trip to Fillmore to see if Grandpa really skinned his horse. Right out in front of the taxidermy shop, was Chico, hoisted-up on an A-frame and pure white. I can't describe the shock of seeing our dear pet in front of the whole town of Fillmore looking so horrible. I know we see this stuff like that all the time on "crime scene" shows. But for me, at about eleven years old, I cried, and may have screamed.

Chico's beautiful, strawberry roan, soft hair was made into a lamp shade and a pair of chaps that had Chico's brand on my grandfather's hip. I could never wear them and I have no idea where these items finally ended-up and I hope long gone.

I have a leopard seal skin, with the bullet holes. I have a small long box with bald eagle feathers, and a fox pelt. I have the eagle feathers to give to each grandchild or nephew if they achieve Eagle Scout. These animals were killed before 1930, the box that holds them is dated 1930 with my grandfather's handwriting. The animals could have been processed even way before ... the fox is in an antique picture with my great grandmother and dated 1898. Grandpa Joe would be over 111 years old this year, so this is all old-timer stuff and to us, and bizarre.

I had a few friends over to my house when I was about 5 years old. Playtime was all a "con" because I talked them all into moving with me, the big, round, iron top off of a deep-pit Bar-B-Que in our yard. The top was like a pot-hole cover, only larger in circumference. We lived in the house behind my grandparents. We were caught about the time I was getting ready to be lowered down into the deep abyss. WHY ??? So, from then on, Grandpa took every "extra" deer, elk, antelope, and moose horn out from under his house on Laurel Road and stacked them up on the iron cover and over the 'spit' handle and frame and made this huge frame that turned into a large tree of horns and honestly kept growing until 1976.
My grandparent's dinners always included big game and I would only eat the stuff if it wasn't a deer, elk, or bear. I was tricked because I was told it was an hippo or crocodile and only then would I eat it. Honestly...even then, it had to be slathered with ketchup. I suppose the "trick/con maneuver" was an environmental learned behavior.

My mother had saved items from Grandpa's, when she was cleaning-out his home after Grandpa had died. Some animals were just too much to save--I mean, too sad.

I'm still recovering from when I saw my favorite chickens slaughtered. I thought all my daughters would be Vegan after each meat animal that they sold during the auction at the county fair. It's still a decision some are still considering. My Larin was stopped-in to a grocery store in her small town in Utah last November and an out-of-towner told her, all excitedly, "Look in the back of my truck!" It was a head of a beautiful antelope from her valley, Sevier County, Utah. On the hitch was a small cooler container of meat, so much meat was left wasted, was the animal so little? No, the hunt was all for the head. My Larin walked home with her children and cried and was grateful that her children didn't see that beautiful animal that way. Months are dedicated to hunting in Utah and other Western States. I get it and I know! Yes, I know. The critters need to be thinned-out and they would be pests like Kiely's big doe that eats garbage and knocks over all the trash cans, all winter, every single night. There's the same huge deer in her drive-way and right on campus and it's a trash digger.

Trophy heads and competitions seem wasteful and the heads all over house walls and businesses are just another form of idols to be adorned at Christmas. The saved heads and bodies seem almost sacrilegious and irreverent.

I don't want this to end without me trying to fix-it. I am a bit nuts, after all. Remember, the stool with the bull's feet that my grandfather had made? Yesterday, I took one of the bull's bent leg and hoof, and went into Kiely's bedroom ... she loves cattle ... My arms were filled with pillows and quilts and I made a big body in her bed and sticking-out of her covers, there was the bull's leg to hold the covers in place. I wish I had done that before I had to feed, because I could've set-up a video camera. Kiely's reaction was so terrific! I scared her and she screamed so loud it rocked the house and danced .... and Matt, Kiely's new husband, laughed. Me?...Oh-No! I've signed-up! It's pay-back and I'm watching and keeping my heart pills close.
Fun Prank With My Daughter--She Can Take It

Friday, May 13, 2011

We Are Going! Mom Kissed the Toilet Good-bye

 You KNOW when you look like a "mom-mess" when your children see you have a dress on and ask, "Where are we going?" Okay...I slacked it. I'm actually jealous when I see now that our dress codes are so lax, even young mother's and teens go to the market in those flannel PJ bottoms. Many times when my children were growing-up, I would don a lightweight dress, especially in hot weather. Jeans and YES, in-style, polyester pants were way too hot and we never, ever had air-conditioning.
I know this sounds odd, but when I would pull-on a dress, the girls would all quietly go in their bedroom and pick-out a dress and put on socks, shoes, and the dressiest dress or even a real gown from the dress-up trunk and if they could reach, even the lipstick from the top counter. "I'm ready, mom!" Me, "Oh yeah...you are going as fancy lady."

