Saturday, March 31, 2012

March Genealogy Goals Recap

What a month this has been. If anything could go wrong this month, it did.

We started out with a hot water heater that sprung a leak. Thankfully I was in the kitchen cooking supper and noticed it before it flooded everything in the kitchen and moved into other rooms. Even so, it had to be replaced. Of course, it happened on a Sunday evening just after Lowes closed. It wasn't until the next evening after work that my husband was able to get a new one.

Since we live in an older house, it had an under the counter one, which made it an ordeal to change. We ended up having to remove a cabinet, the stove and part of the countertop just to get to it. Three days after it first sprung a leak, I finally had my kitchen and hot water back.

Since I didn't have access to a stove for three days, I had to get creative with cooking. Thankfully, we have a grill so it allowed me to make some tasty meals in the meantime. P.S.-If you're looking for an awesome grilled chicken recipe, you've got to try these Spicy Lime and Honey Wings. I didn't have the adobo sauce it calls for, but even without it, these are great. Even the munchkin loved them and she's a picky eater.

The next disaster was my husband's truck tearing up. If he had a normal job, this wouldn't be a problem. But my husband installs satellite for a living and there was no way his ladder would fit in our spare car, a Honda Accord. Since he can't work, he's been home. With me. For 2 weeks.

I love my husband but I'm used to having the house to myself during the day while he's working and the munchkin is at school. Even though he's stayed busy working on stuff that needed to be done while he hasn't been working, he's still messed with my routine. I can't tell you how many times I've started to do something only to have him call that he needs something-a tool to be fetched, a flashlight to be held, something looked up, you get the picture.

Then came the family health problems with an aunt in the hospital, a grandma that fell and a great uncle that passed away. Needless to say, this hasn't been my month.

Goal-wise, March was nearly a complete bust. I did get signed up to help index the 1940 census, have narrowed my choices on my family history book down to just two families (I decided to focus on ones that didn't already have a book) and the genea-cave reorganization project is about half-way done.

I'm just glad that I started prepping for the 1940 census a couple months in advance. The way this month went, if I had waited, I'd be either be blindly searching for people or have to hold off on searching until I was done prepping.

This month did have some good news though. I was contacted by a cousin on Ancestry about my Neal line. After a few emails back and forth, she mentioned the magic word-pictures. She's sent me several already and identified the people in them that she was able to. She also mentioned an upcoming family reunion for a family allied to the Neals (therefore they might have info on them). She's finding out more details and is supposed to let me know so I can try to make it. We have tentative plans to meet while I'm in WV next month as well.

My sister found out she's pregnant so I get to be an aunt again and one of my cousins just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.

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