New Year 2018, Looking Back and Looking Forward

Every now and then it's a good idea to take a step back and look at where you're at relative to where you've been and where you want to be. The beginning of a new year is a popular time to do that. With that in mind, here's my take on where I'm at regarding my genealogy...

My goal last year was to write up a family history and I chose my Mizera family line to start with. My intentions were good. I thought I had a good plan although I didn't get far before the plan fell apart. I tried to construct a new plan but that didn't work either. Then I got distracted with other things and never got back to trying to write up the family history.

I did add some names to my family history database last year, some from the Mizera line and some from the Lisowski line. I found some new (to me) sources for information about the lives and times of my families in Poland. And I hired some Polish researchers to help me with finding records and translating them. So that's all good. I helped some friends research their families too. I feel good about that. So I did have some accomplishments last year to further my genealogical journey.

So that's where I'm at looking back on my genealogy-related activities in the past year. Very recently, I came to the realization that I'm not really interested/motivated in writing up my family history. That was a bit of an eye opener for me. I enjoyed writing in the past. I have written two NANOWRIMO novellas, and I've written blog posts about my genealogy, digital scrapbooking, and photography for several years. I remember the writing process to be quite enjoyable to me. But somewhere along the way I lost interest in writing. I used to think of creative writing as one of my hobbies. I don't anymore. It may well be that I just have too many "balls in the air" so to speak. When I make choices of what to do with my hobby time, I never choose genealogy-related writing anymore. Notice I said "genealogy-related" writing. I still write every day but it's rarely about genealogy.

The most recent hobby I've picked up was bullet journaling. I've been doing that for about 15 months now. It's not creative writing the way I do it, it's more like a combination to-do list, planner, tracker, and diary. And the diary entries are most often about the activities of the day. I do spend a good bit of time decorating the pages of my journal (yep, this is old school journaling with pen and paper, not digital) and in that way it's been a good creative outlet for me. But, it takes up a good bit of my hobby time. And it's not genealogy related.

And then there's my painting. The amount of time I put into painting hasn't been as much as I would have liked either. Whenever you try to learn something new you need to apply yourself... practice, practice, practice. I need more practice time painting if I'm going to improve. But the more hobby time I spend painting, the less time I have for genealogy research or writing. It's always a trade off.

The one hobby that I have spent what I consider a fair amount of time on this past year is my photography. I've worked at it and I've improved as a result. I'm happy about that! My photography isn't in any way genealogy-related. It does get me up and moving; most often outdoors, in nature. And that's good for my creativity, my mood, my spirit, and my mind. So it's all good.

So that pretty much sums up a review of all my hobbies over the past year. Going forward, I need to find a way to manage my time better, I guess. I want to do it all but then there's the grocery shopping, house cleaning, bill paying, tax return preparation, vacation planning, house projects (for 2 houses) to manage, etc. And that stuff has a way of interfering with my hobby time all too often, LOL!

Looking forward to 2018, I don't have any specific goals for my genealogy hobby time. I want to continue my research... that's the most fun part of genealogy for me. It's like solving puzzles and I love puzzles. Organizing what I've already found is boring. Writing up the family history doesn't sound like fun anymore. Just an obligation. Quite frankly, I'd rather be painting, or photographing extreme weather, wildlife, beautiful landscapes, butterflies and flowers. But I'm not giving up on my genealogy hobby altogether. I can't see myself ever doing that.

I'm entertaining a dream of one day merging all of my hobbies together... that would require a trip to Poland, so I'll have to overcome my resistance to flying. But I'd love to photograph and journal about the beautiful churches where my ancestors were baptized, married, and buried and the prayer/adoration chapels along the roads to the villages where my ancestors toiled in the soil to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. I'd love to see the parks, the country fields of wheat, the train stations, the castles, the museums, the amber beaches, the snow-covered mountain ranges, the folk art and the folk. My folk. My people. And then come home and paint it all! And then I'd like to put together a photo book of the trip as a companion piece to the family history that I will no doubt be motivated to write after experiencing all that inspiring stuff, LOL! That's my dream. Some day, but not likely in 2018.

New Year's Resolutions Past and Present

I'm not always successful in achieving my New Year's resolutions but in 2011 I was.   My resolution for 2011 was to "fill in the holes" in my family tree. I didn't expect to fill in every hole of course, and honestly, I filled in more than I expected to. My crowning achievement was finding Julia Laska and knowing that my cousin Ray was doing the happy dance in heaven when I did. Julia was just one of many new names, dates, places, and/or events added to my family tree in 2011.