 I have had this LOVE-HATE relationship with make-up. I always either wanted to put too much on when I was young and my dad would admonish me harshly.  I don't even have a substitute word for what he really said. No, can't even think typing "code" characters on the computer would represent his dislike for me + make-up. hahahahah  It was, "Take all that off!" "You look ragged! " or You're not going anywhere like that!" I even got the words that I would eventually hate to hear in my life, and really make my hair stand-up Prairie Chicken style, the dreaded, "You get all dolled-up!" I've got to blog about that another day.
This post needs to have a addition: I never added more make-up later, not ever. Hey, Santa Paula is a really small town and had tattling siblings. So, I spent most of my teenage years without make-up, not even lotion. I write this and I'm thinking of one exception. It's when a fad started the mid -1960's and lipstick for young girls became lighter and lighter, to the point we were actually wearing white lipstick. I guess that's not such a shock these days with the black lipstick I seen the past few years. The white lipstick was eventually banned from my big lips. I didn't realize that the white actually made my lips even larger and big lips were NOT in fashion.
Jeanie and Me, There's The White Lips
However, I managed to get around the white lipstick. I wore zinc oxide and that was easy. Zinc oxide was all over our house because we were "beach people" every summer. I thought the white lipstick or Zinc junk made my tan look darker. I look back and ponder how my eyes were warped. Oh, no. Are my eyes warped by fads every few years? Even now?

Lipstick. I may have been in Levis and a flannel shirt at home, but if my child was in the office and I had to rush to the school, I would pull a bush through my hair. I grab all my home children and say to them,  "You have to GO now!" as in "go to the bathroom" and that was "go" even if they didn't even have to "go." Remember dear, careful parents, because this habit of trying to ward-off detours to gas station bathrooms for  them, helped a bunch of grown kids have little bladders. Sorry.

 "Hurry, we have to leave!" Yes, we are all in the bathroom. I glance in the mirror and I'm probably pregnant and pale, and I pull-out and apply the famous dark, rose lipstick, right as I'm peeing the kids. I check my lips, and think, "Ewww, I've put this lipstick on with a putty-knife." That's when I'd grab some toilet paper and blot my lips, just like I watched my mother blot her lipstick. I didn't know I could've used a tissue and certainly it didn't cross-my-mind that a bunch little eyes were watching my lipstick ritual. Oh yeah, I did it every time.

 My lipstick epiphany occurred when came down the hallway and Larin was shaking her finger at Bree saying, "Yes, we are!" "We're leaving!" "Mom kissed the toilet good-bye."

Friday, May 6, 2011

You're a Liar & You Stole Something ! I'm Not and I Didn't !

"Honesty is the best policy" I believe that with all my heart and with always as far as my understanding of, and remembrance of the situation, WILL completely tell the truth.
My first talk in Church was on honesty and it was one of those non-existent now, 2 1/2 minute talks we had in Sunday School. I was so nervous. The bishop gave me the topic and I had never real practice speaking in front of others. I can only think of one time when I ran for the office in Girl's League in High School. I didn't do well and I didn't win. The whole running for office was forced and I know my nervousness showed. I think that experience made me even more afraid.

I said yes, to my bishop about the 2 1/2 minute talk because first, he was my father's best friend and room-mate in college and also I was a member of the Church. It was scary to think I would have to learn to speak in Church, but my testimony was strong and I knew I needed to learn to overcome my fear. I used a references from my sister's denomination, the Southern Baptist Church. I only had The Book of Mormon to find information on a talk. I did get some help from the missionaries and learned to write a talk without saying "you" and always saying "we" because we're all learning and have temptations. I didn't even look at my talk and that surprised me, but spoke from my heart. I did learn that this was a very important virtue that I should always strive to be always a person that was honest and had integrity.

