Genealogy Conference 2025 - Day One

Up extra early for my first day at the State Genealogy Conference! I had several comments of interest so I want to share while it's fresh in my mind. But I am also exhausted so there won't be much detail, lol. 

Arrival was great. I brought a foam cup of coffee with me and when I picked it up from my cupholder in the car, I squeezed it and coffee exploded all over the inside of my car.  Things got better after that. 

My niece joined Ancestry and has me exploring a Revolutionary War ancestor and this presenter was excellent! 

I skipped the luncheon and went to Olive Garden where I sit by myself and eat soup and salad while gathering my notes. I started this the first time I attended and it is my tradition. And it is delicious. 

This presenter let AI pick his graphic. Pretty funny. 

This was a much more worthwhile session than I expected. 

More military records! This was a great session I learned even more. 

I have attended sessions with this speaker before and he is great.  And even better, I was talking to the woman behind me after the session and she gave me some great info on finding the marriage record of my husband's great great grandparents. I have some file numbers from a Polish site and wasn't sure where to go next.  

And I won a door prize! 

The conference ended at 4:40 pm and I jumped in my car to drive a mile down the road to the May Day 2025 - International Workers Protest. 

Yes, wind and rain again. I had my husband drill holes in my foam board sign for the wind. It worked pretty slick. 

They counted over 200 like-minded citizens and we had two boom boxes playing great hits like Country Joe and the Fish and Tracy Chapman. We boogied and waved to the honking passersby. 

I have a great video but I can't figure out how to share it.  

Then I drove home, stopping for a bag of burgers. Overall - 12 hours later and I am exhausted. And tomorrow I have to be dressed and out of here by 7:15 since the conference starts earlier on Day Two. 

My granddaughter's school had their Art Show tonight and she won the Art Council Award! 

And it was her stage premiere in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I am going to the final performance on Sunday. 

It's after 11 and I better be getting to bed! Back tomorrow with Day Two. 

And - I did buy the syllabus for the entire conference so if you have any specific questions I can look them up.  

Hope everyone had a great weekend! We had a slumber party with three grandchildren. Now we are resting. 

Our exciting news is that I hooked up with a new egg dealer. My old egg dealer and her wife and biracial daughter have all their ducks in row to move to Windsor Canada on May 18th and have sold the flock. 

The new eggs! I used to work with her mother when she and her brothers were in 4H. And raised chickens. She is now a registered nurse in the big town ER and has four children of her own. And chickens. 

She sells them for $3 a dozen at a cute little stand on her farm. She found out that people were buying her eggs and selling them for $5 as their own. She posted that she is only selling to friends now and I got on the list! She texts when she puts them out and I pick up from her driveway where they are in a cooler in the stand, washed and with an ice pack. 

Washed is a big deal because around here the cool kids like the unwashed ones (you know, with chicken poop on the shell). They also like unpasteurized milk which is somehow legal to sell now in my state.  And they feed the unrefrigerated, unwashed eggs and unpasteurized milk to their unvaccinated children. Luckily I'm too old to be a cool kid. 

We have an exciting week planned! Today a man came to our driveway and fixed a chip in the windshield of my husband's vehicle. 

Tomorrow my stove is being delivered! And I am pretty excited about that! Just in time for another family dinner Tuesday.

Wednesday my state genealogy conference starts and I will be busy through Saturday. And because it is meant to be, my Thursday May 1st protest will be at the mall just down the highway from my conference. 

Sunday I will be attending a preschool music performance at the Lutheran Church and leaving the parking lot to drive 1 hour and 45 minutes to my granddaughter's high school performance in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. 

I am grateful for some new fangled thing that her school is doing online. I was able to order a rose and some candy with a personal note to be delivered for every performance. And three roses (big spender) for the final performance which is the one I will attend.  This way I don't have to find a florist, transport the flowers and clutch them during the play. And the profit goes to the theater department. 

#FieldTripFriday

 

We are down to one juvenile participant in Field Trip Fridays. Today we headed to the Amish nursery for our tomato plants.

When I travel with my daughter we generally stop at about five other Amish nurseries before we reach this one. My husband is a one and done shopper. 

I will be doing a return trip with my daughter for flowers and hanging baskets. This is not my hanging basket nursery. 

I like my baskets with a variety of flowers and dangly vines. But this nursery has the best vegetable selection. Most of these nurseries also sell wholesale so you want to go early in the season before they ship everything out. 

These are the tomato plants, the primary reason for our trip. We like our tomatoes early so we cheat with patio plants. The prices at the nurseries are usually half the price of something similar at Walmart (which is the only garden center in my town).

