Rambling

Warning: Rambling Ahead !!!

It might have been on NPR this week. Whereever it was, someone had commented that someone else was complaining about a situation that was happening in Columbia. They said how it is so much easier to bitch about a situation abroad that you have no control over then deal with the actual problems in your own country that you can improve with effort, because the complainer wants to avoid making any effort. I wish I could remember more precise wording, or where I heard it, but I feel a degree of applicable wisdom here.

I find myself stressing about things lately. Granted, that's a given, but what I find is that I complain that I am stressed out. Now, I relize that some people call this venting, and say this is a good outlet, but is the degree that I carry this on helpful at all? I mean, I've been getting stressed out, because I'm stressed out. I realize the above commentary was relating to different subjects, but it brought to me realize that I'm often complaining about the things that I can't change, I mean excessively, and not working on the controllable stressors, because they feel like work. True I've dealt with some, but time for more. It's just so much more difficult when things become this chaotic.

That said,

Nearly two weeks ago, an adventure of sorts found Wells Dinosaur Haven in Uncasville, CT. The place was rather fascinating. Some one took a small hilly, wooded area in their back yard and built about forty model dinosaurs. It was art. It included a T-rex that was easily three times my height.

From there went to a park in the same town. It was a peaceful place and home to an Indian burial ground over a picturesque setting.

That day I saw that sometimes when you get out and try to share something to see, you wind up sharing more about yourselves. It was a special day.

Last weekend found me running in to the Higgins Amory. I had just found out that there was a talk about Vikings and rushed to get there just in time. Later that day two people showed how they handled the long sword. I so wanted to take some good pictures that day, but couldn't use my flash in there (due to the distraction factor) and the characters in motion and intermingling with the audience made it even harder. On the way out, two people in fencing gear were in sword play in the parking lot. It fascinated me to see it there.

Why The Helmet?

To answer a question that was asked of me on one my yahoo 360 blog, "Is that you with the helmet on?" Yes (**still blushing**), that is me. Here's how all this came to be:

I thought about myself having red hair. I am (as far as I know) descended of French Canadians. My father's dad had red hair. Most of my family has the stereo type brown or dark brown hair. I mentioned to a friend that I wondered where or how I got the red hair.

Although he didn't know either, he offered the thought that in centuries past it could be that the Vikings ravaged and pillaged northern Europe, included parts of France. Perhaps it had something to do with the Irish (some were known to have red hair). He thought that the Vikings could have intermingled with the Irish and the French. I really don't know, and please forgive my ignorance if anything I'm saying sounds crazy or inappropriate.

I know next to nothing about the Viking culture, but I was enthralled with the thoughts of what things might have been like for my ancestors in days gone by. I currently run my blog over four different services to make it convenient for the people I know to read it. I may eventually bring it all down to one blog, just to make it easier on myself..

So the Viking helmet was done in fun. You may see a bit of Viking like elements elsewhere in my blogs. My original blog (still in existence) is actually http://northernway.blogspot.com Northern way is a good term for me anyway, in a sense, as I am in the Northeastern part of the country. Well I hope I've answered the question.