Monthly Archives: January 2008

I finally got a few pictures back from the boys’ trip to D.C. for this year’s March for Life! I am hoping to get some more in the next few days, and will post them as soon as I do. Kendall took a lot of pictures on his new camera, had a ton of pictures (Thank you Lishi!) of the Belmont Abbey College group on his camera, so I am only posting a couple of those here, because a lot of them were pretty much the same. In the first picture, you can’t see Kendall, so look for him in the second picture, in the back, on the far left, with the long hair! (If you click on one of the little picture squares on the right, you can look at all of the pictures on my Flickr account.)

Belmont Abbey College group at the March for Life 08

Kendall is on the left in the back. His roommate, Ben, is squatting down in front in the black hoodie.

And, last, but not least, here is a picture of Alex while he was at the March. Like I said before, I will hopefully have more pictures of him and our Youth Group to post very soon.

Alexander at the March for Life ‘08

Tonight Faith and I curled up in my bed with her little kitten, Bandit, and watched an absolutely adorable movie: Game Plan.  Faith promised me that I would really like it, and the idea of lounging around in the bed and watching a movie with my daughter was too good to pass up.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, “The Rock” (does this guy have a real name?) stars as the dad who doesn’t know he’s a dad until his little eight year old bundle of joy shows up, unannounced, on his doorstep.  He is a HUGE football star who is completely consumed with himself has no time for parenthood. But this little girl has other ideas. It really is a delightful movie, with no violence, nudity, explosions or foul language.  That’s a rare find, indeed!

So, if you’re looking for a great movie to watch with your kids, I highly recommend this one!  (Alex really liked it, too, and he’s in high school!)

I’ve mentioned this before, but I am not a morning person.  I used to feel really guilty about this, but something deep inside me ‘clicked’ when I turned forty, and suddenly I quit feeling guilty about a great many things, like preferring to sleep in, hating to eat carrots, and loving coffee. I began instead to wonder why other people were wired differently.

For example, I am going to a Homeschool Support group Parent Meeting this morning.  They have all sorts of wonderful workshops scheduled for the edification and enjoyment of any parent who wants to attend.  Okay, cool!  I am going to be there hawking Yearbook info.  We have almost 300 homeschooling families in our group, and last year only 68 of them submitted pages for the yearbook.  I’m hoping to drum up some more participation.   But after hitting the snooze button on my alarm for the third time this morning, I came to the inevitable thought “Why couldn’t we have done this in the afternoon???”

I dragged myself out of my nice, warm, comfy bed, feeling a great sense of awe for the woman who organized this event.  She has something like five kids, and the youngest is not even one year old yet!  She will have to be there early, and stay late. If I was her, I’d never have even considered scheduling an event: a) on a Saturday at all and b) in the morning! But she is apparently a far more motivated and disciplined woman than I.

I’m thinking it does beg the question about the other 100+ people who registered for this: are they Morning People, too, or just willing themselves to get out of bed at the crack of dawn on a Saturday out of a sense of obligation or guilt?  Could it be that there are people out there who actually enjoy getting out of the bed so early? (Let alone out of the house??) It is an intriguing thought for me. Perhaps I could take an informal poll of anyone who stops by my yearbook table today. . .

But, alas!  I am up at this obscene hour of the morning, drinking my coffee, and (obviously) blogging. I can already feel a nap coming on!

I just discovered that if you “Google” the phrase “March for Life 08″, my blog comes up as the fourth listing!  Wow. . . could this be my moment of fame?

Here’s the update for now on the March:  there were over half a million marchers, including Kendall and Alex.  Alex forgot to take the camera we sent with him to the march, so we are just going to have to take his word for what he saw.  Kendall took his camera, and promises that he got some pictures of both the Belmont Abbey College group and the St. Barnabas group.  He also got a picture of Alex, but for some reason didn’t manage to get a picture of himself with Alex.  I’m not going to try to figure that one out.  Not being a teenage boy I’m not sure I’d understand anyway.

On a random note, I am starting to think evil thoughts about Adobe Software again.  Their programs are excellent, but they are so restrictive with licensing that it makes me want to scream!  I am the editor of our homeschool support groups Yearbook.  We have roughly 300 families in our group, and about a third of them participate in the yearbook.  Last year, we earned enough in advertising and yearbook sales to buy the latest version of Adobe InDesign CS3.  But it only came with two activations!  So only two of us can use it, making it very frustrating for several people to be able to work on the yearbook simultaneously, which had been my hope.

After calling Adobe and asking about their “Volume Licensing” program, I am almost tempted to used PrintShop or some other cheap program. Each additional ‘license’ costs $200 for non-profits, or, if we bought a minimum of 10 additional licenses, under their ‘educational licensing’, then it would only be $160/license.  Ha!  As homeschoolers,most of us are already on a shoestring budget, having sacrificed that second income to be able to stay home and educate our own children.  We simply don’t have that kind of spare cash laying around.

