About The Country Wife Blog

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Morning After

Yesterday was a busy day: taxes to pay in Royalton and Tunbridge, errands to run in WRJ and West Leb, and finally:Book Group! 

The stove installation man did not come so we had another sandwich supper:  Bob had some baked tofu on toast and I had some corned beef on straight bread(i.e not toasted).  The lack of stove guy was a real disappointment since I had just spoken with the Whole Foods Market Commissary on Monday and learned how they make their lovely CHEWY tofu and was gungho to make some. (The Golden Sesame Tofu logs at Whole Foods in Beford, MA are delicious!) Oh, well.  Maybe today is the magic day for the stove.

Around 6:30 I left for carpooling to the Book Group (discussing "The Tipping Point") from J and A's house.  Saw the grandkids for a minute and loved C's new 'peanut" theraball.  He gets pretty wound up on it and then pitches over on his nose...not the best thing to do.  L was a bit distressed that Mom was leaving her. E was totally absorbed in Bear Grylls and his fire-making exploits.  (I may have the name wrong...the show is Wild something.) 

We had a lively and interesting discussion and had a great time looking at K's loom and work.  She does STUNNING weaving!  I am so very impressed.  She loaned me a book on double weave, which I turned on the light to start reading when I got home (AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK!!!! and that isn't even the latest Book Group has run....!) but I was so tired that I got little out of it except admiration for such beautiful work.

This morning I  awoke with a headache and feeling droopy and logey.  I guess that is a sort of Book Group hangover.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Rainy Sunday

Today we came home from Church in a cold rain.  Because we moved out the old stove yesterday and the new one has not been installed yet we used the microwave to heat up some old soup.  Bob ate cream of butternut squash soup and I had sweet potato, corn, and kale soup.  They were both good.  He went home teaching and I took a nap until the phone rang.

Before HTing and napping we watched the birds on the porch for a while.  It was a fabulous bird day despite, or maybe because of, the weather.  We had blue jays, chickadees, sparrows, some little gray crested bird that we don't know yet, a couple of nuthatches, Mr. Cardinal and later Mrs Cardinal, and ***NEWSFLASH***a pileated woodpecker!  It was huge!  We had already had a small Downy woodpecker...at least that is what I think it was...smaller than the bigger Hairy woodpecker.  It pecked on a post on the porch then snuck in to grab a bite to eat from the birdfeeder!  Pretty funny.  A little later he was pecking on the window frame in the dining room.  Grandpa surprised him by knocking back...

The 'new' chair on the porch has been a great place to spend afternoons when the birds, and squirrels, are feeding.  So many birds come to visit.  It will be interesting to see who comes this winter.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Concord Family History Day 2010 is complete!

What a good day it was today in Concord, NH!  For me the day started early...including taking some medicine to keep the coughing at bay, and it worked.  Something called Musinex DM I think.   I took it last night and slept for the first time in almost a week.  The coughing did not start up again until I was driving home.

When I set up for the blogging class all seemed well at first.  The Methots had set the room up perfectly with a screen, a table with a projector ready to go, a power strip underneath the table readily available, and an extension cord.  It could not have been a better setup.  We did change projectors to the one that I brought but that was all.

The only glitch in the system came when I tried signing on to Blogger.  That, and all social networking sites, had been filtered out.  I got on the phone to SLC right away but did not succeed in getting the filter lifted in time for the first class.  The five people in that class were kind enough to say that the presentation was fine and would get them started.  Thank you to all of you and your generosity of spirit to make me feel better.

Shortly after the end of the first class the phone rang and it was SLC calling back to say I had to call a different group for help, which I did.  After Paul checked the firewall box for me I was able to give the needed info to the new group and eventually we were able to lift the filter for the duration of the rest of the conference.  You can imagine my relief when Blogger.com came up on the screen.

On to the second class where we were able to set up another blog...the Windsor County, Vermont Genealogy blog.  I plan to post documents and data I find in town clerk offices in various towns in Windsor County in case they might be as useful to others as they are to me.

Sitting in on the Brick Walls panel was enjoyable and interesting to see the knowledge of the other panelists as they strove to answer brick walls questions that had been submitted on the website prior to the conference.  Harry and Ellaine had done a LOT of preparation and had beautifully documented answers to hand to some of the class members.

Home safe and sound now, and resolved to get really rolling on family history work again!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Update on the gadget

Well, I keep checking but the odiogo gadget does not always work.  It does work for several of the blog posts, but not for all of them.  I only feel a little better about it because I went to a Legacy blog and found theirs did not always work, either.  I can only hope that whatever made it not work will be fixed.

So exciting! A blog and a podcast in one!

DearMyrtle's gadget/widget  which turns a blog into a podcast worked great on her blog so I tried adding it to this blog.  It works!  Yay!  Try it yourself!

Thank you again, DearMyrt!

Later:
OK, so I published this post and tried to listen, and IT DIDN'T WORK!  Having just told the world, or at least a bundle of my dearest friends about this success, my face is red.  Oh well, that is a pretty common occurrence for me...I botch so many things...In this case I really cannot figure out what I did differently to the post to make an error occur.  I have contacted the company.

The next newest post DID work!  At least for me...

If anyone reads this post, tries the "Subscribe to podcast" button, and it works...could you send me a comment?  Thanks.

Talking with DearMyrtle

A week or two ago I had registered for a webinar on the Legacy Family Tree website which was to be held last night.  When it came time for the webinar I was unable to connect and instead sat here working on this blog...with the afore mentioned lack of success.

Today I sent a message to DearMyrtle who read my message and responded very positively and quickly, even though she was participating in the FamilySearch Blogger event in Salt Lake City.  She shared with me her presentation at the webinar which I was able to study before the complete presentation was available at Legacy.  What a generous kind lady whose head is TOTALLY FULL of great genealogical and technological helpfulness. 

Thank you so much, DearMyrtle, for your invaluable help.

As I have been thinking about the Saturday family history day and the blogging class I am going to present, I have made some more concrete changes and hope they will be useful and helpful to all the people who come to class.

With good fortune I will add a new gadget or two to this blog.  Only time will tell...!

Time is running out for preparation....

For some time now I have been trying new things with this blog (in preparation for the Concord Family History Day), but have failed in my attempts.  Most notable failures have been adding a video.  Many, many failures. At this point I will stop knocking my head against the wall and add a photo just because I can...  Maybe even a cute photo.

Not a cute photo---it is  a BEAUTIFUL photo of a successful climb to the top of the mountain.  Don't they look happy!