- What I have been up to (school & work wise)
- What I have been learning
- What I've been listening to, reading, and watching
- What I've been up to with friends, family and the oddities
Of course I can't just sit down and do all four acts in one sitting/night, so I will focus on each one respectively and hopefully have a good and balanced update by the end of the week. I'll start with number one, which randomly enough I am really excited to talk about.
What I have been up to (school and work wise):
As of Thanksgiving I am no longer working at Fastsigns. Wasn't really part of the plan, but time to move on and find something new. Don't worry, it only took me 2 months to find a new job. It has been quite the adventure, scratch that, quite the nightmare but fate smiled upon me last week through a phone call from my visiting teacher who just got a job at the subway/grocery mart opening up behind our place. She told me that there were still 3 openings left and gave me her boss' number. So even though I once upon a time swore never to work in food again, I am returning to it because of the absolute desperation and need for not only the cash but the longing of feeling productive and needed. I start sometime this week, not quite sure when, but I do get my uniform tomorrow. Horray. And because Fern and Josh did a major closet detox I now have 2 pairs of black pants and a pair of khakis to wear to work. Let's just pray that I still look good in a hat and polo.
The last few weeks I have been doing a bucketful of genealogy work for me pops though. And by genealogy work I mean scanning family photos, some of which date back to the Civil War. I have been drinking in the moments of flipping through the memoirs and souvenirs of my Grammie's life and reliving the elegance of life in Pennsylvania in the 1900's. My father's mother, Margaret Dixon Stroud aka Peggy, grew up back east. Back when they named their estates, had nannies and personal nurses, went away to ladies' schools, and went on "trips abroad." My grammie's family owned an antique shop, but after marrying my grandfather Nathaniel Wallace, Peggy moved to a ranch outside of Reno with him and their growing family. I won't give you a family history lesson, sorry, I really just wanted to share the excitement I have had in looking at these photos, reading letters and just getting to a know a well-standing family, that is mine. One thing I found really cool was this:
Elise Croft born in 1894 in Nashville Tennessee, pictured here in the year 1978. Elise was a friend of Peggy's who went out with her brother Morris Stroud III for a visit to Nashville in August, I believe, of 1978. It was Elise's home that really caught my attention, however. How could I not be interested in it after looking at this photo:
It's gorgeous. The end. I did what any other 21st century kid would do, I googled the Croft home of Nashville and to my hope, I found something (yes click on the word something). For those of you not too eager to click and read, here's a brief synopsis- the Croft home is now a Historical Home at the Nashville Zoo. Can you imagine walking through there during a tour and just thinking "My grammie was here 30 years ago, on this porch. Oh yeah and she was friends with the woman who owned it!" Yes I'm bragging just a little bit. It really has been an unbelievable treat to get a peek into my grammie's life and the world that she came from. Unbeknownst to me until recently my baby blessing spoke of my eagerness for genealogy work. Now knowing this I have been hungry to just eat up as much of it as I can with no regard to this weird longing to learn more and know more. It's been an adventure reading and typing up my great-grandmother's journals, seeing my grammie's photos and just living in their worlds and seeing them grow as I am now. Even though it was considered a job for me to be scanning the photos, I am so grateful that I didn't have a real job to keep me from it. I am a bit sorry that I am on the last binder of photos and letters, but there's always our own family photos to sift through and I'm more than happy to do it.
School wise- I'll be starting an Independent Study class this week which I am excited about. I love school and the idea of getting to learn and be studious and "smart" gets me giddy. Too bad I won't have a class to get ready for; no cute boys to study with. I think more than anything I am just grateful to finally have something to fill the empty hours with. To be productive. I know I say that a lot, but I have truly found that my feelings of happiness rely greatly on how productive and obedient I am being in my life. How studious and hard working I am. Being busy with school work till I'm bleeding it is fulfilling and I know that having a "routine" helps me prioritize my time a lot more. Which usually means that those most important things - scriptures and prayers - get done, and my whole self is a thousand times happier. I really do have a testimony of doing good things. They bring joy and happiness, and fulfillment. Fill your time with good things, be productive and work hard.
