brick walls

The last few years, I've been using some of my sporadic free time to research family history. And in some areas, I'm stuck. I have quite a few records from aunts and uncles that I've been entering into ancestry.com. Sometimes their records match census records; sometimes they don't. One of the craziest things I've encountered with one side of the family is that the family names, births, marriages, and deaths recorded in the family Bible have no link to anyone in our family tree that I can find. It's driving me crazy. I have a small family tree mapped out, but no clue as to how it relates to my family.  Or I have names and dates, but they don't match anything in the census record. Or you simply can't find anyone at all. It's quite frustrating. Before the internet searches became so huge, a library in Raleigh offered classes once or twice a year on how to start researching your family, but I've not seen that advertised in a very long time.

And the reality is, while I'm very curious and would love to prove/disprove a few family legends, the reality is, it doesn't change anything at all. Regardless of who my ancestors were or where they are (or are not) from, I still have to clean house and fulfill obligations, show up to appointments. Life does not stop just because of what happened in the past, and the reality of what Jesus changed in my life does not evaporate because I do/do not have a certain heritage.

So I'll keep searching and pouring over beautiful but hard to read handwriting in search of certain names and dates. Hopefully I won't aggravate any more family members in the process with some of my discoveries (or lack thereof). And maybe when it's all over, I won't feel so much like the people who sit back in shock upon learning history is not quite what they anticipated.

birthdays

My husband is usually an excellent gift giver. There's only one area where he's failed, and it's become something of Bryan family folklore. My husband, like me, loves to read. When he was about my age, he realized there was no one to pass on his favorite childhood books to (which were quickly becoming antiques) so he started gifting them to his nieces and nephews as birthday or Christmas presents. The problem? Most of them don't like to read.

 

His family, like my father's family, has generational layers within each generational branch (cousins getting married while other cousins are just being born, creating subgroups within the grandchildren and great-grandchildren).  The third set of nieces and nephews are now reaching their teen years. A few years ago, we were at a loss what to give Glory for her birthday, so we simply asked. Her answer? "Not a book."  We laughed, and ever since then we've been on a search for a book that Glory would actually read. As a joke, we wrapped her present in one of those empty decorative books. Here's her facial expression before she realized it wasn't really a book. :)

Who says you can't have fun giving presents?

moving right along

It is Monday and the day is almost gone (at least my free time part of it is) and my to do list has not shrunk much at all.

And for some strange reason, that actually doesn't bother me.

It's been a bit of busy yet slow kind of day.  I took a friend to the doctor this morning, and while waiting I was able to finish looking at a quilting magazine that's been on my dresser for a few weeks.

I was able to peacefully browse at two of my favorite stores after I took her home, which was nice.

We've picked produce out of the garden, and thankfully I bought cheesecloth while in one of those stores so I can start a batch of sweet pickles tonight.

It was nice to break our routine and be out of the house and not super aware of the quietness (my family was here for a few days last week, so the house has seemed exceptionally quiet since then). And I avoided the back to school section at Target when I went to pick up meds this afternoon. So I'm surviving, in my own way, the insanity of mind that August always brings as Facebook and Twitter bombards me with reminders that my life is very different from everyone else's.

Somewhat along the same lines, I lost some of my "aunt status" with my youngest niece last week. I cooked rabbit like I would cook barbeque chicken the first night they were here, and didn't tell anyone but Bobby. As everyone was finishing dessert, I asked them how they liked the meat. Suddenly everyone had wide eyes and startled expressions (which we found funny considering everyone thought it was chicken). My 9 year old niece immediately started, "That better not have been deer! Please tell me I didn't eat a deer!"  To which Bobby and I both laughed and said "No, it wasn't deer."  This started alarming everyone as they couldn't figure out what it was. When I said "rabbit", my nephew grinned real big, as did my sister (though with wide eyes) and as she turned to my nephew and said "Well, you've been wanting to know what rabbit tastes like. You can mark that off your hunting list" my niece immediately started crying. "I didn't want to eat a bunny!" and she ran from the room. While I was cleaning up the kitchen and deboning the rest of the meat, my nephew came in to take a picture so he could text his friends back home. Yes. Everything is perspective, and in my niece's eyes, I am no longer a cool aunt.