Okay, I’m done.  I will come down off of my soapbox now.  If anybody has any spare Adobe InDesign CS3 programs that they are trying to get rid of, let me know.  I could use them!

Check back in a day or two for more details on Alex’s experience at the March for Life and the Holocaust Museum.

I have been working on my family history a little today, and made some interesting, albeit accidental, discoveries. First of all, I noticed a young man living with my 3rd G-Grandparents, Hirium M. and Sarah Freeman, in the 1860 US Census of Franklin County, Tennessee. His name was Joseph Graham, and he was 22 years old. What caught my attention was the last name of Graham, because I knew that was my Mrs. Sarah Freeman’s maiden name.

So, based on the limited information of this Census, I looked back to the 1850 Census records, and sure enough, I found Sarah with her brother Joseph, living in Tennessee (although in Jefferson County this time), and lo and behold: her parents names were Joseph and Sarah Graham! Now, that’s exciting, because Joseph and Sarah were born in 1795 and 1794, respectively. I always get excited when I go back another century! I also discovered that they had at least one other brother and sister: Maria and William. Good, solid, Colonial names.

I thought it would be nice to dig a bit deeper, and see if I could find Joseph and Sarah Graham in the 1860 US Census. Instead I found an interesting little index (and eventually a digital image of the original document itself) called the “US Federal Census Mortality Schedules, 1850-1880″. I was shocked and saddened to find that the elder Sarah Graham had died in August of 1860. Of Paralysis. And that she had been paralyzed, apparently, for four years! How tragic! How in the world does somebody die of paralysis?? Was she bitten by a snake? Did she fall off of a ladder or something? Or was it caused by some terrible disease? Wow. The possibilities are staggering.

I have found some really interesting wording for causes of death in my many genealogical meanderings. (My favorite is still ‘a bullet wound to the head by his own hand’. Sad, but creative!) but I’ve never heard of anyone dying from paralysis! Poor Sarah Graham! Fortunately for me, Jefferson County, Tennessee is only a couple of hours away from where I live, so I plan to drive over there and see if I can get more information. Yeah, I know, I’m macabre, but I really want to know! And this is why genealogy is so addictive for me. I get totally into their lives, and I want to know more. Sort of like my own version of “Fried Green Tomatoes”!

If you are related to me, and wondering who in the world is Sarah Graham (or Hirium Freeman, for that matter) read on. If not, this will probably bore you to tears. (I am hoping you’re not to that point already!)

My grandmother, Edna (Hamilton) Westbrook’s mother was Sarah Laura (Adams) Hamilton. She went by Laura. Her mother’s name was Icy Dora (Freeman) Adams. (Isn’t that the coolest name ever??) Icy Dora’s mother was Sarah (Freeman) Graham, and it was Sarah’s mother, also named Sarah, who died of paralysis. I do not know the elder Sarah’s maiden name, but I have vague reason to believe it may have been Hill. I intend to do further research on that! At any rate, if anybody really wants all the details, facts and statistics, just email me, and I will be thrilled to send it to you!

Every year, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the March for Life is held in our nation’s capitol. The first March took place on January 22, 1974, one year after that pivotal court ruling. This year’s March will be next Tuesday, January 22, 2008.

Our Youth Group at the March for Life, 2007 (Alex is on the left side of banner in the brown coat.)

This will be the 35^th anniversary of that court decision, and the third year that our family has participated in the March. Two years ago, our oldest son, Kendall, went on the bus with our Church. Last year, he went again, and Alex and Gaylon went along, too. This year he is driving up on his own, and staying with his girlfriend (who he met on his first March for Life!!), and Alex will be riding the bus again. Unfortunately, Gaylon will be unable to attend because of work. This year, after the March is over, our Youth Group will be going to the National Holocaust Museum. I know that will be a powerful experience for all of them.

As many of you may already know, “Roe” in the case is actually Norma McCorvey. She came forward quite a few years ago with the announcement that she is now a Christian, and would have never had an abortion if she had known all the facts back then. There is an interesting article about her on CNN. Apparently she is now very much against abortion.

I am proud of my children for participating in the March. They are taking advantage of their Constitutional right to peaceful assembly, and they learn so much from it each time they go. I am a firm believer that if we do not know what our rights are and put them into action, we are in danger of losing them. The March for Life, with thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children participating each year, certainly meets that criteria.

As with any such event, there are always protestors. Some of them just carry signs, others are much more aggressive. Gaylon said “It’s really mondo-bizzaro. You have people standing there, shouting at you and screaming all sorts of things.” He added that there are posters and displays that he really wouldn’t want our ten year old daughter to see, but they make a powerful point.

Mass For Life

Right now, my biggest concern is the weather. Apparently we do have another winter storm coming in, and D.C. is always a cold place to be in January. Please pray for everyone who plans to be a part of the March. Our buses are scheduled to pull out at 6:00 a.m. Monday morning, and they will be back late Wednesday evening. Kendall should be fine, since he is already in D.C.