I like that kind of past-year review! :-)

Now it's time to look forward. I've been giving my genealogy some thought and much as I like researching, it's time I set a goal towards getting some of what research I've already done better organized. With that in mind, my New Year's resolution for 2012 is to get some of the digital audio recordings of my mother transcribed. I'd like to get them all done, of course, but I have no idea how long it will take me to do them so I don't know if it's reasonable to expect to get them all done this year. Therefore, I'm going to play it safe and just say "some".

Just curious... has anyone tried using voice recognition software on digital audio recordings? I'm wondering if it would work for my purposes. If you've had success with this, please let me know what VR software and microphone setup you used. Thanks!

On Editing My Novel... and Other Updates

It looks like I'm going to be editing my most recent NaNoWriMo novel, Hear the Linden Tree. I asked a couple people to read the draft and they both gave me good feedback. My daughter has offered to help me with the task of editing (she knows more about that sort of thing than I do). All I need to do now is find the time to work on it. First I have to do my income tax return :-7 , then I have to finish my cookbook project (which I'm struggling to get off the ground), and then I may be able to tackle the editing of my novel. Optimistically, I could start on it before summer is over.

As long as I'm giving updates... I won't call myself a tea afficionado but I am drinking more tea than ever before. I haven't replaced my Diet Coke with tea in all instances but in some at least.

I'm doing a pretty good job of keeping up with my memoirs (using Miriam's prompts) although I'd love to have a free day to spend writing and get totally caught up. I'm not doing so well with my digital scrapbooking. I just haven't been able to make enough time to create one a week like I had planned.

And then there's the tagging-the-photos thing... I'm better but still not consistent. There's definitely room for improvement here!

Memories and Music

This was a day for reminiscing. I've been writing my memoirs (that was one of my New Year's resolutions) using the weekly prompts that Miriam's been writing up on her AnceStories2 blog (which are fantastic by the way!). I'm one week behind so today's topic was My High School Years. I've put off writing this installment of my memories because quite frankly I could write a whole book on my high school years... I knew it would be a long writing session. But the weather is absolutely frigid outside today (woke up to -4 degrees outside with a wind chill that was too nasty to even mention) so I had a good excuse to stay inside all day and write. Nice and cozy :-)

I started off writing about the usual things; what high school I went to, what our school colors were, who my favorite teacher was, etc. After a while things went in a more personal direction. I put on my iPod and tuned in to some music from the early 70's when I was in high school. Next thing I knew I was flooded with memories... slow dancing to Led Zepplin's Stairway to Heaven, and the Beatles' Long and Winding Road. I remembered our class's theme song, We May Never Pass This Way Again by Seals and Croft and deciding not to go to the Deep Purple concert with all my friends because I had a final exam the next day. I played Smoke on the Water so many times while I was studying that night I might as well have gone to the concert.

Isn't it amazing how music can take you back? I was doing just fine with my memories. Then I put the music on and all of a sudden the memories had emotions to go with them. It was like adding color to a black and white photo. I remember having parties (lots of parties ;-) in our basement. I'd painted the walls with day-glo colors (I had a black light of course ;-) and I had several mood lights around. (My parents were pretty tolerant ;-) I remember playing Three Dog Night's Harmony and any one of my three Cat Stevens LPs (I had Tea For the Tillerman, Teaser and the Fire Cat, and Catch Bull at Four) at the end of the evening. For some reason those were always the last songs of the night at my parties. I remember listening to the Eagle's Desperado and America's Homecoming albums and thinking about visiting California. And I remember listening to John Lennon's Imagine LP and thinking he was an absolute genius. Then there was the Moody Blues, Grand Funk Railroad, Traffic, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Carly Simon's Anticipation and No Secrets albums... I had a lot of LPs ;-) Obviously the memories had a lot of music attached to them. What a nice day I had remembering the sounds of my high school years.

I didn't mention any of the music in my memoir writing today because I figure Miriam will probably have a prompt about the music of our lives somewhere down the line. But it left me in such a good mood I just had to share it with someone. And I also have to say thanks to Miriam because without her prompt I would have spent the day at the computer pulling my hair out writing html and css code. :-7

OK, so who else remembers all this music? Come on, raise your hands! I know you're out there!!! Did I trigger any memories for you?

Decisions Made, Projects Started

I'm moving forward with some of the projects I identified in my recent post, Preserving Memories, A Theme for 2007. I've made some decisions about which to start with and I'm beginning to put some goals/time lines together.

