Wordless Wednesday ~ Out the door for Work and School

Left to right: Lacie my daughter, grandchildren: Ethan (4 yrs old) and Emma (9 yrs old).

March 2009 - digital photo held and owned by Gini (address for private use) 2009

Life's Events and Too Much Going On!

It has been a while since I have been able to post, life has been crazy here. Between working full time and family events going on... all has left me very little time to post, and do any type of research and I get very grumpy when I can't do Genealogy!

We have quite a few things going on at once. We are ready to be grandparents again, Tiffany will be going in for a C -section on May 5th, this will be our 6th grandchild, the baby is a girl and she is breach. Kelly is due in Sept., that will be our 7th!

My daughter and her 2 children live with my husband and I, when I walk in the front door from work, I have these two little faces looking at me! My daughter is going to school(to be a teacher), her classes are in the evenings and start at 5:30, so we are taking care of the kids. We do dinner, homework, shopping etc, etc...all the things that keep us crazy busy! I try and fire up my laptop the minute I walk in, while it's booting up (I sneak and click on stuff!) we start the dinner process, it takes everything I have not to just block everything out and go straight to my Genealogy addiction! I have stay focused and do what I am supposed to be doing! My daughter says, "Mom, you spend more time on the dead people than you do on us living!" So I am trying to spend more time with the living! I become very torn, it's important to work on our ancestors, yet our living family is just as important. What we are doing today be will history tomorrow.

When I finally am able to get onto my computer, I check my emails, answer those. To the left of my screen are all the Genea-blogger feeds! I try and read as many as I can and get caught up, it's just something I can't stay away from! The downfall to that is that by the time I get done reading all of them, it's late and I never get around to posting my own or really even know what to post about at that point...I am pretty tired and not able to think very straight. After awhile I decided to give myself a certain amount of time to read blogs and email, I find that I am burnt out trying to keep up with everything, I was lacking sleep, not eating right and not exercising, I decided to back off for a bit, I still read the other blogs (can't stay away) but just haven't been posting regularly. I am hoping to post more often, maybe not each and everyday but more often. There are so many wonderful Genea-bloggers out there and I love being a part of this world. There is no way I can ever stay away for too long! Soon, I am hoping to have more time for everything. That will be another post down the road.

I am also working on my paternal 'EIMES' family history book. It's quite a project and feel pressed to get it done. I have learned so much by creating a family history book. I have a ways to go but it really does teach you alot. My Aunt in KY is really looking forward to me finishing it so I am trying to get this done in a timely manner. I just received my paternal Grandmother Inez (Ines) and my Grandfather's marriage certificate in the mail, I was so excited! My Aunt and I have been looking for this for quite a while. We were hoping it would give us some in site as to what happen to my Great Grandmother: LouElla 'Lula' Jarboe. She is my BRICKWALL! I will be posting about her soon. I also received my great Aunt's marriage certificate's also. Saturday was a Jackpot mail day!

So...that is my life right now and why I haven't been around. Slowly I will be here more but if I haven't posted for awhile, you'll know that I am hanging out with the kids, working, and compiling my Eimes Family History Book and staying up on all of your posts from behind the lines. Don't give up on me, I'll be back!

Bound for Mom ~ The World is Not Flat~

The final installment of Bound for Mom blogging mini-series Carnival, hosted by geneabloggers.

The World Is Not Flat: many Moms love to travel and take off to parts unknown once the nest is empty.


Mom's Travel Log~

My Mom has traveled all over, even since I was a baby she has traveled extensively. When I was only a year old she went to Holland, Belgium, France and England. Then, when I was two and a half, we moved from Germany to the United States. After we arrived by ship we continued on by train from New York to Monterey, CA.

When I was about eight or nine, we had flown to Puerto Rico together for a weeks vacation and about once a year Mom would fly back to Germany by herself to see my Oma (her Mom), her twin brothers (my uncles) and Great Grandparents. When I was 13 I flew with Mom on one of her trips back to Germany for a three week stay during Christmas, this was the one and only Germany trip I made. What a very special trip for us together and a treat to see my Grandfather again, it was the first time he had seen me since I was two and a half. Mom would make the yearly trip so that she was able to spend time with her family. It was just Mom and me here, it meant a lot for her to be with them as much as she could.

During the years of my childhood we had taken many trips from California by car to New York, where we would visit our cousins there. Occasionally my Oma would fly from Germany to New York, where we would pick her up, then drive back to California where we lived. Eventually my Oma was able to fly into San Francisco International Airport, decreasing our trips to New York.

After I left home, she was hard to keep down! Her job had her flying regularly to Chicago and New York. She also continued to go back and forth to Germany, made trips to Canada, England and many different areas of the United States. She even had a friend that owned a small plane and they would fly here and there for short trips.

