Family Tree

For a very long time I have wanted to create a family tree on a wall in my house.  I had the perfect wall picked out, just wasn't really sure how to go about starting.

I thought I might try to paint a tree on the wall, but I'm not artistic in the least amount and never came close enough to thinking I could do this to even try.

I still really wanted to do, I just couldn't decide how I was going to manage it.

I was searching online one day to see what might be out there, surely I can't be the first person to ever think of putting a family tree on the wall.  I came across a couple options, and finally found an adhesive tree with leaves. It comes with a dozen or so frames, and I thought I might be on to something. 

One of the things that I was trying to figure out was how and who to put on the tree.  Generally, I think most people would think that at the base of the tree would be the oldest ancestor with all their descendants up and out the branches. 

My problem with that is that I wanted my tree to be more of pedigree style including my side and my husbands side.

I didn't want limit myself, either, as to adding more "leaves" if I discover more ancestors.

I have done genealogy research on and off for many years, so I have collected several generations on some of my ancestral lines, but not so far on others.  The same goes for my husbands side of the family tree. Some lines I have been able to track back a ways, while others I'm only as far back as a great grandparent.

Back to my tree on the wall, I had to figure out how I was going to arrange it so that I could fit everything on it I wanted, but still try to show the different lines.

I ordered the adhesive tree that I had found online and thanks to some of the reviews, I ordered two sets. That would allow me to add more branches and extend the tree if I found I needed to. I am glad I did.

The tree itself is set up so that it extends to the right with only a few short branches on the left.  The wall I planned to put it worked well for this layout. 

I also thought that since I wanted to include both mine and my husbands sides, I could put us on the trunk of the tree, with our kids to the left. That would leave the longer branches to the right for me to start each of our "branches".

I decided that I would look at just our direct ancestors not including any other siblings. I wrote out each generation with just the parents of the previous generation to get a good visual on how many people I had for each side.  I could see that it made sense to have certain "lines" on certain places on the tree to leave enough room for some and not needing as much for others.

By doing this I realized I needed MANY leaves. I have a Cricut machine and I purchased black adhesive vinyl made for Cricut. I already had a cartridge with a leaf cut out, I just needed to make sure it would work with the adhesive tree.  And it did!

The other thing I wanted to take into consideration was what pictures I had. I wanted to include pictures as much as I could but the reality of things is that I don't have many. 

I went through some old family pictures and discovered that I did have at least a picture of each of our sets of grandparents. So I settled on that. 

Once I got the adhesive tree and actually started putting it together, I am glad I had the two sets. My wall is tall enough, I extended the trunk of the tree using both sets. 

With the pictures that I had and maintaining the idea that I was going to put us on the trunk of the tree it made sense to have four main branches reaching out the right side.

I put pictures of each our parents, individually, on the right hand side of the main tree trunk with the couple picture of each set of grandparents starting a branch.

Me to the left, with my father below me to the right and my mother below him. Each of their parents, my grandparents, starting on the branch.

On each leaf "name plate" I put the name, date and place of birth for each of us individually up through our grandparents.

After that for all the rest of the leaves and generations, I made the "name plates" for the parents of the previous generation.

This is my nana Bea and granddaddy Bill...

Here is the completed tree...

I am so pleased with how it turned out. I hope it inspires you to display you roots in some manner.

{7QT} Mostly about Vacation

--- 1 ---

 

We booked our tickets for our family trip to Colorado this week! Yay! I am so excited. It has been 4 years since we have been there, and you see that is where all of my family is. We live so far away from each other it just isn’t possible to travel very often. We will be gone for just under two weeks, from Thursday before Holy Week through Tuesday after. I will greatly miss being at my own parish for the Holy Week services and the Easter Vigil, but this trip is important and the timing works out for several reasons.

--- 2 ---

One of the reasons it is good timing is that my baby sister and her family is also going to be there from Germany. I am so excited to finally meet her husband and her youngest baby boy. She and her baby girl were here with us in the fall of 2010 for a little while when her husband was oversees. The baby was only 6 months old. They then moved to Germany and had another child. I can’t wait to see them all.