The first big project I'm tackling is redoing the family cookbook and I'm really excited about it. I put together a family and friends cookbook several years ago... I don't know the exact year but it was B.C. (before computers ;-) . I gave a copy (free) to everyone who contributed to the cookbook but I never sold it. It was self published, which is to say I typed up a master copy (on my typewriter ;-) of all the recipes, made duplicate copies on a copy machine, made front and back covers from card stock, and had them spiral bound with those wide plastic thingies. I was very pleased with the way it came out and so were all the contributors. Over the years, I've had many requests for more copies of the cookbook but I didn't want to be bothered trying to find the master copies (which are in the attic somewhere but it would probably take weeks of looking to find them) and spending the money to print them up again. Not too mention that many of the recipes are outdated now with people preferring more lean recipes.

Anyway, I figured it's probably a good time to redo the cookbook. This time around I'm planning to take out the recipes that were from friends and neighbors and making it a family cookbook, adding recipes from new family members while I'm at it. I'd also like to add small photos of each contributor on the same page with their recipe(s) and include a nutritional analysis of each recipe too. I'll include all the recipes from family members who have died since I did the original cookbook and give everyone else an opportunity to submit new recipes if they'd like.

Here's the best part... when I was looking through the old cookbook (with the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy in mind) I discovered several of my mom's recipes! I had them all along but didn't realize it. My indexing was really bad in the old cookbook and it was truly hard to find anything. But when I started going through the book page by page I discovered I had recipes I didn't know I had. It's a bit embarrassing but exciting too!

My plan this time around is to send out a letter requesting recipes by say March 1st. In the mean time I'll work on finding cookbook software (if you have any suggestions please let me know!) and typing up recipes from the old book that I intend to include again. I'd like to get this cookbook printed in hardcover (maybe by Lulu?) but I can't afford to buy copies for everyone. So I'm thinking I'll offer each contributor a free copy on CD and they can buy a printed copy if that suits them. My goal is to have the cookbook done by June 1st.

So that takes care of item#1 on my Preserving Memories list. The other two items that I'm working on are #6 (writing my memoirs) and #8 (digital scrapbooking). I've started a private blog where I plan to write an entry each week about myself. I'm delighted that Miriam has started a blog where she's intending to make weekly prompts of things for people write about themselves. I plan to use her questions/prompts for ideas. If there's a weekly prompt that doesn't apply to me, I'll make up something on my own. At the end of the year I should have 52 entries about myself. I'll print them up and stick the book on my bookshelf, maybe burn a CD too. If anyone in the future wants to learn about me they can read about me in my own words. I figure 52 entries should give anyone a pretty good overview of me ;-) I know I'd be absolutely thrilled to have 52 entries that any one of my ancestors wrote about themselves!

I'm also planning to make one digital scrapbooking page a week in 2007. I have no idea if this is a realistic goal or not but if I can do it I should have a good scrapbooking album by the end of the year!

So that's where I'm at for now. How are your resolutions for 2007 coming along?

Technorati Tags:resolutions|cookbook|memoirs|digital scrapbooking|projects|preserving memories|Creative Gene|Jasia

Update on Resolution #2, Becoming a Tea Drinker

Ahhhh. That's the sound of a happy girl. I just took a sip of the first Diet Coke I've had since January 1st. It tastes great!

I'm not giving up on my New Year's resolution to become a tea drinker yet. I'm still working on that but it's not going well. I've basically been in a fog all week without my caffeine. All I want to do is sleep. I am making myself drink tea but I'm not enjoying it. I've tried a couple different kinds of hot tea (peach and green tea with honey and lemon) but I'm not overly fond of the stuff. I make myself drink it much like one would make themselves take their medicine... because it's good for you, not because you like it. I'm telling myself it's an acquired taste and I'm trying to believe it. But it's a hard sell.

I'm having better success with iced tea (the instant one already sweetened) but I question the benefits of it. Can it really still have antioxidants after it's been processed? I wonder if it's defeating my purpose for drinking tea in the first place... for the health benefits.

I'm re-thinking my strategy. I thought I'd take to the tea drinking more readily if I stopped drinking Diet Coke entirely. But now I'm thinking maybe a better strategy would be to still allow myself one DC each morning and then drinking tea (or water) the rest of the day. I don't know if I have that kind of will power though. I guess we'll see. I can't go another week in a fog and being sluggish. I'm just not getting enough stuff done.

I got a tip about Snapple tea. I may give that a try too.

Ahhh. I'm sure enjoying that DC!