Hopefully the next time I post I'll actually have project photos to post. Meanwhile, I have several projects I'm tackling that I need to get busy on. I've not forgotten about my blog. I think about things to post and put up, but I've either been too busy or the computer has been occupied. I guess Bobby's retirement has been good in that way: I have less time on the computer and more time to do things.

pics

My nephew has an aversion to having his face posted on the internet. This was his creative solution. :)

long overdue

Since my nephew has an aversion to his face being on Facebook, but has not said anything about my blog, here we go. :)

From April 21, Townley Free Will Baptist Church in Townley, Alabama:

 Dad getting ready to dunk Carly. And despite all of our teasing that he'd hold her under until she turned blue or bubbled, Pawpaw brought her back up fairly fast.

 Mason, who surprised us by laughing the whole time before going under.

 Just the thought of this endless energy this child has makes me tired! ;)

 Left to Right: Mrs. Weems, Jamie (my bro-in-law), Naomi (my sis), Andy (my bro), and Amie, (my sis-in-law).

And the Weems family after the baptism. :)

Unfortunately I had WAY too much caffeine that weekend, so my hands were a little too shaky to be manuevering a camera. There are a whole lot  more pics, but the ones of the kiddos coming up out of the water are too blurry to post.

And as always, I am one happy aunt. :)

a teenager

And my nephew is now the big 13!

He's an Auburn fan.
He loves to deer hunt (and isn't very happy about his Mom sharing his deer meat with others).
He enjoys basketball and baseball.
He's in the Beta Club.
He does NOT like having his picture made and if he saw this he'd be MOST unhappy with his aunt.
He likes both dogs and cats.
He enjoys exploring the woods.
I wish we lived a lot closer.

Happy happy Birthday, M.E.Weems!

illuminating moments

Inevitably when two people forge a new life together, they discover things they thought were normal can be perceived as "strange" to others.

We had one of those moments today.

There are many things, whether it be sayings or habits, that make my husband grin and say "Is that a White/Guyton thing or an Alabama thing?"  Sometimes I take to Facebook and find out it's unique to my family. Othertimes friends and family from home respond with "WHAT? You mean people in NC don't say/do that?!?" so we know it's regional.

Since we slept in this morning and had a late breakfast, we had a late lunch, and I decided it needed to be light as well. Turns out my husband has NEVER had a pineapple sandwich. He's never even HEARD of it. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. I guess I've just eaten them when he's been at work.

So after lunch, he googles it, and discovers that it is an Alabama tradition, and not something crazy I made up.

After reading the article, he informed me he didn't get the true deal, because it's not supposed to be on wheat bread. I didn't tell him, but I actually bought him some white bread for his sandwiches this week. Married life is all about compromises, after all. And my parents, when I told them about it, said "You mean you didn't put any cheese on it for him?" 

Maybe one day I'll get it right.

But I'm not going to hold my breath or anything.

goose hunting

This past Saturday we took advantage of the wonderful weather and did a little yardwork, in between visits from great nephews. And I'm happy to report that A) I finished thinning out the irises by the back ramp and B) the older nephew seems to have lost interest in chasing my chickens. :)

The new game is "goose huntin'".

 Grab a toy gun.

 Aim at the geese on the other side of the pond. (and or course, you get them all)

 Move to another location, and hope younger brother doesn't throw his gun in the pond.

Isn't that what you do with stick things? Oh wait. This one clicks.

