Some people call it Pittsburghese, but I think it’s more of a generalized Pennsylvania thing (or maybe just Western PA), but in any case, many of the older people in my family speak a bit different than the rest and/or use phrases that the typical person might not understand.

I thought some of the things that came out of of my grandparent’s mouths to be a bit silly. In many cases I just thought they weren’t enunciating (which is true to an extent), but others I thought were normal, at least until later on in life, when I would have to explain what a certain word or phrase meant.

Here is a sampling of a few sayings that you might hear from one of my grandparents (In some cases, I’ve added the meanings in parentheses where the context might not be enough.):

“How are you’inz?” (version of “ya’ll”; “all of you”)

“Be careful out there.  It’s slippy on that ice.”

“I can’t get it straight.  It’s so cattywompus.”

“I’m asceerd o’ heights.”

“Everything’s hunky-dory.” (okay)

“My hair is all greazy today.”

“You got ‘urself a nebby nose.” (you’re in everyone’s business; nosy)

And… one of my favorite foods as a kid: Dippy eggs. (eggs over-easy)

After a bit of confusion, almost leading to tears, she said “Cookie cheese.”

I then realized that she wanted some “monster” cheese … as in muenster.   Once I got her a piece of “monster” cheese she was happy and we all had a big laugh as she pretended to be cookie monster gobbling her food. 

This is a photo of my great-grandmother, Thelma Corrinne (Seibert) Furry (1910-2000). She was 15 at the time. The reason I like this photo is because when I first saw it, I had never seen a photo of her between the ages of 2 and 30, so it was nice to see what she looked like when she was a teenager:

I have quite a few photos of my great-grandmother Drusilla Irene (Rix) Beckman (1868-1955) when she was 75 years and older, but this is the only photo I have of her when she was young. I’m not sure of when it was taken (anyone want to take a stab?), but I’m guessing that is was about 1890:

This is a photo of the Jacob Seibert household at 1214 E. Jacob Street, Louisville, Kentucky, taken sometime between 1890 and 1910 (Again, anyone want to take a stab at the date?). I can’t identify any of the people who are in this photo but I can only assume that it is of Jacob Seibert and his wife and children, which would make it the only photo of that family. If I could only pin down the date of the photo I could probably identify the people in the photo based on the ages, but until then, I can only guess:

This is a treasured photo of four generations my grandfather’s family, taken circa 1921. This is the only photo of my g-g-grandmother Isabella (Wishart) Cummings (b. 1863), on the right, and her mother Catherine (Hodge) Wishart (b. 1838), on the left. The baby is my grandfather, Floyd Ellwood Cummings (b. 1921). The man is Edward Blythaway Cummings (1893-1953), Floyd’s dad:

To set the record straight though, I haven’t proven any of this… from Joe’s side of the family, or mine.

I’ve only thoroughly researching one side of my family (my maternal great-grandmother’s). For the rest of my lines, which would include the one that supposedly has royalty in it, and for Joe’s, I have only personally traced them back to the early/mid 1800’s. For people and events before that time (except for one or two lines) I’m only going by what I’ve found on the internet, and as we all know, you can’t trust everything you read, especially when it comes to stuff on the internet.

The two people that supposedly link Joe to royalty are Andrew Pierce Lee, his g-g-g grandfather on his father’s side, and Rachel Funderburg, his g-g-g-grandmother on his mother’s side. The person that supposedly links me to royalty is Christopher Wells, my g-g-g-grandfather on my father’s side.

Supposedly if you trace Andrew Pierce Lee’s ancestry, one of his ancestors is Geoffrey Plantagenet. Andrew is also, supposedly, a distant cousin of Robert The Bruce (remember the guy who fought with William Wallace in Braveheart?)

Supposedly if you trace Rachel Funderburg’s ancestry, one of her ancestors is Philipp Wilhelm.

And if you trace Christopher Well’s ancestry, supposedly one of his ancestors was King Henry II, who coincidently is the son of the same Geoffrey Plantagenet that my husband is supposed to be descended from.

It will take a lot of time and work to figure out if this info is right, so who knows if I ever will. If it’s not true though, it’s no big deal, we still have people in our family trees that I find very interesting, even if they aren’t royalty.

