Jo's Personal Blog at Blogger.com: 2015

Tuesday

In Deep with the Book of Me - Explore. Dream. Discover

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations. - See more at: http://joannfitz.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-book-of-me-written-by-you-topic-1.html#sthash.2TuO2bVu.dpuf

The prompt for the month is:

Explore. Dream. Discover

The Brief:

''Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do, than by the ones you did........ Explore. Dream. Discover.'' - Mark Twain

This prompt is probably a tough one. I don't believe we make wrong decisions, I believe that things that do not turn out as we expect them to present an opportunity for us to learn and develop further. To become stronger and better people.
Do you share that philosophy? Explore the prompt. Cast your mind back to decisions you made and things that you didn't do? Perhaps reflect on family decisions, things from previous generations?

To make a decision people follow either: impulses, their "gut", ask for facts and then make it, research it to death before making it and sometimes it can be a combination of any of these. I know for myself, it depends on what the decision is and just how big it is.

What do you need to make a decision?

In business, I can make a decision pretty fast as long as I know the basics and what the companies outlook and how decisions are made. In fact, sometimes people look at me and are amazed because usually they were cheaper, quality and enacted with a plan before anyone could really say anything.

In my personal life, well that's a bit more complicated. Most of the time I gather the basic facts and take my experiences and go from there. However, the bigger decisions like getting married took a bit more. Why? Because I wasn't just getting married. I was leaving a country and moving to a new place where there was none of MY family. I couldn't just drive a couple days to see my family - I had to plan it to see them if I wanted to. This one took a bit more time to take a look and a decision. In the end, I had to go with emotion and combine it with facts.

The outcomes have been mediocre at best with the personal stuff. Why? Because there always seems to be outside interference that I just didn't see coming. Believe me, I do build in contingency plans but these were so far out of the box that you just don't see them and they hurt when they do the Gibbs slap (for those of you who watch the NCIS show) and it leaves you stunned.

You can always look back at your decisions, but usually once I take a look at mine and make it, I know I've done the best with what I had and knew at the time. However, I do try and look at things from all sides and not discount anything. This way I know when I look at myself in the mirror, I can look at myself straight in the eye and know I did my best and that's all any of us can really do isn't it?

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

Monday

"In Deep with the Book of Me" - Genealogical Tapestry

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

Genealogical Tapestry

The Brief:
Our lives can be defined as a tapestry. Clear threads, isolated from each other, yet coming together to represent a life. A full potential of being. What threads define you?

If I was to take a tapestry and adjust it to my life, then it would be very interesting indeed. I would start with all the different times in my life and then lead it to now. Below would be how I would view it.

Birth to age 4

With this part of my life, I would say it would be crowded, crazy and full of all types of colors - from red (fighting) to blue (streak of swearing) to yellow (for happier days) and then you have all the times in between. I would say the colors wouldn't be all in a line - they would be squiggle and all over the place because that's what I can remember feeling.

Birth to age 4

Age 4 to age 9

In this part, would be mainly be slowing down, colors fairly dark and lightening up in color. However, the red (fighting) would be back at certain times. These are usually when my parents had to actually talk about things. When I say talk, it would be who would want to over power or win that battle on that day. However, at times the color would go to a deep dark black like the color of charcoal when things would happen in life. You learn to deal with those times. The lines would be fairly straight until the battles begin and the they would spike with all the words used.

Age 4 - 9

Aged 10 to age 18
This would be one of the most stable time in my life. The colors would be moderately bright and straight because fights didn't happen, no power struggles really. Everyone seemed to be enjoying life. However there were times when the deep dark black charcoal color would appear and you would deal with things. Lines would be straight with very little spikes.

Age 10 to 18

Aged 18 to age 23
At this point things got hectic and I felt like I had whiplash. Between work, school and relationships all going this way and that it was a very turbulent time. You'd wake up that day and want to say screw it and pull the covers over your head. Talk about the color of the rainbow, spikes of lines and squiggles all over the place. You always felt like you were on an amusement park ride. Every.Single.Day. The colors were all over the place and sometimes you had the color of the rainbow all within a day. All you could do was hang on and hold your breath. At times I really didn't know how I was going to survive, but the important part was I did.

