Plans for the New Year
I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions, mainly because whenever I do make them, I never keep them because I never, or rarely, remember them after December 31st (It’s not because of drinking, I promise). So I figure, what’s the point? But having said that… the topic of the 63rd Carnival of Genealogy is New Year’s Resolutions, and asks “What plans do you have for your genealogy research next year? How about for your blogging?” I think I can at least answer those questions even if I don’t consider them resolutions, per se.
What plans do you have for your genealogy research next year?
First and foremost, I want to finish writing the genealogy book on my Seibert family that has been in the works since mid 2007. I’m almost done with it, and besides, I promised my family I would have it ready by this year’s family reunion.
I’d also love to stop procrastinating about talking to my grandfather, Floyd Cummings, about his life and relatives. I want to videotape him in an interview talking about his life, mainly before and during WWII. I also would like to know more about his family. I’d like to know the specifics about his relatives, like births and deaths and such, but I’ve heard some crazy stories in passing about his family that I’d really like to know more about; how some thought his Aunt was a black widow what with having 9 husbands and them all dying, how his grandfather was able to survive the 1889 Johnstown flood, and how his father pulled a prank on a neighbor, putting the neighbor’s carriage on the top of his barn, among many others. I’d like to know the specifics, at least as much as he can remember, before he is no longer around to tell them. I want my next big genealogy project, after I’m done with the Seibert book, to be a book about my grandfather’s side of the family, so this will be the perfect starting point.
How about for your blogging?
No new plans for my blog. I will continue to post when I have something to say, and otherwise not. That’s the way I blog right now and I like that. I don’t see any reason to change. The only thing that may happen is that I might not get as much time to blog because I am currently pregnant and will have another child to take care of next year.
As far as non-genealogy, non-blog related plans…
I can’t really think of anything other than I’d like to finish my 2008 NaNoWriMo novel, sometime in 2009, preferably before April. I’ve written about 60K words on it so far, but I’ve basically set it aside for the past few weeks. I’ve only written a day or two out of each week since November 30 and I feel the need to pick it back up again and work on it more akin to what I did during the month of November. Maybe not 1667 words per day, but at least set aside an hour each day to work on it. I needed a bit of time off from writing, but I think it would be fun to write again. Besides I was just getting to the good stuff.
I put off interviewing my uncle, he was the family historian. He was healthy, so I thought I had time.
I spoke to him on the phone on a Tuesday night, he was going into the hospital for elective surgery. He died the next day from complications.
I will never forgive myself for not doing that interview sooner rather than never.
footnoteMaven
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January 4th, 2009 at 3:27 pm[...] about my NaNoWriMo novel since I started writing it in November, aside from a small mention in my Plans for the New Year post, so here it [...]
January 21st, 2009 at 8:14 pm