Interests

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain perpetually a child. For what is the worth of a human life unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 B.C.

We've referenced the National Archives and Records Administration a number of times* on SeniorWomen.com and want to remind you of the genealogical workshops and records research offered by the  Administration:

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by us forever.

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"One winter morning the President electrified his nervous Cabinet by bursting into a meeting with, 'Gentlemen, do you know what has happened this morning?'  They waited with bated breath as he announced,  'Just now I saw a Chestnut-sided Warbler and this is only February.' "
—  Corine Roosevelt Robinson (on her brother Theodore Roosevelt)

A birding walk on the Filoli estate in Woodside, California a few years ago and inspiration from an unknown warbler some weeks ago in our backyard, led us to this site. Regardless of your attachment to birding, the search might of be of interest to all who hear a song and wonder about the singer. Here are some of the new species entered onto the site:

Green Sandpiper
Canivet's Emerald
Yellow-throated Longclaw
Sharpe's Pied Babbler
Rufous-cheeked Laughingthrush

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Liz Flaherty writes: I spend hours comparing colors and textures in fabric shops and buying from the clearance bolts at Wal-Mart. I’m a sucker for the thread rack — all those colors!—and the notions wall. I have enough scissors that I wonder if I should have some kind of weapons license for them.

Joan L. Cannon writes: There are sadly too few who have had a chance to go where the trout are and spend the hours it takes to succeed in landing one, and then having the special pleasure of releasing it. The essentials of enjoyment for every sense are fortunately still available to almost anybody whose hands are at one end of a bamboo rod with a light reel that suspends the gossamer weight of a lure at the other.