 

I like this game much better. And it's even okay if they decide to "shoot the fish" at feeding time. That game works even better, for when the fish take their food out of sight for moment, Trey really thinks he's succeeded. :)



reminiscing

Today I've been thinking a lot today about my maternal grandmother.
She was married to an abusive alcoholic.
She was a Christian.
She stuck with him to the day he died.
When she met Bobby, I remember her telling him that she was miserable until the last 7 years of marriage. Then her Pug (never did find out how he got that nickname) became a Christian, and those last 7 years were the sweetest years they ever had.
One of her sayings was "Love is not a water faucet that you turn on and off."
We were the same height, and I fear have a lot of the same personality characteristics.
I don't know why God blessed me with wonderful godly examples and the family he has, but I am truly blessed beyond measure. I hope I can leave behind half the legacy that she did.

the best things in life...

The best things in life come in small packages.
                        ~ Margie Ingle

She was the second-born, but the first to live.
She was the shortest child of 8 siblings. I bet the closest she ever came to being 5' was when she wore exceptionally high heels.
She was valedictorian of her senior class, but demoted to salutatorian because she was "starting to show". Unwed mothers were not welcomed in society in those days. The principal didn't even want her to graduate. Years later he would apologize.
She was positive, no matter what life threw her way.
She loved to sew, and was an excellent quilter. She actually preferred piecing, and would send her quilt-tops away to be quilted.
She was feisty.
Two weeks ago, as hospice came to help, her eldest described her as "a wrinkle in the sheet". Her tiny frame seemed to be shrinking with each failure of the heart, with each round of infection and pain from her broken hip.
At 3am this morning, with her daughter-in-law by her side, she entered the presence of her Lord and Savior, 2 months shy of being 83.
I imagine she's enthralled with all the colors of heaven this morning.
And I can't help but wonder if her new body is as tiny as her old one.

simply cool

Last month during our visit/vacation to Alabama, we had the opportunity to visit with my Aunt Pat. This was my first visit to her Montgomery house, and it was a special treat because a good chunk of the house was wheelchair accessible. That is very unusual, especially for older homes.

In one of her rooms, this is the main piece of furniture. When I saw it, my first thought was "Susan!" (my sister-in-law), immediately bumped by "a church window" and "I LOVE It!"

It's a bookcase that my cousin found at an antique store. I think it is absolutely lovely.

And for this pic she'll absolutely kill me the next time she sees me, but this is her cooking. As a child I always dreamed of growing up to dress like her. And then I sadly grew up and realized that the tunic tops and long flowy skirts and knee-length boots that she wore and looked so elegant in make short people like me look dumpy and even shorter. But I still like the way she dresses, and should God every stretch me out like her or my little sister, I too will wear tunic tops and A-frame dresses. :)

snow day

49 years ago a little boy told his mother he was NOT going to school on his birthday.
She informed him he was.
And on his birthday, he woke up to snow.
His Mom still shakes her head in disbelief when she tells that story.

Today he stayed home (but is actually working!) on his birthday, because of snow.

 Happy Birthday, babe! :)

IronBowl 2010

For non-Alabama natives, the IronBowl is THE game of the year. It is the day which the other 364 days revolve around. It is one of the two days no one in their right mind would attempt to get married on (the other being first day of deer season), and the day everything somewhat stops, including Black Friday shopping.  If you thought the after 3pm sales were created for everyone, you're wrong.  It was to give people something to do to release pent up energy after the game that Friday. 
In the state of Alabama, you must choose one of two teams: Alabama or Auburn.  Anyone who doesn't shows they are either a poorly watered transplant or simply an alien. And a mixed marriage in Alabama has nothing to do with race; it means an Auburn fan married and Alabama fan.
My husband likes the t-shirt that says "Alabama - we don't play football.  We LIVE it!" And sadly, it's true.
And then there's me. Football is an interesting thing.  But I don't live it.
I helped feed the frenzy with cookie cutters in elephant and tiger paw shapes, along with football helmets and the state of Alabama.  My nephew and niece got creative by creating scoreboards, even going so far as to etch in their predicted scores.  And I enjoyed all the football food. :)
And then came gametime.  And I horrified certain family members (but not my Mom, who heartily approved) by QUILTING during the game. It's a wonder they didn't send me to the mental hospital! If that weren't bad enough, I then proceeded to be "rational" about a few things (such as questionable ref calls, etc), which prompted a few people to question my Alabama "fan" status.  And posting the following picture of my cousin's shirt (which I thought was cute) will probably forever seal my status as a counterfeit fan (and could even start false charges of "traitor"), but so be it.