Age 18 to 23

Aged 24 to 25
Things started to even out and I could finally stop for a breath and start to think about life and the future. Colors were a very medium and very average but by the time I married things were good - and I felt happy for the first time what seemed years. Truly happy and only getting better. Of course there were blips like the 3 fires we had around the time we married, but as long as no one was hurt, those things could and did get worked through. Life was a nice straight line and a nice happy yellow.

Pic taken from https://mayiblessyou.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/what-are-your-happy-colors/

Aged 25 to 31
Things were still pretty good and we were all happy. There were times when things could have been better, but overall we were very happy and content. We built and moved into our own home, owned some dogs, and had stable jobs. The one thing that still eluted us was making us a family - children. It wasn't like we weren't trying - we were. We went in for tests, day surgeries to check, went on medication but still nothing. Then I lost my job and then things went from yellow to red to grey. The lines looked like a heart monitor with the blips - some times going in a straight line with contentedness and then something would happen and it would spike it and usually that would be either to do with the job or with trying for a baby.

Pic taken from https://www.anzcourtside.co.nz/objects/component-object/85/10/48/481085/images/beach-rainbow-art_713245.jpg

Aged 32 to Present
During these times, its like being on the roller coaster ride again. Some days its great and others make you hold that breath. The colors are all over the place - happy, sad, content, devastated. During this

Pic from http://www.nzrentacar.co.nz/blog/travel-tourism/school-holidays-in-auckland.html

point, we've lost babies and have never - yet - had even a birth even if it was stillborn. We've done IVF, which all failed, and are looking around going is this it. I found employment for it to go spastic and then them to cut positions due to budget. I've had health problems and the list goes on. The colors are all over - sometimes many within one day. The lines have the deepest of lows and the highest of highs as well. Sometimes they are like the mountain range that you would see if you looked at Everest...slowly going up and the big gashes going down.

Pic from http://images.jambase.com/fans/kodamatours/everest%20range%20pic.jpg

One of the biggest changes? I've always had stages in my life with very little to tie things together. However, in the last 6 months or so, I've learned about more of my ancestors and have found cousins and not just a few. Learning about all of these are helping to make my life from singular lines into lines which are becoming more webbed. I've always felt so isolated and alone, however, I'm finding I'm not so alone - I have cousins and an uncle out there. I have others and those connections are making my life a bit more webbed in togetherness than I've ever had before.

My new relationship web - notice how the blue have the green and yellows? Where they might still be different and move away but are still connected? Where as the black dots are more and more isolated until one of those black spots turns yellow and reconnects with later generations. This yellow dot is me.

Some people things think I'm doing genealogy to "start shit" or think this of me. I have no idea why as I'm a person who does not like confrontations but if someone pushes hard enough or someone I can about hard enough, I will push back. I just want to feel there are others out there that are family - love without conditions or rather than people who feel responsible for you and take care of you because of those. I think we all need love without conditions, however, some people must go looking for it to get it otherwise they will never know that type of love.

Pic taken from https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f8/80/94/f880949a6fe07f499e6282bdff6834c8.jpg

I do realize that I will never have the unconditional love that parents are supposed to give, but at least I know I can change that and make it my responsibility to show - or try - it to others.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series. - See more at: http://joannfitz.blogspot.com.au/#sthash.IShC5hpF.dpuf

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - What have you learnt about yourself and your family?

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

What have you learnt about yourself and your family?

The Brief:

Think back to the question we asked in Week One - Who am I?
Before you look back at the answers you wrote then, answer the question again.
Now compare are there any similarites, it is the same, or have any of the answers changed?
What has made the change?

Now lets look at the wider and original question - What have you learnt about yourself and your family?
Is there anything you still want to write and explore?

I have actually looked back and used this as an example in a genealogy class I taught at the end of 2014. I then told them about this topic and that I would add to it some more things. I wouldn't take anything out because they are who I AM but now I found I am MORE.