There were many Amish housewives shopping today and I tried to be respectful about photos. This group hired a man with a white suburban and a trailer. Most were buying large ferns. We caught up with the same group later at the Amish grocery store. They sell sandwiches and the ladies were lunching outside at umbrella tables. 

I lost the grandchild! But the pots didn't tip. 

This year's plan for the grampa gardener's raised beds. He puts the lettuce in pots.  I made him a list to help with choices next year.  

We got home just in time for a rainstorm. I'm sure the tomatoes are enjoying a drink. 

Thursday

A better photo of my apple blossoms. 

I found some substitutes for my church shift today since my husband had an out of town doctors appointment. He neglected to look at the calendar when he made the appointment so we also took a preschooler with us since his teachers had an inservice. 

Since we were in the big town, we stopped to look at lighting fixtures for the bathroom. Of course I fell in love with one that was not on the shelf. A lovely clerk named Monique actually found a case that was being checked in and managed to secure the fixture for me. We also picked up towel bars, tp holder and hooks in a matching metal for the project spending only double what I had budgeted.  

Since we were in the big town with our little helper, we had to stop for lunch at Applebees which is his "date night" restaurant. It did not compare to my sandwich earlier this week. 

We headed home so I could make my Thursday dinner for my son's family on their way to soccer. Tonight was breaded pork steak, scalloped potatoes and carrots.  

They left for soccer and we left for a cocktail party fundraiser.  This is not our normal Thursday activity but I was there in gratitude that the party was not for me.  I was recently asked to serve as our county's Democratic Party Chair and declined. They almost begged.  I just feel they don't really know me. I told them from the get go that my mouth can't be trusted and I would not represent them well.  In addition, I really feel like more of an independent voter who isn't happy with almost anyone.  

They did find a chair and this was a fundraiser for her since the last chair did not leave much in the account.  I thought her name was familiar but she had to remind me who she was.  

Way back in the day (I believe 2017) I joined the Indivisible and thought we could save the world with postcards.  National organizations as well as state and local candidates would send me hundreds of postcards and mailing lists and I would host parties at my dining room table where we would address these to voters and write personal messages.  She had contacted me via facebook and volunteered to take some home to work on.  Several people also did that but she requested 300!  And let me know two days later that her husband, her sister and herself had completed all of them.  So yes, I did remember her! 

As I said, we don't go to parties like this and I promised my husband we would drop off our donation and leave. He was the talkative one, lol.  First we sat with an old friend of mine whose husband also retired from the railroad. They had to share stories. Then the county auditor who I worked with previously had a petition for reelection and my husband cornered him with questions and his opinion on property taxes. I was edging toward the door when we were caught by the mayor and his wife (I also hosted meet and greets for him pre-covid) where I found out some interesting gossip about the sale of property in my neighborhood.  Then the mayor introduced us to a district court judge made a two hour drive to this thing.  

They were all trying to corner me into volunteering for some kind of position, but fortunately I couldn't hear what they were saying with my ears blocked from the sinus infection so I just kept saying no and smiling. And finally got him out the door. 

I should mention I purchased a cosmopolitan at the bar. I drink about 2 cocktails a year so this is of note. The drink was $10 and I tipped. This is one reason I do not drink often. I guess this is what cocktails cost? I thought we weren't tariffing Russia - isn't that where vodka comes from?

I did speak a little with an old friend whose sister I was very close to when we were raising our children.  Her sister was diagnosed with ovarian cancer last summer and went through chemo and radiation. The cancer has come back and she is not doing well. She began chemo again, but is very ill and taking a break.  

She was the prettiest girl in my high school, elected Homecoming Queen and the envy of all. She was a few years older than me and I always admired her, she was my Taylor Swift.  When our girls started preschool I discovered in real life she was a sweet and kind mom and we shared so many adventures together. She still looked as gorgeous as ever, at her last class reunion she was voted "least changed" which I did not know was a thing. And neither did she.  The chemo has caused her to lose her hair and changed her appearance and she doesn't want anyone to see her like this. She doesn't want to talk to anyone or have any visitors.  I have been sending her a card every couple days.  I know this is a horrible thing for her to deal with and her husband is just devastated too. It's all so sad. 

Tomorrow I am hoping to take the husband and preschooler to visit the tomato plants at the Amish nursery. And late afternoon we are picking up the next oldest grandson for the weekend. He is a kindergartener and gets bored at his brother's sports tournaments.  Oh, and one of those tall grandsons tore something important in his hip yesterday and is on crutches for the next five weeks in hopes to avoid surgery.  His mother is thinking she will need tranquilizers for both him and her to keep him down.