--- 3 ---

We will be staying with my step mom and dad and I am excited to get to spend time with them. I also can’t wait to spend time with my other sister and her kids. It will be good for all of us.

--- 4 ---

I am also looking forward to catching up with a few friends from my childhood. One of them was one of my best friends. She doesn’t know it yet, but I’m looking forward to potentially attending Holy Week and Easter services with her and her family. You see I don’t think she knows that I am Catholic now.

--- 5 ---

Recently my husband has come back to his Catholic faith. It has been an amazing thing and he has really shown me that he wants to grow in his love for God and learn more about the Catholic Church. He has been attending Sunday and daily Mass with me and it has been such a blessing for him and for us. He is prepared to attend Mass in Colorado with me which is something that we have never done before on our visits. I am looking forward to it.

--- 6 ---

My son will be attending the Regional Robotics Challenge in Virginia in a couple weeks. He is excited about it, but I am little nervous about him traveling so far away from home. So he will be missing some school for that and then he will also be missing a few days for our vacation. Lucky for him that he is doing really well this year so when I spoke to his counselor, she wasn’t that concerned about him missing a few days. Unlucky for him, is that I may have just instigated some homework for him on vacation. Oh well, it is still worth it.

--- 7 ---

 

How is your Lent going? I am hoping that you all are having lots of time for prayer and reflection. Like I said in my last post, I am praying daily for those I love, those I work with, those I worship with and those bloggers out there that I read, especially all of you that are expecting little ones. I haven’t done well with finishing reading the Pope’s exhortation or the Screwtape Letters, but I still have a little time. Wishing you all many blessing this Lenten season.



 

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

2013 in Photos

 

Dwija over at House Unseen is hosting her annual phone linkup for the year.  I love to look back at the photos from the year, so I thought I would add mine.  2013 was a great year for me, let me show you a few of the reasons.

 

 

This is pretty much how the beginning of any year around here is.  It was a pretty major snow storm but it was so beautiful, I had to stop and take pictures.  I used this for a Theme Thursday post.

 

 

This was my picture for my one and only "What I Wore Sunday" linkup.  However, I wanted to include it because it was what I wore to the Easter Vigil Mass.  Lent and Easter 2013 was an amazing period of spiritual growth for me.  It was also when I began attending daily Mass, which I haven't stopped attending since.  My original WIWS post is here and I included some thoughts about this Lent and Easter in this post.

 

 

Shortly after Easter, the parish where I attend daily Mass hosted a Forty Hours of Eucharistic Devotion.  The Blessed Sacrament was exposed for Forty Hours and was kept vigil by various parishioners and priests throughout the Forty Hours.  It was an amazing thing to be a part of.  In this Quick Takes post, I talked about being a part of it.

 

 

 At the end of April, my son Hunter was Confirmed.  I also got to be the sponsor of a girl that hasn't had the easiest life.  At her young age, she has had to deal with the loss of her mother and many close relatives and friends due to untimely deaths. I was honored to be able to be present for her and still hope she knows that I will always be here for her.

 

 

 This weekend in May was our last Formation for Ministry Retreat as students.  It was a beautiful time to spend with my classmates and the icing on the cake was that it was led by the same priest that brought me into the Catholic Church.  That fact made this weekend extra special for me. Thank you Father Lauzon for your guidance twelve years ago and for the beautiful retreat to bring our two years of formation to a close.  I wrote a small amount about it here.

And, by the way, these beautiful photos were taken by one of our youngest classmates.  He is an inspiration to me and gives me hope for the future of our young people.  Thank you Jesse, for letting me use them.

 

 

 These are photos from our Commissioning to Lay Ministers.  The group photo is not the official one obviously, but it is my favorite because everyone was laughing and smiling.  Even the Bishop was laughing with us.  I've said it a few times, but we have the best Bishop!  On the right is me with the other two ladies from our parish that went through the program, along with our priest.  My original post is here and also includes some comments about the next photo.

