Oh hello there! I’m so glad to share a cuppa with you! How the heck are you?

Can I offer you some hot, black tea? The kettle is hot if you’d prefer coffee, too, or maybe herbal or iced tea is more your style, especially considering the continuous heatwave we’re experiencing?

We have it all so no need to be shy, just let me know and we’ll settle in on the front porch where we can watch all the butterflies and bees flit about the herb garden.

Living

Goodness this summer is flying by, isn’t it?

Between the heat and the weeds and the balancing of life in general, I can hardly believe that August is upon us already!

More days than not I can be found on the farm, tending the crops, keeping the animals fed and watered, and doing my best to keep cool in the ever-staggering heat, but I get off the block once or twice a week to run errands, do all the shopping, and maybe squeeze in a coffee or lunch with a dear one. I’m quite the introvert so the isolation is lovely, but I do enjoy getting out and about to do something a little different from time to time ;-)

One such time was a couple of weekends ago when I attended a friend-raiser event with my wife for the non-profit she is the CEO of while our daughter hung out with her Grandpa. It was a picnic party with a band and a DJ and a whole gaggle of awesome humans who were there for the fun and to learn about the org in a gorgeous house.

And! Today is our Anniversary so we’re celebrating 17 years with a lovely lunch at Izanami (it’s too hot for the tubs) and some puttering about town while our daughter enjoys her last day of Summer Camp.

Sweet, mellow perfection.

Reading

I’ve buried my nose and immersed my ears in a handful of books over the last month and am enjoying bouncing around genres a bit. While I thoroughly enjoy a fantasy storyline (like the recently read of Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom), sometimes I need something a little more light hearted or based in drama, mystery, or simple realism. My most recent reads have fulfilled these needs perfectly:

• The Guest List by Lucy Foley

• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

• Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake

• Ruin by Dervla McTiernan

I’ve also taken to visiting Book Mountain, an old used bookstore in Santa Fe, nearly weekly where I’ve had to restrain myself from adding too heavily to my TBR pile but have picked up Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman and The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova as well as a childhood favorite, la Llorona as told by Joe Hayes (yes, the stuff of childhood nightmares but still and forever a true favorite).

The used bookstore I mentioned above has been around for over 40 years and was my mom and Grandma’s favorite place to go so I visited it almost weekly as a kid. However, after my mom passed, as life got busy and my well worn tracks switched in my 30s, I stopped visiting and only recently became aware of it again. The funny thing about Santa Fe being a small town is that the woman who runs the place remembers my family well and had many questions and stories to tell when I first visited again. So wild and truly fun to reminisce with acquaintances about all the times gone by.

What have you been reading (or adding to your TBR pile) recently? Anything thoroughly enjoyable or happily distracting you’ve been burying your nose into?

Blogging

As I get back into the swing of writing in this space on a regular basis, I have been happily brainstorming a handful of topics and enjoying the process of getting it all down onto paper.

• How to Document the Undocumented where I discuss some of the challenges faced in the documentation of family members where legal/official documentation doesn’t exist, specifically in marriages and deaths.

• 1256 Lexington Ave, New York City where I reflect on my mom’s childhood growing up in New York City and my best friend’s adventures in finding my mom’s old apartment a couple of weeks ago.

As an extension of reading and writing more often I’ve also focused on spending less time on social media and more of my copious free time exploring new-to-me blogs. I have to admit to coming to the whole blogging game, officially, a little late in 2011 with the farm blog, and have been amazed at quickly it’s all changed! While I love a bright and colorful website filled with all.of.the.information, I find myself most drawn to an old school personal blog and am happily and actively looking for diverse, authentic voices across a variety of niches (from homesteading to crafting, from writing to genealogy *obviously* , from photography to life in general).

So, do tell! What are your current favorite blogs to read and why?

Researching and Organizing

I have to admit to bouncing around a bit in my research lately. Instead of focusing on a single ancestor or branch, I’ve spent a lot of my research time cleaning up my tree a bit and reflecting a lot on my personal documentation methods while brainstorming ways to simplify my practices.

Family history is a wildly broad umbrella under which so many components come together and, while wildly exciting, can rather quickly become a tad overwhelming when thinking about how to make it all make sense in the long run.

And so, without an answer quite yet, I know I need to refine my approach to how I can best organize and manage all of the information and documentation I’m gathering.

That’s it!

For now ;-)

Thanks for popping by for a cuppa! I always enjoy hearing what you’re up to and how life is treating you! If you’ve popped over from Natalie’s weekend link share, thank you so much! If I haven’t visited your blog yet, I’ll make my way back to you in the coming days and am so happy to catch up! If you’ve found this post from another direction, WooHoo!!! I’m just so glad you’re here! The comments are open but occasionally a little wonky, so please do your best to say HELLO and I’ll do the same!

Onward,

Melis