I think the tiger looks like Hobbes from Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, and I really like the polka dots. It actually gives a football shirt a fun look (fun meaning something other than football here, which yes, I realize is an absurd statement).
I would have loved for Bama to win, but quite honestly, they played like they spent the day before eating turkey all day long.  And now that Auburn won, I hope they keep their undefeated status and make it all the way to winners of the championship team.  Heresy, I know, but in my mind they're just as much from Alabama as I am, and I liked the way their coach gave God the credit for things. I'm even more thankful that Auburn's quarterback has been cleared of corruption charges, and think all the $Cam Newton Alabama shirts ought to be burned.  How tasteless can we be?
Meanwhile, there's always next year.
Roll Tide Roll.

cousins

Science projects...I don't remember having many of those as a child.  So I found it neat and fun that a friend of mine was collecting bugs for her son. Not just any bugs, mind you, but specifically, insects.  And I've learned a few cool things these last two weeks while looking and listening.
We had a yellow jacket nest outside the door which I sprayed and easily bagged up.  There were wasp nests on the front porch, but evidently they've abandoned the nest (or else heard the eldest J was coming to get 'em), for there's no wasps to be seen the last few weeks. We knocked down a few dirt dauber's nests and pulled two apart.  We didn't get a complete dauber, but we get enough broken parts in the nests that it should count. Since the Mom wasn't familiar with this crazy insect, and I was woefully ignorant, I googled it.  Turns out the dirt dauber has three different names throughout the US. The south calls it dirt dauber or mud dauber.  The west calls it mud wasps.  And essentially that's what it is.  A wasp that builds its nest out of mud.  Part of the nest is for food storage, and the other part is for nesting. The debate is still on as to whether or not they sting.  Most people claim they don't; others ferociously claim they do.
But I digress.  What's cool about the yellow jacket, the black wasp, and the dirt dauber, is that they are all in the same family... cousins, if you will.  All very different, all distinct stings, but still related.

the black wasp

the yellow jacket

the dirt dauber

So the next time I ponder families with cousins like mine (blond hair, blue eyes/ brown hair/brown eyes/ red hair, green eyes/ and all sorts of sundry mixtures of those deviants), I can point to nature and simply say, "God likes variety." 
Courtesy of a 4th grade science project.  :)

peepers

I used to love the song from the Tom & Jerry cartoon "Jeepers, Creepers...where'd you get these peepers? Jeepers, creepers...where'd you get those eyes?" And I could tell you where I got my eyes...from my Dad. I have Mom's hair coloring and freckles, Dad's straightness of hair, eyes, build, and I have an unusual blend of their skin tones. Mom wore/wears contacts; Dad wore glasses. We all knew we'd wind up wearing corrective lenses of some sort; it was just a matter of when. Mine started early.

But there are some things about my eyes that I get from both sides of the family:
color-blindness, and now the possibility of glaucoma. My maternal grandmother had it, and now my Dad does as well.

My husband will most likely one day be senile, and I'll be blind. Won't we be the pair?

"R"

When I was in the third grade, my mother informed me I needed to work on my handwriting. I remember telling her it was pointless, for not only did I look like my Dad, I had inherited his handwriting skills as well. (This was pre-preacher days when Dad was a pharmacist. Let's just say not only do pharmacists know how to read a dr's messy handwriting, they can write that messy as well.) I don't remember all of Mom's response, but I do remember her back arching and me spending some time practicing writing that day. And that night after supper Dad spent some time with me at the table working on cursive letters. It seemed to me his handwriting radically improved after that.

