Coffee and cardboard puzzles do not mix.
I spent today working very hard on this frustrating puzzle.
I finally got the whole map part finished...not easy with all
that teeny tiny print...but in the process managed to spill my coffee onto
the puzzle. I got it mopped up quickly, but it did ruin three pieces,
which I hope to put back together again when they have dried. We
started this puzzle, thinking it would be a good mental exercise for Walt,
but I think Ned and I have done most of it! I'm not surprised.
This is MUCH more difficult than the last three we made.
As I worked on the states I was remembering how I learned the
states as a kid, and wondered if Brianna could find the states if asked.
Karen and I had a wooden puzzle that we made over and over and over again
through the years. Because of that I know pretty much where most of
the states are, and if I don't know exactly (like the New England
states), I at least know approximately where they are.
It was another quiet day. Marta snuck out of here at 6
a.m. Polly only barked twice and I wasn't sure she had actually left.
Walt had a fair night, which is a good thing. And we had nothing on
the schedule for the day.
Walt is still working on organizing his office...so far no
little gems like he found yesterday. I spent a lot of the day working
on the puzzle and then discovered Who Do You Think You Are? OnDemand
and watched the show about Matthew Morrison. I always confuse that
show with Finding Your Roots. I enjoy both and I haven't seen
Who Do You Think... broadcast recently. I give a slight edge to
that show because the subject does a lot of the sleuthing themselves and
it's fun watching where they go and what they see and do. But
Finding Your Roots, which does all the research for the subject, traces
the family trees back a lot further.
I know that doing one of the DNA kits is all the rage these
days and I always felt that the cost didn't justify the results especially
since my cousin traced our roots on my mother's side back all the way to
Robert the Bruce (apparently our x-times relative was a buddy of Robert).
My mother even visited the family castle (Closeburn Castle) when she visited
Scotland (it's still in the family and looks more like a hotel than a
castle)
She even got a tour of the place from the current resident
who, I believe, is a member of our family.
But I know absolutely NOTHING about my father's family.
I know his father's parents came over from Ireland and that my grandfather
had four brothers, but my grandmother hated the family and so I never got to
know any of them, except the brother who was my godfather. I know
nothing about my grandmother's family except she had a brother named Leo,
and I'm not sure I ever met him.
Listening to Henry Louis Gates explaining DNA results to his
subjects makes me wonder what my DNA would show about my grandmother's
family. I know her mother was German, but I don't know if she was born
in Germany or in the US.
One reason this fascinates me is that my genes from my mother
are Irish an Scottish and I feel at "home" when I go to Ireland (less so in
Scotland, though my Scottish genes are stronger). I identify as Irish.
But a part of me has always identified somewhat with the Jewish people for
reasons I have never understood, and I wonder if a DNA test would show that
somewhere in my background there are Jews. Given that our history is
from Germany, this may be a possibility.
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