Returning, some changes, some girls & a car

I have been, as they say, away for a bit.

I can definitively report that sunny Florida is still, even as the country freezes, sunny Florida. The beach was fab, the oysters tasty and much fun was had by all. As always, I am amazed that I could have grown up someplace so very different from where I live now. Life does take us all in the most interesting unplanned directions, doesn't it?

The best thing about going home and eating your mother's cooking is the time you end up spending thinking about your life. It happens, even when you don't plan it. Just driving all those roads that still hold the ghosts of your childhood (and yes, we visited the cemetery), makes you think about who you were and might have been.

It makes you think about who you are trying to be and if you are doing a good job at that. Or not.

What am I planning now? First, as soon as I got home I cleaned out my closet. (It needed to be done.) And now I am working on some long overdue aviation articles, (the news in Alaska has, not surprisingly, been terribly overwhelmed by politics the last couple of months).

I have learned some more amazing things about my family in recent weeks--an unexpected marriage, names from a past generation, (I can confirm we had a Bridget! My great great great grandmother!), the nationality of a great uncle that does not match what I thought I knew about him and more. I have found a 35 year old aunt (great great great aunt) celebrating her marriage in 1910. How unexpected to see a woman waiting so long back then to marry.

I have so many more questions to ask, and so many questions I still don't know to ask.

There are books beside me to be reviewed and submitted to several different venues. (I might be turning up in unexpected places in the coming months.) There is a site redesign that is desperately overdue here. And there is so much writing to do; so much writing that should have been done by now.

I don't know who these two ladies are or where the picture was taken or when, (the 1930s I think from their outfits), but it was in one of my great grandmother's photo albums and I couldn't resist it. This one I love even though it will likely forever remain a mystery. I defy you not to love it too.

Appreciating small things like this is something I am resolved to do more of in the future. Going back home will do that to you; it reminds you of all you didn't take time to appreciate when you should have.