One of my slides I used for my course on Genealogy

The answers have changed because of adding to them. As I'm researching each ancestor, things are becoming more interesting as I'm finding out more about them as a person. I used to be mad and annoyed at my grandfather, but as I started to research I found the things he did either were the result of someone else and not his or his was the result of what someone else did to him and this is how he handled it. An example would be I was told he was a drunk. I found this was probably because of the way his father treated him and how he was kicked out of the family home at 15. This was the way he dealt with those things as an escape.

I've learned over the last 2 years, when looking at your ancestor, or yourself, look for what is going on in their life and whatever it was caused a reaction - good or bad. Another example, is my great

Jimmy's wings he obtained before he left. He died about 3 weeks later.

uncle Jimmy (I've spoken about my mother's cousin before) Sherman. He saw how scared his mother, my great aunt Florence, was about World War 2. He joined the service to protect her and other females and children in the family. All very honorable, but he ended up loosing his life in a training accident.

In fact, in my newer classes or when I talk to people about their family histories, I ask about the era and what part of the world, and then ask them about what was going on during that time. When they don't know, I tell them to research that and it usually helps with understanding what is going on with them or what the actions and reactions in later life are. Then I use the many examples of my ancestors. In fact, I pressed home this fact with my cousins recently. I spent my holiday season tracing my Belgium ancestors - the Gauquie's - back to see how far I could go. Hoping to hit the link that took the name from France into Belgium. The family story was they left because of the French

The National Assembly taking the Tennis Court Oath (sketch by Jacques-Louis David). from Wikipedia

Revolution. I was able to go back to just before that war broke out with our timeline, but I could show them via history what happened and how it influenced how far they moved. The big question was did they move because of the French Revolution? Answer is - it was probably the events just before the revolution which caused them to leave. They probably said it was the revolution because it was one or more of the causes of it that made them leave before anything really bad happened.

Another great example I use is my great grandfather Jules. He left Belgium and arrived in the US in 1888. The way he treated his wife was as, I think, his father treated HIS wife - Jules' mother, Florence. As the Belgium custom is :

"Rural women were expected to work in the fields as well as in the home. Traditional roles for men and women were observed, and any deviation was often censured. Even though it was not uncommon for widows to carry on their deceased husband's occupation, especially that of farming, it was frowned upon if women assumed a community leadership role, except on a social basis. Children also had chores to do at an early age, and gender-based chores were commonly assigned. On farms, they also helped with planting and harvest, and as a result, were often absent from school during those times of the year."

Which is why when I found news articles about my great grandmother getting hurt with cows and
then later talking to my cousins they told me she never had a winter jacket until a few months before she died. Sounds to me it was Belgium customs. Also, could the children part be why my grandfather and his siblings didn't really go to school and they left? We know now, this was why some of the people back then did not go to school and looked down upon it.

Great Grandmother Annie Gauquie has been hurt

As if that wasn't enough, it was how Jules treated his second wife, Belle, in comparison. According to the newspaper, she got 1/3 of Jules' estate. However, family stories has it she got most of his money and land before he passed away. Then she got basically everything after he passed and the kids didn't get anything. I was annoyed at this until I found out that Jules was born illegitimate to a maid servant. This explains why Belle got almost all of his money - because he was taking care of her and her child like no one did for HIS mother. Again - action and reaction.

Jules' birth certificate listing his mother and father - the writing on the right was when he was made legitimate

Oh there's still more that I want to explore. I'm slowly starting to fill in the holes on my mother's side. My father side? Well, that's another jumble that I'll have to try to unmangle again... I think I feel a headache coming on...

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

Friday

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Task Reflections

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

Task Reflections

The Brief:

Write a list of each task you undertake for any given day.
Include the fine details of the tasks - taking milk out of the fridge to add to a drink - what was the milk in? a jug, quart container?
Compare those tasks to an ancestor - someone born in the late 19th Century or early 20th Century and preferably someone that you knew or remember.
Record and discuss the differences
What of those discoveries has impacted on you?

