Good morning, all!
Greetings from cloudy Seattle- we've had some light drizzle recently, but haven't fully returned to the weather I'm most comfortable in yet.
I returned home from my vacation a couple days ago- had a pleasant time travelin' along the west coast, though I, unlike quite a number of people, am not especially fond of beaches. On a brief visit to Portland, I bought myself a book of works by Federico García Lorca (looks like he still needs a profile here), the Spanish poet known for his ties to the surrealists, & for having been murdered by the fascists for being openly gay. In addition to just wanting to read the poetry, which I've been thoroughly enjoying, it has also given me the opportunity to practice my Spanish, which I'm far better at reading than I am at speaking.
Now I'm back home, I have a giant amount of work I need to get done in the next few days, & I'll have to find some way to prevent myself from getting too distracted with genealogy for a little while, sadly, but oh well- the world of the living still needs to be tended to.
My musical selection for the morning would seem to be Nina Simone's rendition of New World Coming, which I've had stuck in me head the past couple hours.
On the genealogy side of things, I've spent what time I could this week working on a Dutch-American family tree, doing extensive work on the American side in Newaygo County, Michigan. It is not the first time I've worked with Dutch records, & I've observed all the wonderful folks using them in past challenge weeks, but it is the first particularly extensive project in Nederland that I've done, & I am thoroughly enjoying it, both because of the access to records, & also just the language. Makes me wish I had a more substantial Dutch line, but alas- I am relegated to only being able to work with these records when working on others' trees.
I've also finally begun looking into setting up a blog... I'm not sure when I'll actually be able to publish anything, but I've at least been taking steps in the right direction. After getting some advice from genealogy Twitter, I think I'm probably going to set it up on WordPress. If anyone has any particular advice or suggestions for someone just starting blogging, please let me know! Would love to hear it.
Anyway, that's most of what's been going on, methinks- just doing a lot of organization around the house & such right now, & handling the departure of a dear friend moving across the country next week, which is bittersweet to say the least.
If we could lighten the load of rain you're getting in NC, Pip, we'd happily take some more here, & I know Lynette Jester could use a bit of it too! Unfortunate that it doesn't work that way. I try not to spend too much time on social media like Twitter, but I am on there occasionally, & there are at least a handful of people I follow purely because they tweet in Scots, which I thoroughly enjoy reading.
&, on the subject of textbooks, chances are you can find them for very little, or even for free, with a little searching around on the internet. Enough people know, rightfully, that such costs have no place in education, so many, many such resources have been made available if you can figure out where to look.
Thank you for hosting!
I hope everyone is well,
T.L.