Gym Etiquette

Recently, when I was on the elliptical machine at the gym, I noticed a bunch of paper towels on the ground next to me. I wondered where they came from, looked over and realized that the guy next to me has a pile of paper towels on the machine and occasionally uses one to wipe his face and then tosses them on the floor....GROSS!!! I was so grossed out I almost left right then, but powered on. Has he not heard of a gym towel?? In addition to being just gross it seems like the paper towels would hurt, they are the industrial kind you buy in bulk and there is no way I'd want to rub one, or more than one, on my face.

I've seen him since then and he does the same thing, so its not like he did it just that one day. I haven't said anything but kind of thing I should....ugh.

April Fool

I hate April Fool's day, always have....mostly because I hate feeling like the whole day I'm just waiting to get a joke pulled on me. But, I love this time of year and am already looking forward to several things that seemed far away when we started planning but now that we've turned the calendar page over they are right around the corner!

I'm most excited about taking a cruise at the end of the month! We've never been on one, but thought it would be fun, and is a great way to get away without dealing with the hassle of airports. We'll drive down to Galveston and leave from there. We chose the 5-night (went back and forth about taking the 7-night) and so I should finally get to see some beaches with clear, blue water. If you have any suggestions on what to take on the cruise, please let me know. We've been reading about it, but are true newbies to it.

The day before we leave I'm doing my March for Babies walk, and thanks to many generous donations I've already reached my original goal of $400 and gave myself a new goal of $500.

Here is hoping this month has more springlike weather. I hope its dry this weekend for all the Easter egg hunts that will be happening. Last weekend was beautiful...perfect weather to check out the Mercer Arboretum. We had a fun time wandering around the plants, we'll have to go back since we saw only a small part of it. It was their annual plant sale, so we bought some mint plants, I was sold on them when I was told they are hard to kill and would taste good in lemonade (yum!). I tend to forget about hte plants, so Kevin will have to help me to keep them alive...

Family tree

I finally did my census! It took almost no time at all to fill it out for my husband and me.

Watching the new show Who Do You Think You Are? where they follow a celebrity trying to find out about their family history, got me interested again in finding out more about mine.

I'd visited Clayton Genealogical Library (a great resource right here in Houston!) quite a while ago and started to look at my family, but then...well, life happened. I realized I'd gone there in January 2007, so I obviously put it on hold when I got engaged, planned a wedding, and the excuses go on. But now, I decided to get back to it!

I found members of my family in several census forms. The latest to be released to the public is from 1930! I learned they don't release it for 72 years to protect everyone who is in it, I believe the 72 years is based on life expectancy. I am so excited to be able to find out information about my family and see where I came from.

My ultimate goals are to find out where (as in what country or countries) my family came from and when. I've always thought/been told I'm French and German but I'd like to know 1) if that is true, and 2) how much of each I am, as well as the questions that arise from that - where in that country did they come from, and the list goes on? Not sure how much I can find, but I'll enjoy the search.

I've already found some interesting information - my great-grandfather worked at a papermill in 1920, and my grandfather was an errand boy at 16 years old! Imagine, working full-time at that age, I was still in high school...

I did realize in looking at these old census forms that the census collects LESS information now than it did in the early 1900s. For example - they used to collect occupation and birthplace for your parents, but don't anymore. That made me sad because that means years from now when the 2010 census (and whichever other ones they collected less information on - I honestly don't remember what the 2000 census looked like) is released to the public and people are trying to find out about their family it won't have as much information for them to find....

Tech girl

I think that, in another life, I probably should've been an IT person....well not really, but I do like trying to figure out techy things and am a sucker for gadgets.

I love my smart phone, probably more than is healthy. It lets me see emails, pictures, and all sorts of stuff anytime, almost any place, and its like a *new* phone now that I got a new battery. With my old battery it would randomly turn itself off even when it still had power left and would run itself down really quickly. Not good traits in something that is to be used if I have an emergency. With the new battery, no problems so far :)

My latest techie thing - I got my new computer at work today and I opted to have 2 screens, by keeping my old one and getting the new one too. It'll take some getting used to, but will be wonderful for all the work I do with several programs open. I already used it for some work I was doing on a survey - the survey was open in IE on one screen and the backup documents (Excel mostly) on the other screen. hopefully it won't feel strange to look at a single screen at home....I am also proud that I was able to get my palm to sync to my new computer, for some reason getting that thing set up correctly is always the hardest thing.

Another fun and sort of techie (definitely nerdy) thing that Kevin and I do is geocaching. We use our GPS system and get to go on treasure hunts. We haven't had much success in the past but decided to try again when we realized how many caches there are near us. We went on Sunday (great use of our extra daylight and a beautiful day) with my sister, new to geocaching. We found 2 of the 4 we looked for, and they were SO TINY, called 'micro caches'. We'll definitely be doing more geocaching now that the weather is warming up. It can be frustrating, but was so exciting when we finally spotted what we were looking for. I am learning that when I choose what caches to look for that I need to read the guest book posts, at least enough to know if people have indicated it is missing...one that we looked for is no longer there, oops. I'll learn more as we practice. Its a great way to get outside on a nice afternoon.

Census FAIL

I got something in the mail yesterday that said Census on the outside of it, and opened it up thinking I was about to fill out the Census 2010, only to find a letter letting me know it is on the way and asking me to take them time to do it. uh, waste of tax dollars to send a letter out to everyone a week before letting us know its coming.

I can't turn on the tv or open my mail without seeing something about it - there have been fliers with my gas bill, our local school district newsletter has a big ad about it, even my credit union had a blurb about making sure the census people are legit before giving them information. I know its coming, and nerd that I am was actually going to sit down and do it right then.

I need to come up with more interesting ideas for my blog, but haven't even really thought of it lately. My conference last week Waco was great and my presentation went well!