Who Do You Think You Are?

Mom and Dad at Zapauldi 2008, Cape Cod

    My new favorite television show is NBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?"(this is a half truth, because my actual favorite show is "The Bachelor"...There. I said it.) I have been wanting to sit down with my parents and their siblings to gather as much info on my genealogy as possible. Tonight at Sunday Family Dinner, my sister Beth and I started the quest by asking my dad about his side of his family.  This summer we are having a Barich Family Reunion on Lake Michigan.  We refer to our reunions as "Zapaludi."  Supposedly this means "Let's go wild" or something of the sort in Croatian (my father's paternal ethnicity).  This reunion will be an excellent opportunity to hear the family stories from my dad and his six siblings.  My auntie Tina, my dad's oldest sister, has done an excellent job to preserve much of what has been available.  I want to know all that she knows so that I can pass it to pass to my children (God willing that I actually go on a date, fall in love, and find a man that wants children before I become barren.)
    Beth sprained her ankle while living in Argentina and the doctor she saw told her that our family is Jewish.  Beth said, "No. We are Catholic," and then the doctor said, "No. You may be Catholic now, but your family were Jews who converted to Catholicism to preserve their lives."  Now, that is something I would like to know!  I don't if this quest will lead me that far back in our ancestry, but I most certainly would like to make a start at it.  I am very intrigued and excited to see what we can learn along the way.
Readers/Followers/Fans, do you know who you are? Have you compiled your family history? I'd love to hear your comments below.


MOOSE UPDATE: Some nice ladies at Pet Supplies Plus micro-chipped Moose yesterday.  Four girls loved all over him while I filled out the paperwork.  He didn't make a peep and just kept wagging his tail from all the attention.  It was all said and done before I completed the form. He now he has a radio frequency under his skin so he will always be identified as belonging with ME.  Ahhhh....peace of mind!

Re-purpose This!

    Have you ever heard of Pizza Express...I mean HotBox...no! I mean PIZZA EXPRESS?!  I am loyal to so many things and original names are one of them (for example, my favorite music venue is still Deer Creek not Verizonwhateverless.) Well, I guess there is an actual difference between Pizza Express (Bloomington, IN) and HotBox Pizza (Greater Indianapolis Area) even though I don't like to admit it, mainly just the names and owners. The most important thing is that they serve the exact same heavenly breadsticks and deliver sodas in the same stadium cups.
    At any rate, I fell in love with Pizza Express on the first day at my Indiana University dorm, McNutt, when the Pizza Express Prophylactic Man showed up - breadsticks and prophylactics in hand.  From there, the Freshman Fifteen was close behind.  My new dormmates and I collected the colorful plastic cups to tote to the next keg party.  Now, I still order the breadsticks and sodas, but I don't have the keg parties to re-purpose the cups.  So what to do with the tall plastic stacks building in my cabinets?
    I came home one day to find that my brilliant roommate, Erin, had discovered the perfect re-purpose for our HotBox cup inventory.  We bribe the dogs with peanut butter-filled Kongs when we need a break from them, which is often.  There is no real easy way to clean these tubular food toys of the sticky peanut butter remnants...until the HotBox cup re-purpose. 
1. Soak in hot, soapy water for 1 hour.

2. Run hot water through tubular food toy, alternating the small and larger openings. Amazing! Peanut butter clumps just run out!

3. Dry re-purposed cups and cleaned Kongs.

I know, Erin.  The water stains are despicable!

***Note*** Sweet Mercy! Pizza Express has changed its name to Pizza X...what is the world coming to???


MOOSE UPDATE: The Moose Man went to a half day of camp yesterday and came home completely exhausted, which I love.  He usually still has residual energy after a half day, but not yesterday.  Wiped out!  I didn't figure out why until I was going to bed and dreaming of a vacation.  Moose was on SPRING BREAK!  All of the abandoned Spring Break pups are starting to roll into camp.  Moose was rocking out with all of the vacationing ladies - strolling on the beach, taking shots, and bumping at the dance club. No wonder he was so tired!  You go, boy!

What's the Point of a Blog?

      At Sunday night family dinner, my dad said "Hey. I got all caught up on your blog."  I cringed a bit because there couldn't have been that much to read since I had not posted all that much.  Then he says, "So what's the point of a blog?  Is it like an online journal?" 
     "Well, Dad, it most certainly can be an online journal for others to read."  That's pretty much what Random Thoughts and Corn Stalks is most of the time, I explained to him.  I started to think of the very first blog I read regularly, about 5 years ago.  It was called TEB's Page and communicated heart-wrenching yet humorous accounts of one young woman's battle with melanoma.  I had never met this woman but became deeply connected to her chronicles.  I cried when the last post came from her husband who was now a widower. To me, that was much for than a journal.
      Good ol' Bossy is a humor blog (You know - the lady that inspired this blog.)  I have tried to incorporate a bit of that here, but I don't think I can claim to be a humorist or can I (I AM HUMORIST...nope, doesn't roll of the tongue)?  I told Dad that I read blogs for entertainment and that sadly, the most news I get is from Bossy's blog.  "Blogs play so many different roles, Daddio." The conversation continued on to the business and marketing side and the opportunities blogs create for a business to have a personality and to engage their audience with regular interactive messages.  
      I started a blog just to write and now blogging is my livelihood.  If I could get as connected so quickly to the blogosphere, I believe there must be a supply and demand connection (I took Economics in Spanish while studying in Madrid; I am pretty sure I absorbed nada from that class.)  Businesses want blogs but don't want to write blogs.  I want to write blogs.  Yay for supply and demand! 
*Note: I wrote this last Sunday and today had family lunch where dad reminded me that I had not posted since 2/24...thanks for keeping me accountable, Pops...and for reading!


MOOSE UPDATE:

This is a horse hitchy thing; not Lilli's head.

Moose, Lilli, and I took advantage of the nicer weather this week and took some neighborhood walks.  I love our historic Meridian-Kessler neighborhood.  Every season brings a new reason to admire the homes and yards.  We never take the same route and my "favorite" house changes everyday.  Oh...the MOOSE UPDATE...well, we walked and discovered an interesting   horse hitching post.  I have seen them in throughout the neighborhood.  I know our house was built in 50's, long after horses were the main mode of transportation, so I am not sure of the significance of these horse hitches in the neighborhood (Bueller? Bueller?).