My disclaimer to all of this is, my fun stories that I used to make-up for my children. I couldn't read books and I hate to admit this all in my blog. I had a great deal of trouble reading. I stuttered, I hesitated, skipped paragraphs, and so on. It was just easier to make-up stories and act them out to entertain my kids or softly tell a story to help my children go to sleep. I always ended with a complete explanation that my story... was a story and not true.

I did tell one time my soon-to-be husband, that I didn't have the gene to smell a skunk and just forgot to tell him until we had been married more than five years. I'll never hear the end of that. The other story was about the leeches on Facebook. My children "ratted-me-out" and I did come clean with the story in the end. I was just having fun, honest!

There have been so many times in my life that I have completely told the truth and it meant nothing, I was a liar. My grandmother thought I bought into her dry-cleaning shop, all my friends clothes to be dry-cleaned and pressed for free. I bought the clothes at the thrift store. I only made a dollar and hour and I wanted some nice wool skirts. Ugh...She died thinking I lied. No one, especially from "our family" would buy from a thrift store. That accusation stood and it still hurts because I wasn't able to convince her... the clothes were really mine.
 I'm married to an honest , extremely honest husband. I'm so blessed and is so proud of him (the good kind of proud) He always reminded all of us that we carried the Lazenby name and our name stands for integrity, like my husband's father. We always tried to teach our children and raise them to give honor to the "Lazenby name" and be honest in all things.
Now, I'm faced with a family member thinking I'm lying. Not from my husband or children but another ... thinking I'm lying and maybe accidentally took something, but now I'm lying to cover that I inadvertently grabbed, when I was gathering my things. I'm thinking that the person believes I'm trying to cover myself. This has upset me so much that my stomach hurts and I need extra heart medication. Why do I feel so bad? I should feel content that I just told the truth and "get-over-it?" Do I feel this way because I will never be able to prove that I'm innocent? The item is gone and we have no idea where it is. I've sure looked. Now, would that help...probably not.
I have returned the tiniest of things that I have taken by mistake. I replaced the plug I took, it was attached to my computer when I unplugged it and a large highlighter that was yellow and I just picked it up thinking, "Yellow marker, mine" I saw later, when I had my glasses, it was a different size and brought the marker right back, with an explanation. Okay, is it because I took these items by mistake that now I'm suspect in something much larger? My heart is pounding and I'm so sad and I'm innocent.
Oh my pills, my Kiely bought them to me. I'm okay.

I won't ever forget this...Not this exactly or about the accusations, but I will be so careful to not assume anything of anyone to be dishonest about missing pieces or misplaced stuff. Anything I can't find, used by, or taken, even by mistake.... I will ask, "Have you seen_____?" Never, even in my head, think it was deliberate dishonesty by anyone. I know the hurt.

Monday, May 2, 2011

I Honestly Don't Want To Post All This

I do and will always remember when I first saw images of the Twin Towers Attack on 9-11 and then the Pentagon. I saw the field where the plane went down in Pennsylvania and the real heroes on the jet, that died to save so many others. Marnie, my daughter, ran to our house and we turned-on the TV and we saw Fire Fighters walking toward the Towers while everyone else was running the other way. I was in shock and started crying and couldn't stop. My Steve, a fireman and a captain, was on duty. I felt great empathy, sorrow, and confusion. The days that followed, are a blur and Steve and I hardly spoke of what was being blasted from every TV, newspaper, and all over the computers. The firefighters in our small town were completely devastated.
I always thought that our military forces in the Middle East would find Osama and if you say to me, "Do you remember where you were... when you found-out that Osama Bin Laden was killed?" I can answer, "Nope." My Marnie again gave Steve and I the news and we were not sure it was true. I don't know where we were in the house. I don't know...walking around. We listened to music, then finally... after a good long time, looked on Facebook. Today, I heard the President's speech.
 My husband's cousin, Joshua May, finally said what I had been feeling. He said, "To have brought this evil man to justice is a good thing. To celebrate his death is not. Please, I plead with all of you who read this do not allow yourselves to act in a manner that those who hate freedom expect us to act. Show some dignity. Show some remorse for life lost. Remember all those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of freedom. It is okay to feel relief. It is okay to feel that justice has been served. But please do not celebrate death. Had he been captured, I too would celebrate. But a man, even an evil man, should not have his death celebrated. Those of my brothers in arms, and the one that I consider my actual brother, who have seen more than their fair share of death do not rejoice in any death." 

