Wisdom Wednesday: Stumbling into Stuff

WARNING: I was ill when I wrote all this nonsense over the last couple of days but it's getting posted anyway. The eye infection is pretty much gone now on Wednesday morning but you can see how it did its damage to my sunny attitude! The antibiotics are finally working and all is well once again under the Nut Tree. Isn't it funny how infection can shift thinking? Or is that just me?


I guess I better take up the GeneaBlogger's  blogging Prompt called Wisdom Wednesdays, and see if I've learned anything at all lately, which I'm feeling like I have not. Actually to be precise, I have learned a whole lot of little things but I'm not feeling great about the general thrust of my learning because it's random and besides I feel crummy.

Now that the Family History Writing Challenge is over, I've dropped the ball and haven't written a thing. It's sad, because I'm this close to finishing up the chapter I set out to write. The Challenge was terrific and I'd do it again in a NY minute. But maybe the reality of continuing has set in with the realization that I was "in training" for the month of February but now it's back to the everyday. I need to figure out how to incorporated writing projects into my daily schedule or devote one day a week to writing. My dedication to the project hasn't wavered. The structure provided by the project has disappeared and wants replacing.

Blocks due to eye infection. I am the very last person to admit it when I get feeling under the weather. I foster a state of denial far too long and try to carry on when I should be attending to health. On a trip to Palm Springs last week, had an allergy flare-up and my eye tissue must have gotten mixed up with my nose tissue, and well, it wasn't good. (Too much information? Sorry.) By the time we got home Thursday afternoon I knew that the next trip was going to be to the eye doctor probably on Friday. I didn't feel like writing or researching or anything. So I pretty much didn't.

I have not jumped on the webinar bandwagon as I had planned for the month of March. Too bad for me. I had promised to get busy with new learning experiences and was going to try out a couple of webinars because they sound like fun. Maybe next week will be better.

I feel like I'm stumbling around and not making much progress. My goals remain strong and post note surround my desktop monitor, but the body is weak, I guess. Yeah, it happens. Bummer. Think I better take a nap. My eye hurts... boo-hoo for me. Whine. Isn't this pathetic?? I really ought to delete this post but I won't because if you're not feeling too chipper yourself, just know that we are souls-a-sufferin' together. Pass the tissues.

Late breaking news: Feeling better, so please ignore all of the above, except I do need to get back in writing mode and jump on those webinars! And have just found out from other bloggers in the know that Legacy Family Tree Webinars is offering a really good deal of $49 for a year long open access membership pass!
Debbie Downer has left the building!


Photos from Aunt Betty's Archive:

Cambria is my grandfather and that's him as an infant!

Cambria Williams 1897 - 1960

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/03/wisdom-wednesday-stumbling-into-stuff.html

Wisdom Wednesday: This Week's Stuff I Learned

I've learned some stuff this week. Nothing really big, but just enough to make me feel like if it continues to go in this direction, I can eventually find my genealogical way out of a paper bag. I like posting on Wisdom Wednesdays, one of GeneaBlogger's blogging prompts, as a way to keep score and hold myself accountable. Here's the post last week so you can see what was going on then, if you care to.

Citing Sources. I have spent some time this week on good ol' Cindi's List checking the usual places where I can learn about citations and how to state them properly. That's where I began my search for an agreeable learning experience because frankly friends, I did not think sitting in a corner with Evidence Explained for a year and a day was going to do it for me. I gathered up all of my citation reference material and examined it for what might work for me and it engaged me in a new way such that I could see that what was needed was a visual representation of citing sources.
Here's what I found and I immediately had a gut reaction to it: hey, this rocks my world because this little gem is going to save my genea-life. It comes for the guru to us all, Elizabeth Shown Mills, of world famed, Evidence Explained. She has given me hope that I'll not always be at sea when it comes to citations. I'm off to download her book now.
Look at this, below, from her web site under the tab, "Sample QuickCheck Models". It's brilliant! It's like she designed it just for me, the experiential visual learner! I'm thrilled. So thank you, Elizabeth Shown Mills, wherever you are right this very minute! Here's an e-hug:)

 

Thanks Mom! Mom has great stuff. I'm a second generation genealogist and spent the first year and more wondering if there was anybody left in the world for me to find because Mom's tree is gigantic! If the line ends at a brick wall, you can bet she and Aunt Betty have been hammering at it for quite a while.
But then as the ensuing months went by I came to see that we complement each other perfectly: she loves adding people to her Big Tree and I love weaving all the stories together into the family chronicles, no matter what the form. I am especially appreciative this week because one of the items on the to-do list was to go back and review the stuff in the spiral notebooks I call, Conversations With Mom. Each morning when I call to see how we are, after the cat stories, the talk eventually rolls around to the ancestors. She tells me who she's working on and I teller her how much I don't know by asking stupid questions. And, I write it down in spiral notebooks. So it was time to browse through the three I have so far going back at least three years. Now I'm asking Mom more questions... and hopefully they are less stupid. Aren't I lucky to have Mom to ask about all the ancestor stories? I think so.

The Family History Writing Challenge  Wow! This project is such a valuable resource for me that I feel like I fell into a gold mine! Thank you Lynn Polermo, who organized this festival of writing, and all the participants and seasoned writers who stop by and throw out baskets of pearls:) Until this challenge I didn't know how much I could write a day if I was ready. All I need is a good cuppa whatever and my resources and sources in order and at hand, then I can chase up to 1,000 words a day. Had no idea. Not a clue.

Now that I've been doing this tally on Wednesday I'm more focused about keeping the learning moving along. Am thinking that once the Writing Challenge is over I'll jump into the world of webinars. Yeah, that sounds like a whole lotta fun. And I want to sign up real soon for the Chula Vista Genealogical Society's workshop day on DNA with CeCe Moore on March 30. Randy Seaver over in the blog neighborhood at Genea-Musings wrote about it here. Yeah, I gotta go do that because I'm sitting here waiting for my results to come back from 23andMe, and I want to play with them when they get here.

Photo of the Day from the Archive:

 

Mom fixes my hat, Easter, about 1951.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/02/wisdom-wednesday-this-weeks-stuff-i.html

The Family History Writing Challenge!

Well I've been working on this book project for a short while and have reached the first sag. It happens often within the life of a project, I've found, but the whole ball game rides on figuring a way out of the sagging patches. Along comes the Family History Writing Challenge! Beautiful! Just what I need. Click through to find out all about it.

I'm to commit to a certain amount of words a day: 250 to 1,000. I've never done that before. I write when the muse is in town and if you don't know about her, click here. She's here now and will be for a while so I'm good to go... if she stays in town. Even so, I think this is the time to chain the little scamp to the desk;) I really want to feel what 250 words a day for the entire month of February feels like. That's 7,000 words. Cool. Think I'll chart it and see what my output is on days when I'm good to go as well as days when it's pick and shovel work... and feels like work.

One thing I really like from the get-go is that there's a forum for this project. It feels like group therapy, but in my pajamas. And they did this last year so you can go back and read the comments from that first Challenge and see what's what. Reading them made me feel like this was a do-able and beneficial thing for me to join.

I've set my goals and am ready! Off to the forum to see what's happening today.

If you join you even get a pretty badge, if that's your thing:)