Reasons To Love Monday - The Sky Is Falling Edition 2015

Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset. Swiftly fly the years. One season following another... laden with happiness in tears.

That's fairly melancholy for a gray, ominous Winter day, isn't it? I've been following the doom and gloom weather forecasts all day - side effect of not working, you have the opportunity to stay plugged in to the news all day long. I'm always interested in potential catastrophes from my career in Risk Management. You have to believe that bad stuff happens occasionally in order to peddle the antidote. I don't really enjoy the validation of a major blizzard that has the potential to affect 50 million people including my eldest child and younger brother (and his intended bride) but it's interesting. So there's that.

And although all of my days pretty much look the same, it's still Monday for most of the world. (Except Wendy in Oz - :waves:) And since it's a gray, ominous Monday I thought I'd help you find a few reasons to love it, despite it's ugliness. That's right... another round of Reasons To Love Monday!

(It's just easier to recycle titles and formats after ten years of blogging.)

1. I've had a headache lurking in the deep recesses of my brain but it's not THAT bad.

2. Also, just for the record, no evil gut pain today.

3. Historically epic weather, even several hundred miles away still trips the arthritis switch in my spine but it's also not THAT bad today.

4. I started my day with homemade waffles and the newest episode of Downton Abbey. Hard to hate a day that starts that way. I missed Downton last night switching between the SAG awards and the Miss Universe Pageant.

5. Austin's back home from a weekend with Tasha. Cosette is kicking like crazy so that's a good thing.

6. Austin had a good weekend with Tasha AND her parents. There's a lot to be said for peace. He needs to be comfortable with them and vice versa. (Do I worry about him? No more than I worry any other time he is out of sight. He'll always be "incident" prone.)

7. Current embroidery project is turning out quite lovely, I think. Lovely enough that I ordered more thread in those shades of green.

8. Also, since it seems that Walmart has abandoned maintenance of their embroidery thread displays at both nearby Walmart (yes, we have 2!) I ordered a bunch of black thread. You need black in almost every project for outlining. I'll be stocked up for the year.

9. I worked on my Ancestry.com for awhile this afternoon. I have a tree for my kids because one day they might care to know who their ancestors were. I think it's a product of middle age, when you realize that you actually are NOT immortal. Then you want to figure out who came before you (and figure out when you're likely to follow them - not the reason I like genealogy.) While updating some things on my kids' paternal ancestry, I came across some old photos of their great-great grandfather. It's uncanny how much he looks like his son, my kids' great-grandfather who passed away in 2007. I'm sharing them because old photos are cool and because my blog is a good place to store random information for posterity. I'm using photos without permission but they were on a public family tree on ancestry.com created by kids' paternal grandmother's cousin. Anyways...

The soldier guy is my kids' great-great-grandfather, George W. England Sr. I don't know for sure who the other folks are but I'm going to guess that one of the ladies is his wife who they called Dolly Gran and maybe their sons?   Another of George the first.

My kids' dad's mom's dad (got that?) is George W. England, Jr. He's on the far left. The other two kids are his brothers. I'm not sure if those guns are real but... cute little soldier boys. George Jr was born in... 1914, I think. In this picture he would have been ten or eleven. Someone wrote me on ancestry.com and pointed me toward some documents about George Jr.s grandfather that listed him at 5 foot 5 inches. I don't remember him as short but I'm 5'1 so... everyone is tall to me.

An older picture of George Sr. They were a pretty hardcore military family. Even through George III (my kids' great uncle) and I think his son, George IV as well. My kids' paternal grandfather (not an England) was killed in Vietnam. Uncle George (the third) has gotten in contact with us recently as my former mother in law has been put in a home. My relationship with her was never particularly chummy.  I can't really imagine visiting her but... the kids might want to at some point. Ryan is the only one who really knew her and he's in Pennsylvania. Cody lives just a mile or two from her but he's been dealing with a very sick wife ever since Gram has been in the home. Marquee is doing better, though so maybe they'll be able to visit her. I don't want to sound indifferent but I really try not to make my kids feel obligated to visit ME. It's completely not in my nature to pressure them to visit someone that they hardly know. Nevertheless, I think roots are important and I'm happy to do what I can to preserve them for my kids.

And. Well, I guess that's it. Good food, being inside cozy and warm on a cold Monday, scoring some interesting old photos and... I'll end it halfway watching The Bachelor and flipping back and forth to the Weather Channel to see what Winter Storm Juno does. For the record, I think it's stupid to name Winter Storms.

I just thought of one more Reason To Love Monday... I checked out a book from the library last Winter about the blizzard of 1888. Every time I see the list of the most epic storms on the forecasts I think, "I know all about that one!". And that's really all I have today. Love and hugs, y'all.