OK, So Just Where Have I Been?

One would think I had just lost interest, but it couldn't be more from the truth. The truth is that my spare time has been taken up with a couple of other interests being pursued with some amount of urgency.

The first is an effort to finally tackle the family genealogy in a sustained way. Especially since a couple of relatives on both(!) sides of the family have already made a great deal of progress. I joined an online genealogical site which has a lofty goal of mapping as many of the world's ancestors as possible. It is called GenI and so far I have actually been able to make some connections introducing me to distant cousins, confirming and extending my knowledge of my maternal grandfather's and paternal grandmother's families in particular and connecting me with fellow amateur researchers in Norway who may be able to help me with my father's line, which at the moment I can trace no farther back than my great-great-grandfather. In the meantime, I have been able to identify 160 direct ancestors (i.e., generations of grandparents) back to two 14th great- grandparents, who came into this world in the late 1400's! It has exceeded my expectations of what I would be able to find but I still try to approach it with a view that confirming sources are required. I'm attempting to get other cousins involved to fill in other blanks. We have also been working on Becky's side. For some reason, hers have been more difficult to trace back too far (before the late 1700's, for example). It's frustrating, but every once in a while I attempt to Google one of her ancestors to see what might result. The goal of all this, beyond my own curiousity, is for Kathryn to know exactly what her heritage is. She has been showing an occasional flash of interest and that is certainly encouraging.

The other, seemingly perennial, activity is getting the rabbit warren that I call my basement office/library neat and organized. For every small effort accomplished comes a period of inactivity and piling up of "stuff" that renders the previous accomplishment throughly obliterated. I was somehow trying to accomplish it by Christmas - in the middle of a work deadline - somehow getting the tree up and a modicum of other decorations spread around the house - uh huh, that wasn't happening. So it continues......

As if I didn't have enough that I need/want to accomplish, I let my sense of civic duty rise up from its enforced slumber. Rather than let my neighbor volunteer what little free time he has due to a work travel schedule, I raised my hand to fill the remaining open seat on our HOA (HomeOwners' Association) board. As the meeting that we are to be installed is tomorrow; I really do need to decide for which of the five open board positions I would like to apply myself. Our HOA is all volunteer, which is evidently rare these days. Our neighborhood has some immediate managerial and financial challenges that will make the next few months exceedingly interesting!

I aim to restore my blog presence, but I think that might be a work in progress. 'Til next time.