Green Bean Machine

A couple months ago, my uncle started a family tree on Geni. I’ve played with other family tree applications before, but this one is bar none, the best ever, because it’s actually a social community.

I’ve gone a little nuts with researching my lineage (I’ve added over 2000 people to the tree already). My mom had a small stack of family photos, which I’ve been scanning and uploading to Geni.

Joel and Lavinia Mitchell, my great great grandparents. (1946)

Great grandma Addie, looking thoroughly modern. (1927)

Discovering distant family relations and their stories is so much fun. For instance, one of my most distant ancestors I’ve been able to trace, Luke Dillon, emigrated from Ireland to America in the late 1700s. He apparently was a quite the drunk. One winter, he was riding home from a tavern in the snow. He dismounted, sat down by a tree, and was found six weeks later, frozen. Can I just say “!!!!”

We’ve been having fun around the office with Wordle. I love stuff like this.

See it bigger.

It’s been a popular site blogged today (I first saw it on How About Orange). Create a font with your handwriting using fontifier. Previewing it is free, downloading is nine buckaroonies. Personally, I wouldn’t buy it, but, you know, it’s fun.

This poor blog has been sadly neglected for several months now, and I think it’s time to start posting again. (It’s a strange feeling—the impulse to apologize to the internet.) Let’s just say, I’ve been a bit preoccupied with being married, homemaking, and learning my job (all of which I’m loving).My remedy for a sick blog has been decided. I’m going to participate in Thing-a-Day 2008. It’ll be a good motivator to start posting regularly and to get back in the habit of making things with my hands.See you in February then. Ta-ta!

Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge launched a very pretty redesign today. She is one of those people who has impeccable taste in just about everything. Also, something fun for launch day is a little tour of her home. Adorable!

The most amusing thing I’ve seen online this morning: It’s (K)not Wood, a shopping blog completely devoted to all things faux wood.

After a two-year hiatus from the blogging world, I’ve decided to return! During that time I met and married my husband, almost finally but not quite yet finished my bachelor’s degree and found a new love of handmade things. Since developing a recent penchant for female decorating and craft-driven blogs, I thought, “Why not join them?” So here is something fresh, something new, and something not totally like before.