It’s my first attempt at a pen and ink drawing. I think it turned out pretty well, considering. There are a couple obvious (to me at least) mistakes, but I can’t expect my first drawing to be perfect (Something I’ve been struggling to accept for a long time). And I’m not sure that pelicans ever hold fish this way, but it was a last minute addition that I didn’t really think about beforehand. My idea with this was to draw something that used multiple techniques in one, in this case: contour lines, crosshatching, and stippling.

In case you’re curious, I used a .20 mm Sakura Pigma Micron pen. I had planned to use a .25 mm pen too, but I got too caught up in the process and forgot about it until I was more than half finished. In the future I’d like to try a Crow Quill pen, but I’m not that brave yet. I have one though. I forget what kind it is though. Probably a #102.

In an attempt to avoid hurting someone we hide our true feelings. But in doing so, how can we truly be friends if we aren’t 100% honest and truthful with each other?

About two weeks ago, my husband and I had a discussion about this exact subject and I realized that he is the only person in my life that I am completely honest with. My mom is the next person with whom I am the most honest.

In looking at that, I realized that the more honest and truthful I am with a person, the closer my connection is with that person.

Now that I’m writing this down, it all seems to be common sense, but it’s something I’ve just now really started to think about.

I have so many friends and family members with whom I would like to say are close, but they really aren’t unless I can be truthful with, and around, them. And with many, I feel like I can’t be truthful because we aren’t close enough.

Now that I’ve said that, it makes me wonder which comes first. The truthfulness or the closeness? Or both? It seems like they are intrinsically linked. That you can’t have one without the other.

Recently I’ve been wanting to be more honest and truthful with everyone I interact with. Especially to create closer bonds with the people in my life. My friend has noticed this, but has interpreted it as not being more open, but instead as just more disagreeable.

She recently stated something to the effect of whether or not she was really the kind of person that I wanted to be friends with. (Well, actually, it was just in reference to her Twitter feed, but I felt something in the tone of her reply that I think still applies in the general sense.)

The answer is yes. But I don’t think we can be friends on the level I would like.

I hadn’t thought about it much until she mentioned it, but I’m starting to wonder if we have been tip toeing around each other so much that our true selves are too different to continue to grow any closer as friends.

I wish it wasn’t the case, but I think that maybe I shouldn’t push the matter and just keep our friendship at a “superficial” level.

____________

Updated to add a clarification that I thought needed to be added to be truthful to my readers, specifically to the friend I refer to, considering this post is about honesty and truthfulness.

He tried to tell me in the kindest way possible that writing is just not my thing. He didn’t need to be gentle. I agreed with him right away. Whenever I sit down to write a novel I can’t ever seem to get the words to flow. When I do write, it’s generally flat and stilted. I do pretty good with non-fiction, but writing “literature” just does not seem to be my thing. I did complete NaNoWriMo last year, but the novel was horrible. Probably the worst thing I’ve ever written. Plot holes, one dimensional characters with multiple personalities (as in they changed their one-dimension qualities throughout the novel), etc.

However, I still have a very strong urge to tell stories, and I don’t think that will ever stop. We figured out that since I am such a visual person, I probably need to use a visual format, like a graphic novel or a screenplay, instead of a novel.

If you remember, I started a screenplay when Script Frenzy was going on. I was very happy with what I wrote in that case because it was a good way to translate what I see in my head onto paper. I just haven’t done much with it since then. I think I’ll dig it back out to see what I can do with it.

I think the idea of creating a graphic novel is a wonderful idea too, since I used to love to draw and paint. I just don’t see any of my current ideas fitting into that format. My husband, however, has written two stories that I would love to turn into graphic novels. One is about zombies and the other is a children’s story.

The only problem I see with getting back into writing/drawing is that I’ve not done either for at least a few months and I’ve started projects or developed interests in the mean time that already have me stretched a bit thin. I just have too many interests!

I also agreed to edit my husband’s 2007 NaNoWriMo novel for him, so I just don’t know how much more I’ll take on at the moment.

I’ll get the stuff out, but probably wont do much on any of it for another month, when I’m no longer consumed with my genealogy book or busy editing my husband’s novel.

I want what I do to be fun and not feel like something else I have to do.

The day I got it:

Today, after wiring a branch and removing a bunch of superfluous branches and many of the larger leaves:

It still has quite a way to go, but everyone at the bonsai society meeting last night told me that I shouldn’t work on it anymore than this. They said that since I had already done so much, I should just let it grow wild for the rest of the year and in the spring I can start to work on it again.