 

 

 

 This is the group photo from the 2013 Catholic Heart Work Camp trip in July.

This trip is always a blessing to me.  To get to see so many young people spend a week of their summer helping others less fortunate then themselves and then come back and spend hours in praise and worship of God.  It really is a life changing week, and I have been fortunate enough to be a part of it for the last three summers. My reflection from the week is here.

 

 

 This was from the closing Mass at one of our sister churches.  In its early days and over the years, this parish was the start up for many of the other parishes in our area.  I was honored to be able to photograph the event.  It was one of the saddest things, but also one of the most beautiful things I have experienced.  This post includes more of my pictures from the closing Mass.

 

 

My Hunter in the Kayak...isn't he cute?

 

 

 Me and my kiddos!

 

 

 Hunters first day of 10th grade.

 

 

 A nice family day together!

 

 

 And to finish it off, these from Christmas!  Including the new kitten, Otto.

 

 **EDIT: So crazy me forgot to link back to the linkup - go check out all the best at Dwija's.

 

Feeling Proud

Today is my dad’s 76^th birthday.

Growing up, he was a great example to me of a good Christian man.  He was involved in the church, helping out wherever needed, even building a church building at one time.

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I am open about becoming Catholic.  Anyone who is my Facebook friend also would easily be able to tell that I am Catholic.  I have often wondered what the people that I grew up protestant with think about that.   There are a couple of them that often ‘like’ my status updates, which makes me feel good, but I just sometimes wonder.

Since becoming Catholic, I haven’t had any conversations with him about that decision.  Part of the reason being that we don’t live near each other; the other reason is because we just don’t talk as much as we should.

I called him to wish him a Happy Birthday.  We had a really nice conversation, and I was telling him all about my recent promotion and about how many doctors’ offices I manage, and his reply was that his is proud of me but then he also said how proud he is of me for what I have been doing in the Catholic Church. 

I have always wanted to make him proud of me, and to hear him say that about my faith was one of the most beautiful moments I never expected.  In the midst of me trying to make him proud about what I have done in my career, ultimately it was my relationship with God that made him the most proud. 

 

It meant the world to me and I will cherish that conversation always.

 

What a Week!!

 

I took this last week off just to take a week off with nothing to do, much...

 

My Hunter man.

This was last weekend, Hunter and I spent some time together stacking our last load of wood for the winter. 

He is so smart it scares me a little. We had a long conversation about energy.  He really knows a lot about it, and is fascinated by nuclear energy.  We talked about renewable energy sources, fuels, and what the future of energy will be.  I should say HE talked about, I just listened and tried to come up with good questions.  (Although I knew I was completely out smarted)  Now I'm not positive, but I'm pretty certain that he didn't learn all about it in school.  He has taken his own time to learn it.  Those summer days when he is home, he isn't just playing Minecraft, he is actually learning about things he finds interesting.  His future looks so bright, I might just have to wear shades... :)

Oh yeah, and an interesting gem he found out recently, Pope Frances was actually a Chemist before becoming a priest.  Hunter thought that was pretty cool.

I had a hair appointment on Wednesday to get a cut and all of my gray covered up.  Those of you who have seen me recently will agree, it was getting pretty bad.

Ohhh how I hate selfies

And then the most exciting, nerve racking thing happened,  I received an email from Sirius XM's The Catholic Channel about doing an interview with Gus Lloyd about my conversion story!  I was so surprised, it took me a little while to respond.  I mean really, I'm not sure my story is that interesting, but you never know what will capture someone's attention and maybe the simple stories are good for people to hear too. 

Anyway, emails back and forth and it has been settled that I will be doing the interview on Monday morning at 8:00 am EST.  I'm nervous as can be, but with a lot of support and prayers, I will make it through.  So please, send up your prayers for my peace and confidence and that the Holy Spirit works through me on Monday.

