Vacation

You might have noticed that my new trend of posting on Fridays broke last week. That was because I had a tiny secret… I was on vacation! Well, not exactly yet but first thing last Saturday morning my mother, my sister and I all loaded up and headed to Ohio for some “family fun time”. Seriously that was our official term that my cousin Patty came up with.

It was technically a girls weekend and it was so much fun. We rented a cabin around Hocking Hills State Park. There was no internet, no cell phone service and it was heaven!

Old Mans Cave, Hocking Hills, Ohio
Old Mans Cave, Hocking Hills, Ohio

So there aren’t any blog posts this week again, but I have made progress and I’m still on target!

Struggling for Blog Topics

I’m sure we’ve all had that feeling. The feeling where you just can’t seem to focus on one topic enough to form coherent sentences about said topic. I’ve been jumping around a lot this week, so I haven’t been able to think of a specific blog topic this week. I’m trying to keep myself reasonably active here. I’m doing that not only because of course I’d love for people to read what I write, but because I also use this blog as a research log of sorts. I don’t go into the specifics, I do that elsewhere. However, I do use this blog to really think out topics sometimes, in addition to cousin bait of course.

So here’s what I’ve been jumping around with this week:

Bartholomew Taylor's family
Bartholomew Taylor’s family

1. I’ve finally finished the Joseph Taylor section of my cleanup and I’m moving on to Solomon Taylor.  Joseph and William were the major lines that I had researched already, so now I’m getting into the leaner lines. I should start moving a bit quicker on the adding in and sourcing now. Only, I’m just realizing now I didn’t “prefer” the birthdate of William’s with a state in it. Oops! I always forget to do that. It’s always when I’m looking at a screenshot as I write blogs that I realize my errors. Sheesh.

Kentucky Birth Index source citations
Kentucky Birth Index source citations

2. All 278 of my Kentucky Birth Index citations are uniform. Before this week, these citations were in 3 different forms. Now they all have the same format.

Yes, still working on the redesign
Yes, still working on the redesign

3. Very sporadically, I’ll get in the mood to work on this design. I get quite a bit of motivation that this May 39th will be 10 years since I started this domain! I only started blogging 3 years ago, but the website has been around for 10! I can’t even believe it! I’ve come a long way and I’ve learned so much. I can only hope I can get this redesign finished once and for all. I’m not going to stress about it though. It’ll get done when it gets done.

My Block of the Month quilt
My Block of the Month quilt

4. Quilting. Oh how I love quilting. My cousin in Ohio pointed me in the direction of Craftsy’s Block of the Month online classes. Every single block you see, I learned for the first time while making it! While I had already had experience with half square triangles, I hadn’t made those particular designs yet. Now I’m 5 blocks from finishing the 2012 quilt (behind I know!). Then I plan on doing the 2013 one too! Like genealogy, quilting allows me to challenge myself and keep learning at the same time.

I hope everyone else is enjoying their week so far. I know I sure am getting a bunch accomplished!

I have a new planner and I’m going on a trip!

My new planner
My new planner

I’ve been trying to get back into some kind of routine for months now. What I didn’t realize was that I might not be able to have a set routine anymore. While I was walking through Target the other day, I saw this monthly planner on a clearance rack. What I liked about it was that it has the month in a nice, big format. So I’m able to fit numerous things per box. I had made a calendar for use in my Genealogy Binder, but I didn’t like having to lug that binder out everyday. Since that binder also held my blog ideas list, I also had to get the binder out every time I wanted to write a blog entry. As you can tell from my sporadic updates, it hasn’t been working well for me.

My planner pulls double duty
My planner pulls double duty

The best thing about my planner is the nice big, weekly spaces. These give me the room to thoroughly explain what I am thinking about with the entry and keep adding notes on top of that. More times than not, I would have to throw away a blog idea because I didn’t remember exactly what I was going to say in it. My hope is this will help me be more consistent in my posting, no matter what’s going on in my new hectic lifestyle!

Speaking of hectic lifestyle, I’m going on a road trip. On Thursday, before the sun is up, me and my mother will be leaving for Ohio. When we get there, we’ll be picking up three of her sisters and then we’re Minnesota bound! We’re not exactly flying people (even though my father is an airplane mechanic), so road trips are how we get around.

I’ll be tweeting throughout the trip when I can. Mainly the trip is to spend time with my aunts and uncle (the Minnesota part of the trip). Who knows, maybe having my Aunts in a car for 12 hour car rides will help me get some more family stories! Maybe I should look into a voice recorder before I go. Ha!