At the moment I cannot really do the tasks as each day these tasks are different especially as I'm still trying to complete things from over the holiday time period and catch up with the posts here.

My daily routine

Normally, I'd get up, make breakfast and get dressed to start the day. I usually go on my walk (lately I haven't been doing this until the afternoon or late evening), and then I was sitting down to work on my certificate I finished up midyear. After I finished my certificate up, I used the time to write up
presentations and resources for my classes for the rest of the year and then I sat doing genealogy research. Then went for a walk with the dog, Buddy follows me around the house, and back home and made dinner.

My ancestor's routines
I can imagine people like my great grandmother Annie and greats back before her all got up and made the household breakfast before they went out to either work (baker, farmer, factory workers) and the women cleaned the house, did the dishes, did the laundry, looked after the gardens, looked

Woodhull's Dairy in 1870-1920? - Taken from website http://www.hrvh.org/utils/ajaxhelper/?CISOROOT=chs&CISOPTR=290&action=2&DMSCALE=90&DMWIDTH=512&DMHEIGHT=479&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&DMROTATE=0

after the vegetable patches and made everything from scratch. Then there were the children. All dogs were probably kept outside.

Comparing the two routines
I can see my ancestor's milking the cows (as some owned dairy farms) and the kids or wife bringing in the milk to use with the breakfast. I know when I was a child, we would go to a farm which gave away some milk to people so all we would have to do is bring in the glass and then plastic jugs and then take them home with us.

Me walking at Sam's Point in 2011.

I know on the weekends and when I'm home, like I have been, I make things from scratch. When I was working such long hours I was just too tired to do it. However, with me being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, I've went back to basics and have brought the Diabetes back under control. Today the foods are not pure - instead companies fill them with sugars, salts and any other thing that will make them taste good. This is one of the major problems with people today and why people are cannot get over the mother in the US that the authorities want to bring up on child neglect charges because they were walking back from the park. What has the world turned into? Its crazy...
gaining so much weight! The other is no exercise - or very little. I still

Equipment that is used compared

My husband's coffee machine and grinder

I know I use a computer and back in the 1800's they would have had books to read and paper and pen to use instead of the computer. As for the kitchen, we have a kettle that is electric but its not that much of a stretch to boil water in a pot. My husband and his 'machine' I can only imagine what the look would have been on my ancestor's faces if they wanted coffee and my husband used the machine for them. In fact, its probably the same type of face my sister gave him the time she visited and saw what he went through in order to get one cup of coffee - she told him point blank that was too hard.

Early 1800 Teapot from husband's Moyode Castle connection

I can only imagine what they would have thought of the TV and the way we can get movies over the internet. I know my paternal grandmother Jean, would have told us if we wanted that then we should have watched when it was on and not save it. She thought an answering machine was a waste of money and space because if they wanted you badly enough then they would call you back. Oh she was such a character!

The one thing I think they would have fought against would be how fast everything moves today and how its all got to be done NOW! Also, how religion has fallen down and not been practiced very much. Up until my mother's generation I can tell everyone thought highly and made time for religion. However, since that generation church seems like something the rest of us think about, but are usually too busy to go. I know that's one of my problems - the services are held at a time when I'm just too busy (working or doing things that need to get done) or on days when I can be doing other things that need to be done. Another reason could be that growing up, the way my mother said church it was like a bad word. Only when I really pushed and I had to go with one of my friends in order to go. It was like world war 3 to do it. Overall, it was just too hard and so I never really went consistently.

Where I am trying to attend services

I do know my husband and I talked about it and if we ever had kids then they would go, as it would be another type of support system and I would encourage it. However, that seems very unlikely it would happen to us, so I guess its a mute point.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

Tuesday

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Memory Board of my life

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

Memory Board

The Brief:

Take ideas and create my digital memory board reflecting a section of my life and then add it to my Book of Me.
A quick video to show you an example of a memory board.

Reflections of my life

Birth and Growing Up