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New Year's Resolutions for 2007

It's time for making New Year's Resolutions and I've finally made a decision about mine. I know that I'm more likely to be successful if I am very specific so I've picked three specific things that I want to do in 2007, things that I can objectively assess. In keeping with the theme I've selected for myself for next year (preserving memories) I resolve to:

1. Always enter the meta data for my photos when I first download them from my cameras to my computer. I absolutely must get into this habit! I love looking at every new batch of photos and playing with them (editing) but adding the tags and batch info is not so fun and I put it off. Then before you know it I have more photos to download and I haven't put the meta data in for the last batch yet. You may think, what's the big deal? Well, when I spend a day taking pictures I usually take between 100-200 photos, sometimes more, rarely less. Keeping track of who's in what picture becomes very important so that I don't have to search through the whole batch for the one I'm looking for. In the last year (2006) I took just over 6,000 hobby photos (not counting the photos I've taken for my customer's web sites). Yes, my hard drive is groaning (each of those images is either 6 or 8 mega pixels depending on which camera I used). But more importantly, I'm groaning! When I want to try to find a photo I took "sometime in the spring" it becomes a nightmare. So I'm going make a habit of adding my tags and batch info right away so that I can find all those photo memories :-)
   
2. Become a tea drinker. I'm a Diet Coke addict. I love the stuff. It's my drink of choice in just about any setting. I've known for a while that it's not good for me and now I've decided to do something about it. I'm determined to become a tea drinker because not only is tea not bad for you, it's good for you! And hopefully the antioxidants will help me preserve my own memories (I'm having more and more "senior moments" and it concerns me). I like coffee but I don't love it. I like tea but I don't love it. I've never been a big fan of warm beverages. But for the sake of preserving my memories (and better health in general), I'm going to try to make drinking tea a habit.
3. Pick one project (from my theme/focus for 2007) representing each of the 4 main branches of my family tree and complete it by the end of the year. I'm hoping this will keep me moving forward with documenting the history of all of them.
   

I'm trying to be realistic with my resolutions. I hope I can accomplish these and feel good about what I've done by the end of the year. It will be interesting to look back on these resolutions and see if I've been successful. Here's hoping we are all successful with our resolutions for 2007!

Technorati Tags:New Year|resolutions|2007|Genealogy|Creative Gene|Jasia

Preserving Memories, A Theme For 2007

New Years is right around the corner and it's time to write up your genealogy resolutions! (I won't have anything to put in the Carnival if you don't help me out here, so get writing and submit your articles!) I'll be writing mine up tomorrow!

I've picked out a theme for myself for next year because I believe I'll accomplish more if I focus my time and efforts in one direction. So I've decided to dedicate next year to preserving memories. I've identified 10 items that I can/should work on. All of them involve preserving memories, either mine or those of someone close to me. Here they are in no special order.

1. Redo Family Cookbook: involves retyping all the old recipes as well as collecting and editing any newly contributed recipes. Also need to collect photos of those whose recipes appear in the book.
2. Write, edit and publish one family history (LIPA): involves identifying missing info for direct line ancestors, gathering photos, learning about the history of the area in Poland, and typing. Lots of typing.
3. Put documents for one family online (LIPA): Could be done in tandem with #2, this would involve putting the documents online for one entire family and typing up the relevant information.
4. Convert family videos to DVD format: involves going through and watching all the tapes, making notes, putting in basic edits and burning to DVDs. Would probably need help with this one.
5. Burn photo collections to CD/DVD: This involves collections of photos from family albums of relatives. Would need to enter captions and identifying information for all pictures.
6. Start writing memoirs: This involves typing up moments in time from my life, special events, special people. Lot of fun, lots of typing.
7. Scan our family photos: go through and identify all the photos of the kids when they were small, scan them, catalog them, and burn them to CDs.
8. Digital scrapbooking: this one has so much possibility for creative fun! Could make meaningful artwork, books, etc.
9. Interview my mother in law and scan her family photos: involves recording an oral family history, scanning all the family photos and yearbooks, cataloging everything and burning to DVDs. Family movies are already done :-)
10. Scan my husband's photos and stuff: There's basically one box of stuff but it's packed full of photo albums and scrapbooks his mom made for him.

I haven't decided which ones I'll tackle yet. Obviously there are way too many projects to get done in one year but hopefully I'll be able to accomplish 3-4 of them. That would make me very happy. In all honesty, only items #6 and #8 sound like fun to me. The items that involve basically just scanning are the ones I dread the most. I'm going to have to work on ways to get them done very efficiently and as quickly as possible so I don't expire from boredom ;-)

I'd like to find time to edit my novel too (no, I haven't reread it yet... being sick for several days has totally messed up my plans for this week and I haven't gotten much hobby time yet :-( I'm hoping to get to it soon.

In the next few days I'll make a decision on which of the items above I'm going to start the New Year off with. I have an idea about which I'd like to start with... stay tuned to find out which it will be!

I want to say a special thank you to all those who've sent their well wishes to me. Your kindness means a great deal. I'm happy to report that I am finally back to 100% :-)

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