Thursday was a lazy day at home, but I got to spend it with my daughter Kayla.  That rarely happens anymore, but it was really nice.  She cracks me up...that kid can talk.

One last thing...you may have seen my post about the Matthew Kelly talk I attended a couple weeks ago.  I recently came into possession of an extra copy of his book "The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic".  So I would like to give it away to one of my blog readers.  I know I don't have much of a following yet, but I would really like to share the wealth a little bit. 

So if you are interested in winning this book, please leave me a comment below.  I will leave it open until the end of November and then draw a lucky winner.

My goal for this week was to get rested up.  There is so much going on in healthcare lately that I really needed to get some time away so that I could rest and prepare to jump back in refreshed and whole heartedly give it all my best.  I believe I have accomplished that.

Thanks for stopping by!!

My Bookshelves

I saw this great link-up on Modern Mrs. Darcy. If you haven't stumbled on this blog yet and you are a reader, I would recommend you go and get to know Anne. She's a sweetheart and cute as can be.

Anyway, she is doing a link-up of other peoples bookshelves. It can be really fascinating what others are reading, and it is a great way to get some good ideas about what to read next. 

I have several bookshelves in my house and often have a stack of books on the coffee table.  I also have many books on my Kindle.  Often when I hear about a book I want to read I download the sample on my Kindle.  Then I don't forget about it and I don't have to buy until I am ready to read it.

You might be able to tell by the books that these first several pictures are my bookshelf.



These are a couple stacks that I pulled out lately to read.



 And then these are the ones I have loaded on my Kindle:

 The books on this bookshelf are my husbands, but the bookshelf is mine.  It was always in our house growing up and I love it.  It also fits his small paperbacks really well.  He mostly reads soldier books or westerns.



This one is mostly my husbands hardcover books, but some Life "Year in Pictures" books we have collected.

 And this last one is a catch all of miscellaneous books, but includes a lot of the kids favorite books that I didn't want to get rid of.

I hope you found something you like, and I can't wait to see all the other linkers' bookshelves.

The ABC's of Me

I saw this on another blog this week and I thought it was a neat idea and that I would give a whirl.  So here goes:

A. Age - 42

B. Bed size - Queen

C. Chore that you hate - Folding socks, but if I'm being honest, sweeping the floor is the worst.

D. Dogs - One, my Sophie girl

E. Essential part of your day - Coffee, duhhh

F. Favorite Color - It depends on what we are talking about, but in general I would say red.

G. Gold or Silver - Silver

H. Height - 5' 4"

I. Instruments - I played the flute in junior high and gave the piano a try too, but I didn't stick with either of them.

J. Job title - Practice Manager, Alice Hyde Outpatient Medical Services

K. Kids - Daughter Kayla and son Hunter

L. Live - Small town, single family, three bedroom, two bath home

M. Mother's name - Michelle

N. Nicknames - Ang, Angie, Angie B.

O. Overnight hospital stays - When I was little I had really bad asthma and had to spend several extended stays in the hospital, even Christmas one year.

P. Pet peeves - I hate when people drive the wrong direction in parking lot aisles, then try to pull into the parking space from the wrong direction.

Q. Quote from a movie - I'm coming up blank, sorry.

R. Right or left handed - Righty

S. Siblings - Two sisters, Kara and Christianna

Me and my sisters in 2009

T. Time you wake up - My alarm goes off at 6:00 am on work days but I don't really wake up till several minutes later at some point in the shower.  Weekends it's a lot later.

U. Underwear - Um, yes...

V. Vegetable you hate - Asparagus, that slimy gross stuff.

W. What makes you run late - When I think I have a enough time to do one more little task.

X. X-rays you've had - Hand, wrist, knee...I think that's it.

Y. Yummy food that you make - I don't love to cook, but there are few things that I do pretty well.  Chicken enchiladas, vegetable pasta dish, cream of potato soup, and a full Thanksgiving meal.

Z. Zoo animal - My favorites are the big cats.

Did you learn anything new about me?

Only photos

Wednesday, September 18th Blogtember: Only Photos

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