I slept in this morning and the large clock hanging on the bedroom wall said, 8:00, but daylight saving time kicked in and it was actually 7:00 am. That’s the only downside to having a real clock in every room. I’ll be turning them all back an hour.

Friends have been asking, “What are your plans now that you’re an empty nester?” In October I’d planned to get my passport, so if I decided to visit friends outside the US, I’d be free to do so. You are asked to turn in your birth certificate along with the passport application and I have no idea where that might be. Yesterday, a friend told me the easiest way to find it. He encountered the same obstacle while applying for his passport, so I was grateful to have seen him on my walk.

I came home and looked up the website he’d referred me to and it looked pretty straightforward. After filling in all the information, I had a choice to make. I could pay $49 plus another $10 fee to download the document and mail it in, or for those who don’t have a printer they charge $89 plus additional fees to mail me everything needed to be filled in and mail it back. From what I gather this company would be creating a birth certificate for me, but that’s not what I was looking for. I wanted the original.

Another online search took me to the Register of Deeds in the county where I was born. This website had a vintage search engine to look up vital records. Typing in my mother’s name and the date of my birth, nothing was found, so I replaced her name with my father’s and a record of my birth came up. It was funny that my father’s name was listed first, but back then it was the proper way. I printed out the document and will fill it in to mail to the Register of Deeds with a $10 check per copy wanted of the certificate.

I had laid the whole passport thing aside because of the hiccup with the birth certificate, but I believe in my heart God wants me to have one. Where He wants me to travel to, I don’t know yet, but a passport certainly does kick open the door of possibilities.

Feature Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash