With the severe weather we got after the first of January and all that has to be done outside to feed/water the birds……all the stray cats and my own, a date slipped up on me. I have always noted that my first post was made on January 4th, 2004. I’m not a whiz at blogging yet but I have come a far cry from that first post.

I was so excited to see all the inner-acting from bloggers out there who had encouraged me to begin. Mary Lou at Whidbey Island noticed my comments on John’s blog and kept after me until I decided it would be a good way to write the family history as I knew it……..for my children.

After a few years, I ran out of relatives to talk about unless they were newly deceased. The circle grows smaller every year and one of these days my writing will also stop. It gives me peace to know I’m leaving most of what I thought about in life and also the family tree that budded me.

I was blessed with great memory of the families I came from and I knew once I’m gone, my children might wish they had listened closer when I talked of family members they only knew as small children. It was a labor of love and with the other subjects I have touched on since they will know their mother a little better also.

After my father died, everything he ever said returned to me in many different ways. It was always a learning tool for he was a good teacher. Because of his signature in my young life I was more than prepared for whatever came after leaving home. He was not a perfect man but he wanted my brother and I to grow up and be responsible human beings.

If dad was the disciplinarian, my mother was the gentle soul who saw good things in everyone. She loved reading and living through the books she read. She was fond of frontier stories ……folks going west and their adventures. Mom was sympathetic towards the way Indians were run over and killed……the US Government broke every treaty ever made to the Indians. Because of her stories I grew up loving books and reading the books she read as a girl. Reading gives one a great vocabulary and broadens one’s life experiences.

Some people muddle through life and have hardly lived before they die. Some find satisfaction in being critical of everything that doesn’t please them and some are afraid to expand their horizons. I see life as a gift of opportunities and that anything is possible if you dare to dream……..and I am a dreamer.

Essentially Esther
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