Its the marriages that make the nations

I've been enjoying doing a fair amount family history work and came across this paragraph in a booklet that is about my Routh line. I have never seen a more carefully documented line by people over the centuries. Here's a family who treasures each other deeply. The man who wrote this was the recipient of many documents that had been preserved and I found his view of the place marriage should have in society refreshing and true. It's really about the quality of marriages, the true quality of love and successful relationships instead of wealth and position, that show how a family fits into society. I loved it.


"Well, I have had my say, and would only add this, that I hope eventually to
compile an index of marriages showing both the names of those families into which
we have married, and of those families which have married into ours through the
centuries. 1 regard this as one of the most interesting featurcs of any family tree: it is
not only by the number of eminent men produced by a familyand we have produced
our fair share of great men, warriors, knights, Crusaders, Bishops and Divines, Chief Justices and Judges, Admirals, Generals and men of Letters and of Sciencenor by its
revenues (which were worth something like half a million pounds sterling per year in
modern currency, in the time of that Elizabeth Routh, ward in Chancery, who in 1500
married Sir John Cutts, Treasurer of the King's Household, carrying with her all the
estates of the main line of the Rouths of Routh) that a family can best be judged; what
gives a truer index to worth than either of these is the marriages it makes; for these
show, over a period, more clearly than wealth, rank, spasmodic outbursts of
brilliancy, or any other single factor, the true worth and position of a family in the
history of a nation."

The Ridiculous Outfit Challenge

 Yesterday I went shopping and had a moment of realization at Ross. You see, there are certain stores that bring out a certain side of my personality, or perhaps just my shopping tendencies. Ross is one of them. I realized that when going into a store, even though I'm looking for good clothes to buy to take home and use in real life, I will almost always jump into the mode of the ridiculous outfit challenge.




Perhaps it comes from fun times growing up in a family who loved to dress up and don't always take life too seriously. Here's my dad even in on the fun. Finding costumes in museums was a must use. These are some of the more mild ones too. In stores,  my sisters and I will scour the racks of items looking for that perfect outfit of ridiculousness. It could include accessories and many different layers and items. We then would take these back to the dressing room and try them on, bursting into giggles. 

This picture captures some of our silliness. The one below is a card we found in a store that exemplifies the sense of humor often found in our house. It reads: "Take a good look at this shirt and then be grateful that I only bought you a card"

 Here is actual footage from our last ridiculous outfit challenge held in England in May this year.















 I worried my friends as I searched out for such clothes and kept bringing them out to show them. I did explain what I was doing but they kept thinking  that I was serious about buying these clothes. (This is a legitimate concern for the serious shopper who goes into a store only looking for clothes to take home). We did take some fashionable finds back to the dressing room and have a "what not to wear" moment of critique which was fun. But I think I shall always enjoy a good ridiculous outfit.