The Past. The Present. The Future?

The future?  I don't even think about it or worry about it anymore, at least, not like I used to.

I am too busy in the present.

The present, which right now, has me deeply searching the mysteries of the past.

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I finished up a genealogy I started first of April.  I was so pleased with the way the book turned out.  I put it in a printing paper box, stuffed paper all around it and packed it into a Flat Rate Medium box to mail.  I held that box, hugged up tight to my heart and sent it off with love.

My client received it and sent me the nicest e-mail to tell me how much she liked it.  That e-mail meant the world to me.  She had helped me so much with information and photos of her ancestor's.  Then I delved and dug deep to find maps of the areas where her ancestor's came from and any stories I could find about the area and the places where her ancestor's worked and lived.  

I really love doing genealogies for people.  At times, in my searches, I have come upon discoveries that have taken my breath away.  To keep going up and up through the generations until I reach up into the early 1000's, is thrilling to me.  Just think what our ancestor's went through to make a life.  Many died fairly young...many wives died in child birth...many father's died only a few months after their last child was born.  Then, the ones that came across that big ocean to this new world to make a new life.  How frightening that must have been.  Glad we are that they did or we, ourselves, would have ended up living under persecution or in war-torn countries.

There is such a history to the background of our easy, sometimes mundane lives.  Maybe that is why I love genealogy.  I love history and people's biographies and documentaries.  To open that all up for someone and perhaps prove to them that, they are related to royalty or warriors or even, just plain, ordinary, hard working people like all my farmer ancestors.

Here I am, late in life and feel like I have found my calling!  

and now, onto climbing up the branches of the next family tree!

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How about this present day marvel?  I do not remember planting this Iris.  

I have my peach colored "Momma Iris"

and I have purple Iris.  Was there some sort of hanky-panky, last fall or under the cover of snow, that caused this beauty to emerge?

Most years, I buy Hot Pink, Purple and Chartreuse plants for my pots.  This year I decided to go with yellow, purple, white and chartreuse.  I don't know if I like it or not.  Now enough POP of color, but the pots will fill in and....it is as it is.  

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The dreaded dental visit that I have put off since March.  That yearly exam that includes: full mouth x-rays, deep cleaning, the periodontal check, where the hygienist pokes that pointy thing deep around each tooth to check the pockets and how much the gums have receded, and the final check, when the dentist comes in and checks for oral cancers, nodules in my neck and does her darndest to search for teeny-tiny cavities.  I'm glad it's over.  An hour and 15 minutes in that chair that caused my neck to hurt and the pain shooting into my shoulder and the left front part of my chest.    Back in four months for just a regular cleaning, which I won't put off!