Everyday Genealogy: Everyday Genealogy to be available on iPhones!

Everyday Genealogy: Everyday Genealogy to be available on iPhones!: "Just wanted to let you now that Everyday Genealogy will also be available as an iPhone application this fall! And I made sure that it will w..."

Lunch Boxes and Family Ties

It's back to school season, which meant taking Tori for her school supplies. This has become an annual ritual which many dread, but we enjoy.

Once we have checked off the mandatory classroom supplies it is time to find the perfect lunch box. Tori LOVES to take her lunch, she contends that the school purposely lies when it posts the lunch menu each week. There are always substitutions. This year's lunch box was the biggest one on the shelf and it brought back memories.

My dad brought his lunch to work everyday. Mom baked a cake every week, made his sandwiches and many packaged up side items and snacks every evening. In the morning dad packed his lunch in a metal domed lunch box.

Tori's lunch box was a thermal version of dad's metal lunch box, dome and all. When I questioned her choice (not very feminine) she said that the most important thing was that it would hold ALL her snacks and sandwich.

Tori's box of school supplies is in the office until next week. Everytime I look at it and see that lunch box I think of my dad and all the lunches he brought to work in his.

Pictures and Memories....

Pictures bring back memories of our youth and in my case of hours spent scanning them.

For the last couple of days I have been gathering pictures to include on Chuck and Shirley's new photo frame. Looking at them I remember vacations, family gatherings and hours spent scanning!

I did the majority of the scanning during some breaks in my employment and while I enjoyed not working a 'day job' scanning is WORK. Actually it is not just the scanning, but going through all the photo albums to find the pictures. In my case I gave up on the albums in the mid 1990's and started using boxes so that added another layer of frustration.

There is also the problem of getting the pictures OUT of the albums. I bought all those albums in the 1980's when the pictures magically 'stuck' to the page in the album. However, now in 2010 the pictures have become one with the page.

Another 'oops' I encountered while scanning was that no one ever mentioned coming up with a name convention! How many pictures can you call "Clayton_Smiling" or "Clayton_Crying" when you have 15 albums covering the first 10 years of a child's life?

So, as I go down memory lane looking AT the pictures I will also remember what it took to digitize them.

BTW - I will be bringing two digital video cameras and a digital camera to the anniversary party!

New Things - A Car, A Calendar and Physical Therapy

The summer has not been boring! Trying to fit working on EVERYDAY GENEALOGY, my 'day job' in the software industry and weekends with my wonderful granddaughter Tori was hard enough. Then came the car accident, buying a new car and now physical therapy - it's enough to tire a girl out.

But, enough about me and more about EVERYDAY GENEALOGY . I had an idea early in 2010 that a calendar would be a great project for a group of friends or a society to create and sell. By doing it as a group no one person would have to pull together 365 tips. I am lucky to have a friend like Pam who knew that this was something I could do and nudged me to do it myself. She also has helped me at times when I was in a slump and given me a few tips of her own!

I submitted the concept to a publisher and was turned down. Chuck, my practical half, thought that I should go ahead and publish it on my own. I researched a number of the self publishing companies and did not find one that did 'sheet a day' types of calendars. Lucky for me, through family contacts I have found a printer, tapped my sister to handle the graphics and a host of friends to help me pick out the cover art!

So next week I should be sending the calendar to the printer, taking Tori shopping for school supplies and clothes and starting physical therapy.

Did I mention that Chuck found a soft shell baby turtle by the back door?

It seems when it hatched it missed the pond (where its parents live). Chuck and Tori thought we should keep it in the house until it gets a little bigger. It now lives in an aquarium on the lanai and I have a container of worms (the turtle's favorite food) in my refrigerator.

More on the turtle, Everyday Genealogy and my boring life next time.

Visit: http://www.everydaygenealogy.com

Feeling the Pressure!

Aren't hobbies suppose to be fun? That's what my friend Pam keeps saying about genealogy, but sometimes we ambush ourselves.

First, there is the 'secret genealogy' project. The basic work is done and I am about fifty percent done with the proofreading. I was actually feeling pretty good about it. My deadline is the end of the month and even with the car accident I was making good progress.

BUT.....

There it was at the door when I got home. The LARGE box from Amazon. This is usually a 'happy moment' because a book I ordered has arrived. Not this time. This was my in-laws anniversary present. A 12" electronic photo frame and of course we know who is loading all those pictures, making sure they are properly cropped, focused and censored. Censored? Unfortunately there have been a number of divorces in the family, so I have to make sure to not include the 'exes'.

The good news is 99% of the pictures are scanned. I just have to transfer them, but I know I will find problems with the pictures and start touching them up.

And did I mention I also have to build a website and come up with a plan to announce the 'secret project' to the world?

Talk to you next week - after my appointment with the orthopedist to talk about the numbness in my left hand since the car accident.

Life is never boring!

10 Days later.......

Has it only been 10 days since I was writing about electronic books? It seems like weeks.

The good news is I finished my 'secret' genealogy project. I have some proofreading and formatting to do and then EVERYONE will know about it.

Tori, my granddaughter has officially been diagnosed with CRMO. I will not get into the details too much, but it is heredity and is the reason she has had so many problems after breaking her collar bone and fracturing her back. I will update my Pahlke relatives since they and/or their children could be affected.

And last but not least I was hit by a dump truck (as many of you know) on Friday June 9th and totaled my car. The verdict is still out on if I have any complications. I have been having some numbness and tingling in my hands so I have an MRI scheduled for tomorrow.

Oh, and I have to go car shopping this weekend!

Hope your last 10 days have been less eventful!

Electronic Books - Really?

You may or not know, but I have hundreds of books. I like looking at them, holding them and reading them. Recently Chuck asked me why I was still buying them - couldn't I just read them electronically?

I ignored him, after 40 odd years I've become pretty good at it! But, it has been on my mind. Yesterday my friend Pam brought her "Nook" to our genealogy meeting and let me try it out. While I didn't fall in love with it, I saw Chuck's point. Maybe I should at least test drive the notion.

After reading about the Kindle, Nook, Sony eBook, etc I decided not to purchase a device at this time, but borrow Clayton's iPad. He loaded the Kindle reader onto it and I purchased my first ebook, "You Never Give Me Your Money, The Beatles After the Breakup". It seemed fitting I would buy a book about one of passions, The Beatles, for my test. What isn't there to love about the Beatles! I was also pleasantly surprised that there were a number of books by F. Scott Fitzgerald (another passion)at no cost since the copyright has run out.

So, while it is raining in Tampa I will be working on my "Secret Genealogy" project and see if I can fall in love with electronic books while reading about a group that produced awesome vinyl.