We have not had a really good snow here in almost ten years, and I’m probably reaching calling last night’s snow ‘a good snow’. So, when it started snowing around 9:00 last night, and kept it up til dawn, I had to run out and take as many pictures as I could! Then my battery died. They are actually calling for more snow on Saturday, which is unusual. We all take a wait-and-see attitude with that. I am praying it won’t be too bad, since Alex is riding a bus and Kendall will be driving his car up to D.C. this weekend. (More on that in a future post!)

This is really not a lost Russian child. . . it’s Faith! But you gotta love the hat!


This is the field across the street from our house.

This is the road behind our house.

I was only two years old during the “Summer of Love”, but all my life, I have wished that I could have been an active part of that summer. I am an old Hippie at heart, and this video is amazing. I’m glad to know that some of that love is still around, almost forty years later. Alex insisted that I watch it. I’m so glad. It was voted YouTube’s #1 Video of the Year. Good call, guys!! It’s awesome! Share the love: pass it on. Peace!

“Stud” Puppy

Originally uploaded by Morningtower

This afternoon, my fifteen year old son, Alex took me to lunch. We had a lovely lunch at Chick-Fil-A. I was just happy to be eating those Waffle Fries, after two months of not being able to have any, due to that gallbladder thing I had going on! Then, we went to the mall, and, as planned, I signed all the papers, and he got his ear pierced. So this is a picture of Alex, the “Stud” Puppy, looking cool showing off his new earring! (No, really, it’s there. Look closely!!) He is so proud, and thinks he’s ‘all that’. I think he’s right!

Well, I went to see the surgeon this afternoon, and he took my bandages off and discharged me! Yay! I am glad to have them gone, but they did come in handy at one point. I was sitting around talking to Kendall and Gaylon, who were having a friendly debate over who had the worst and most wounds. So I sat there and listened to them for a while, then lifted my shirt up, displaying my ugly, blood-stained bandages, and said “Oh, yeah, guys?? Beat this!!” Yep. . .I won that one!

For free entertainment, we having been watching Faith’s new kitten, Bandit, chase the other cats and Bonnie around the house and try to attack them. It is so funny to watch him! He is this little black puff of fearless fur! Waldo Pepper took a new approach, and just sat on him. I think that should win some sort of award for most random act of heroism!!

In other news, I forgot to mention that Gaylon has gone back to school again. He is now working toward a Business Management Degree. I definitely admire his determination! It does keep him down in his office a lot more, but I do get a kick out of listening to him complain about things like “Moodle”, for his online class!

I have been updating this site bit-by-bit, and have now added pages on Homeschooling and Genealogy. (Subject to change soon). There are some pictures on the Homeschooling page, and I am hoping to add some pictures to the Genealogy page before too long, as well. But that involves uninterrupted scanning, so that may take a while longer. Check back!!

It’s only halfway through the first month of the new year, and a lot has happened already. On the 3rd, I had gallbladder surgery. It went well, and the only problem I had afterward was with my tongue! Apparently they pinched it when they intubated me, and it HURT! Seems better now, and I no longer sound like I have cleft palate. I think the best thing about having surgery is that everyone expects and encourages you to sleep for a few days afterward. I can always sleep!! On the 9th I had more dental work done, which I hate. But since the root canal right before Christmas, at least I’m not having the migraines anymore. Just a couple of days after my surgery, Faith’s hamster, Autumn, died. We had had her for about a year and a half, so she lived a fairly long time for a hamster, but that didn’t make it any easier. Then on the 10th, Gaylon’s work truck apparently had a mind of it’s own, the emergency brake released, and it rolled down our driveway, hit a tree and totaled itself. *sigh* On the minor side of things, Kendall got a fairly nasty chemical burn at work, but the good news is that it missed his eye by half an inch! He has laughed it off saying that now he has that rugged, dashing look!

But we are all still remarkably hopeful that 2008 will be a great year. I finally took the plunge and got my own web domain (which, if you are reading this, you probably already know!) and am having a lot of fun playing with themes and designs and widgets. I am using a new blogging platform, which has been a source of some frustration, but once I get it figured out, I’m sure it will be wonderful.

I still have my old website, because it’s free, but for the most part, by the time I’m done (if one can ever truly be ‘done’ playing with a website/blog) I will have moved all the information from there to here, as well as from my blog to here, and it will all be in one convenient place. Sadly, none of my family members are very interested in web design, or blogging, or figuring out scripts and protocols, so I’m on my own with this. But that’s okay, it gives me something to obsess over!

So, that’s the update. We are praying that the year improves, with no more mishaps, and that things will be much smoother from this point on. Please leave me a comment if you were here. I love hearing from you. This will be updated a LOT over the next few weeks, as I continue learning more about this software and how to play with it and tweak it to suit my needs.