simply janet

After I posted my Snodgrass family blog entry at Twisted Knitter, a distant Snodgrass relative contacted me and provided some new photos of and information about Henry Snodgrass (1816-1895), including this photo of Henry as an older man:

Henry is my dead-end for this side of my family (my paternal grandmother’s ancestor). He fathered 22 children with his first wife, Elizabeth Phillips (1818-1869), so I know there are more distant cousins who possibly have knowledge of Henry’s origins. It’s thought that his mother was a Native American “Mingo” — which, if true, would be a nice surprise. (I had ruled out any possibility that I might have any Native American ancestry).

When I first started researching my ancestry, I had no idea that blogging about it would help me fill in missing information, but on more than one occasion, I’ve been fortunate to find distant relatives who take the time to leave a comment and express their willingness to help.

Twenty four years ago, I was ending a two-week visit to Tokyo where I’d gone with my mom for her first visit back in nearly 35 years (and my first visit ever). We stayed with family in and around Meguro-ku and Setagaya-ku in Tokyo (my mom grew up in Setagaya).

(Click the photo to go to Flickr and see more information)

In this annual stretch of time from Memorial Day to the week after my birthday, I’m reminded of my trip to Tokyo and the subsequent changes and choices I made after I returned. And every year about this time, I dare myself to try something new. This year it’s a new blog. I’ve been experimenting with blogging elsewhere over the past several months to see if I wanted to break out of writing about knitting and other fiber-related pursuits. Blogging about knitting has been a lovely way to express myself, but then life started happening and loved ones began going through some serious life changes. My parents’ move to Washington led to my desire to explore both my American and Japanese ancestry. Writing about those genealogical discoveries took the place of knitting content over there.

My plan is to keep both blogs — frequency of blogging to be determined. Thank you for reading me in both places.

Erica painted this the night before my birthday — I was surprised and delighted when she brought it to me in the morning. Apparently, she’s been doing some sketching and painting behind the scenes.

What began as a vague curiosity became more intriguing as I researched the Kindle. I didn’t feel a need for one until I started daydreaming about a long summer reading list. It’s not that I don’t love to have a book in my hand and it’s not that I don’t love a spontaneous trip to the library, but my trips to the library don’t often yield success — there are plenty of books there but rarely the ones I want to read when I want to read them. So when Debbie recommended that I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I added it to my “To Read” list on GoodReads. When I clicked through the links to the different sites offering the book, I noticed that it was offered in a Kindle version for a little over $7. While I was viewing all the different books offered in the Kindle store, I noticed that there were many, many books that could be downloaded for free (literary classics that are currently in the public domain). That’s when I began to seriously consider asking for one for my birthday. And I eventually did just that.

I’ve mentioned to many of you that I really do love and enjoy it. I insisted that it wouldn’t replace actual books (as if!) and yet, some appear to be skeptical about a device that holds potentially up to 1500 books. If you enjoy reading, you would enjoy a Kindle. Simple.

I planted these Stella de Oro Daylilies in our front yard. Several more additions are planned — the challenge will be keeping everything alive over a typical hot summer.