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Weekend Update

Sometimes I miss the "safe space" that livejournal provided to create locked blog entries. On the other hand, being prohibited from creating "tell all" entries online due to a lack of a protected forum in which to do so means that I must share these details in person with friends I lean on, bringing us closer together in ways that chatting online never could. Also, I know on some level that the "safe space" that lj afforded was merely an illusion- as evidenced by the repeated times that trust was breached by readers.

So I will just vaguely express my feelings on the series of events I experienced last week in a simple summary- people can be pretty crummy and when you focus your life on what is right and good it turns your stomach just a bit when you have close encounters with others who  don't share this focus. A mixture of revulsion toward what they are embracing and sympathy for the life in Christ they are forgoing. I also want to reiterate that being a grown up means you don't do necessarily what you *feel* like doing, but what, after careful evaluation, you deem to be the best and most practical course of action.

In other news,my cherished cell phone/pda (Sprint ppc 6601) that I've had since my Congressional employee days was stolen on Thursday evening. I had to get a replacement phone, and since it was on my own dime, a cheaper one of course. I picked up a cute Katana II and it's pink! Pink! Tres adorable.

J and I spent the weekend wrapping Christmas presents. We are almost finished with all of our shopping and are trying to turn the focus of our time and energies to remembering the reason for the season. Christ, of course.

Another fun activity I was pulled into this weekend was researching my ancestry. My father sent me several emails with pieces of our family tree from his mother's side of the family [The Laraques] so I started to put it all together and found a great free tool to do so from myheritage.com. It wasn't long into creating my tree that the software reported to me that 2 other people had trees overlapping mine. How exciting! I got in contact with both of them- distant cousins [we share grandparents 4 or 5 generations back!] -and we started some great conversations. In the process of my research I've been able to go all the way back to 1613  and found 2 important people in history among my grandmother's line so far. One was a man who is held up highly in Haitian history for his work in the Haitian independence movement. Another was also a well loved man (Sylla aka "Tom" Laraque) by the Haitian people- so much so that he ran for president of Haiti in the 50s and had a good shot to win but was basically forced into exile to Mexico by the U.S govt who did not appreciate the fact that a Marxist might become president. (That's right, I've got a bloody Marxist in my heritage).  I'm excited to continue the trace backward as far as I can go with my paternal grandmother's family and then I will move onto my paternal grandfather, my mother's parents, and then Jonathan's family.

Comments

TaraT said…
I can't believe you're already at the wrapping of gifts stage! I haven't even thought about the who to give gifts to part yet! You rock (as always)!

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