Another thing my Dad and I have in common is our middle initial "R". While our middle names are totally different, as a child I loved to write my name Monica R. White because Dad always wrote his Jerry R. White. To me it seemed like this special bond we had. After I got married, it surprised Bobby a little that I kept my middle name and dropped my maiden name. In hindsight I understand some of his reasoning. Keeping the maiden name does make it a little easier on filling out forms, but all my nicknames from my family stem around my middle name, and just as Dad has always been Jerry R, I've always been Monica R. Giving up my middle name and initial felt like throwing away my identity even more than giving up my maiden name did. So I became Monica R. Bryan. A few years after we were married, it somehow came up that unlike my sisters, I hadn't kept my maiden name. While my reasoning surprised my parents, I think they also liked it. I am my father's child, after all.

Besides the dark eyes, short squat stature, straight dark hair and overall pudginess, Dad and I share, he also instilled in all four of us a love for nature. Sunday mornings before he became a preacher were my favorite times. While Mom cleaned up the kitchen, we would snuggle on, around, and on top of him by the porch window and watch squirrels and chipmunks harvest nuts.

But more than anything else, he lived out his life in front of us applying Scripture to his life. It wasn't just a book he read from and made us squirmingly sit through after breakfast. For him it was/is a way of life. When he became a preacher and they lost his business, they could have filed for bankruptcy. Instead my parents claimed "A good name is better to be chosen than great riches." The next 20+ years of their life were financially difficult, but I wouldn't trade those life lessons for anything in the world. When I came home complaining about kids in my new school saying untrue things about me, his response was to apply the principles of Matthew 18. And when we had to pray for a new vehicle because ours was literally dead and the money wasn't there, we took Dad's joke to pray for a Cadillac seriously. When his nephew whom we hadn't heard from in several years called a few weeks later, Dad shockingly told us he was in retail for the Cadillac company, had bought a used car at wholesale a few years earlier, and for some reason we kept coming to mind when he thought about selling it. We were dirt poor, but we had a very nice car to drive. I think that one still boggles Dad's mind. Our response was, "That's what you told us to pray for!" And the one of the many things I loved about my Dad as a teenager was that he was never afraid to admit he was wrong or didn't have all the answers. I don't think he'll ever realize how much of an impact he made on me during my teen years.

And while he probably won't read this blog, Happy Birthday Dad!

the aging process

This week I had the wonderful opportunity of having my little sister and her family stay with us for most of the week. Watching my youngest niece is like pulling into the vaults of my memory and seeing glimpses of my grandmother's personality and character traits and body structure of my eldest niece, who is now in high school. We will miss her kisses, hugs, smile and questions. Another highlight from this week was getting to know my nephew's personality a little better. One of our fun activities was letting them design t-shirts for an iron-on transfer. He continuously amazed me with his sense of layout and design. Wouldn't it be cool if twenty years down the road the two of us could have our own graphic design company?
Other events from this week:

• countless games of "chase" with Uncle Bobby
• Carly's Toy Store
• table football
• Hidden Valley Wonders
• fishing
• the geese/dog/chicken conversations and chore time
• meals
• water balloons & more
• our brief shopping trip

I don't envy their drive on the long road home, though my heart yearns to connect all those dots with each year that passes. Yes, Sweet Home Alabama wouldn't be so sweet without the many faces that make it so dear.

I am my mother's child

My mother has a problem with cleaning. By this I mean she cleans constantly. In that regard, I take after my Dad. But there is one area of cleaning in which I take after Mom, and that is in regards to HOW we clean.