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy"
--Jessica Dovey

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper dearkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

--MLK Jr.

Proverbs 24:17 Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth.

Truly, Osama's witnesses will be from those that were harmed and killed by this man; his judgement will be given to him by Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.


Don't think that it doesn't mean anything to me! This is a major, major event that gave me really weird, creepy feelings. Thank you Joshua for finally saying how I feel. Yes,  JUSTICE was carried-out to the one that master-mined it all on earth.  Facebook showed us that there were crowds assembling and singing. I didn't feel like singing..I thought of the people who were killed in the Towers, at the Pentagon, in a field, and the brave firemen going down the street to the attack, and knowing that they were walking right into death's door.  I'm very proud of our Military and very grateful for all that they have sacrificed for so long and the many that gave their lives. I think of them.
I'm glad our President, who knew for months that Osama was at that house, finally let the Seals "go in" to stop Laden from his madness. I wish it had been when the military wanted to go in and not when it was convenient for the President. I hope I'm wrong.
Dear President Bush, you were so right! This was not a war to abandon like President Obama promised in his campaign to accomplish. You knew this wasn't another Viet Nam, not in any way. This was our war that America could not back-down or let an attack on our soil go without following through with strength and a show of force for our county. The United States of America is truly a blessed county of freedom and we couldn't lose or abandon this incredible, unprecedented, and horrible attack on the innocent and here on our land. President Bush told us, "We will not falter, we will not waver, we will not fail." Thank you.
I'm still, not all smiles and  I'm not dancing. I'm like so many others relieved, secure, and humbly...soooo very thankful  for their great and incredibly hard and dangerous service to, and for, our country. Yes, I wave the flag and I'm really, really proud to be an American.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Off Wellman Way! My Genealogy Is It Going The Wrong Way?



It Is Not Easy and Smooth as Gravy!
 Last week I really felt I was going in the right direction with life. I read the scriptures, I pray, I am anxiously engaged in trying so hard to do good...that I even wrote a poem describing my feelings. The path is beautiful, but the rough bark is there along my trail, I just tripped-over it and I'm dazed. My head just isn't going to work on another family group sheep.
?????
SHEET!
Family Group and Pedigree Sheets
I shouldn't even posting a comment all about this genealogy work because I don't want to discourage anyone from not trying to find their ancestors. When it's good it's very, very good and when it's bad, it is horrid. My backaches and I think need stronger glasses. Or...I need to do this very early in the morning when my mind is a lot more unhindered or better yet, the fog that fills my head just opens up to the "ta-da" moment.
Me..Susan Kay Wellman Lazenby
Why, oh why, do people hook their names into my names? We aren't related or are we? Do I have THAT many more aunts and uncles? Of course, my favorite peeve is the change in the spelling or adding a different middle name. The topping is when all the really old people in the family all have different opinions about who was married to whom or where the great-great grandfather was born, or lived, or even where each are buried. I am finding so many loose ends. I haven't hit any brick walls that everyone talks about, it's the accuracy that really concerns me.
My Grandmother Never Owned A Saloon! Get That?
My load seems lifted as I attended Sunday School, today. All will be made right in the Millennium or in heaven. Whew! I knew that, but I needed that reassurance and still I'm OCD about having what I put on-line in my gedcom. I want to have given my work on my ancestors the best I can provide. Oh dear, meeting my grandmother on the "other-side" and find she was married to her brother-in-law, would literally "frost" her. Yes, someone did do that with her name--it wasn't my hand that did it. I'm not upset, just seeing these mistakes, make me realize how easy it is to pile names in and the work, goes on.

I just love that so many of my ancestors were sentimental and close enough to their family, that they often named their new babies after a beloved grandmother, grandfather, aunt, or uncle. That really leaves for every genealogist, novice or professional, a wonderful guide and precious clue that the family is the right line to follow.
My Mother & Dad Both Have Names Of Ancestors
Maybe it's my job to be the fixer, to prune my large family tree, and place some buds here and there that belong. My tree will be ready and I know it'll really grow and thrive.
Tree from Chatham Games Web Site