I have family coming in this week. That means the empty bedrooms which I use as "put places" are often uninhabitable prior to company coming. Or in the words of my 2nd grade niece, "Hmm, these rooms are quite messy." And so they are. Now I could easily pick stuff up, stuff stuff under the beds and into drawers, vacuum and be done. But there's something within me that rebels at that thought, because that means I will have to come back later and sort through it all, which means cleaning the room AGAIN. So I began tackling the guest bedroom last night, which I use as my sewing room. Now, keep in mind that from April-May I have frantically been quilting. Bobby stopped in a few minutes ago to see how progress was coming. When I joyfully exclaimed, "See how much I've got done" he responded with raised eyebrows "You've certainly pulled a lot of stuff out." But I can see 3/4 of the bed and floor now, and everything that's been moved is in its place, so this room will definitely be ready before bedtime tonight. The "toy room" as kids call it (Mikalai and Aleh's bedroom) won't take long to ready, and hopefully that'll be done tonight as well. The killer room is my art room. At some point within the next four years I'd love to totally overhaul that room into a studio, but for now it still has bedroom furniture crammed (and I do mean crammed) with all kinds of art supplies, Christmas decorations, portfolio pieces, etc and so on. If it weren't for the fact that my 13 yr old niece will be here with my 9 yr old nephew and 5 yr old niece, that room would have been packed up first. Yet I don't think they'll paint the walls or themselves with Ellen around, and they might actually enjoy helping pack that room up. (yeah, right!)

But seeing as they won't arrive until lunchtime tomorrow...there's still hope. Provided I don't decide to tackle the kitchen next.

so it took ten years

Yesterday at lunch my mother-in-law started teasing me about my pathetic little garden. And for the first time in ten years, I was actually able to TRULY laugh and not just put on my pretend smile. Maybe it's because I don't expect my garden to fall into "true garden" status, but I just hope for enough fresh produce for the summer. Maybe it's because I know she's right, AND I also know where she's coming from. Or MAYBE after almost ten years, I have arrived where mother-in-law jabs (and yes, hers are innocent and well-intended with love) no longer bother me.

My in-laws lived through the Great Depression. My mother-in-law still has her family's ration book from WWII. One of my father-in-law's favorite sayings was "Hard times are coming. Better be prepared." I can still hear him saying it. Bob would duct-tape his worn-out tennis shoes together to wear in the garden or when tending to cows or fishing. He saw no point in ruining good shoes for dirty work when his modified old ones worked just fine. He also firmly believed in planting extra crops in case some of them didn't "make." His garden filled about an acre, and filled not only his freezers but his children's and others as well. Despite what all the experts say, he never rotated his crops because he said they grew well where they were, so why change things?

Then there's me. I didn't use RoundUp on my garden area before tilling this year, and I only tilled it once. It has five rows (one of which has yet to produce anything), and grows more grass than produce. My whole "garden" could be placed on about 1/2 of one of his bean rows. When my mother-in-law saw it, the grass had not been weeded in 2.5 weeks. The grass was so bad that our yard boys couldn't tell where my garden started and mowed down my two watermelon plants. And between the wild rabbits and grass, my cabbage heads are still the size of an orange.

HENCE, I weeded this weekend. It's time to pull the snow peas up, retill, and plant something else. We've only had a few servings from them this year, and I probably won't plant them again next year. Somehow we've had two corn plants come up right outside the garden (I have NO clue how they got there). Everything else is woefully small and sad. (especially after seeing Dad's garden last week!) But I've enjoyed what little time I've spent out there. And there's still hope of it being productive later in the summer. Perhaps I'll be able to salvage part of it after all. And if not, I can chalk it up to lessons of what not to do next summer.

I am thankful I refrained from extending it further. Can you imagine how pathetic it would be if I actually had more to tend?

Fannie Farmer I'm not. And neither do I have the museum-clean expectations of other generations for my house. And for once I'm actually okay with that. I may not be tomorrow, but today I am.

Slugs or tomato worms, anyone?

the "greats"

Timothy Samuel Bryan, Jr. (aka Sammy), Timothy Samuel Bryan, Sr (aka Tim), and Timothy Samuel Bryan III (aka Trey)

As of Sunday, March 29, 2009, we are now officially Great Uncle Bobby and Great Aunt Monica. Congatulations Sammy and Jess!