After being single for close to 30 years she finally married about ten years ago to Adam, who is from Poland. Now they include travel to Poland where they take the train to Italy and on to Germany! Adam has daughters in Italy, Poland and one in California.

Her most recent trip with her husband included my husband, granddaughter and myself. We took a genealogy trip from Southern California to Louisville Kentucky to meet my Aunt Virginia for the first time. In our motor home, with our Jeep in tow, we embarked on a two week adventure that none of us will ever forget.

Mom has always been on the go and to this day still is! She has experienced so much and has had many opportunities to eat many different types of foods. She is a coffee connoisseur, so she has tried many different types and flavors of coffees (I think her favorite is still the typical German strong coffee, she grinds it herself !). She has seen some very beautiful places and Mom can confirm the world is definitely round and life is too short to stay in one place!

Bound for Mom ~ Lessons for the Road

The Bound for Mom blogging mini-series Carnival, hosted by geneabloggers.

Driving Lessons: along every mile with Mom there was usually a lesson or something to be learned – whether it was obvious to you then or now. Collect her “Momisms,” her favorite sayings, her tips and tricks – all the neat stuff she gave you so you’d make your own journey safely.

Lessons for the Road~

This is a tough one for me and not because Mom didn't teach me life lessons but the opposite, she taught me so many. So many that I just do without thinking about it, I just have a hard time verbally expressing them.

One lesson that stands out the most for me is that she taught me to always come from love, compassion, kindness, and patience. She beleived that you should put yourself in one's shoes. She was and always is there for me unconditionally, that seems to be how I am and have always been. I do have more patience than many other Mom's.

She also taught me to use common sense and to be safe "out there". It was hard for her the day that I left home because I was only 18 years old. However I do know that with all the lessons she had taught me that I was ready and I never had to move back home, but I knew if I needed too I could. She raised me with strength, manners and respect... alot of respect.

One of her Momism's that stands out since I was a little girl was, "come over here so I can spank you". I knew that she was only kidding and she knew she would get that "what, do you think I am stupid" expression from me. I would not be silly enough to go over there so that she could spank me. We would laugh about it!

Mom taught me so much and more than I had realized until I started thinking about it. It's just difficult for me because I am still having a hard time putting it into words and being able to write it here. All I can say is that my mom is an incredible mother that worked full time, managed to teach me to take care of myself, to take pride in my home and that family comes first.




Mom taught me many German and American traditions, such as an old fashioned Christmas complete with a traditional German Christmas Tree. All of this created a warm, secure and loving life that I share with my family and continue to practice with out having to think about. It just flows naturally, the life lessons from my mother that are priceless.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy at Genea-Musings

Over at Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings, It's Saturday Night - time for some Genealogy Fun. Or maybe not, depending on your ability to transfer a photo from your digital camera to your computer. You can do that, can't you?

Here's the challenge for tonight:

1) Take a digital picture of your Genealogy Space - whether it is a table, desk, bookcase, whatever. Take more than one if you want.

2) Show off your Genealogy Space to all of us in a blog post showing your digital pictures. If you aren't blogging or don't want to show us your pictures, go to 3) below without passing Go or collecting another ancestor.

3) Tell us something about your Genealogy Space. How long does it take you to find something? Are you thinking of reorganizing your space?


I like this Randy and will be a fun one! I would love to participate so here is my Genealogy Corner! We have a 3 bedroom home and I used to have one of the bedroom's as an office, my daughter and 2 grandkids have been living with us so the two bedrooms are needed. This is a corner in my bedroom, it's a good thing I worked on organizing some things just yesterday, my desk doesn't look too bad at the moment! There are 3 file baskets on the right side of my desk, the black mesh one is hanging files of misc. items, i.e. resources/info etc. Behind that is temporary folders "to be filed" and I have a tray that holds what I am "in the process" of working on. The basket behind the tray is just my bill basket! I have more to do before being pile free and able to find what I need when I want it!

The little card in front of the mesh filing basket is a card my granddaughter made for me for Christmas, it says, "To Oma from E, thank you for...(she writes) helping me start my family giniology!" She spelt it like my name! The inside says, "To Oma from E, my holiday wish for you...(she writes), is to have more time for your family ginioligy!" She knows that I have very little time, she is so very sweet and I know she will be the one to carry on our family history and be the keeper of all my research.

Then, there is my bookcase that houses all of my binders and books... there you have my Genealogy corner, not real fancy or pretty but it works for the time being.

Organizing and making head way!

Getting organized has been a real challenge for me, I work on my piles slowly. I may get time once a month or if I am lucky maybe once a week! I have a real problem being unorganized, I cannot think straight or work being disorganized. I don't even have a desire to do anything because I feel like I don't know where to even start.

I took today off from work, things are slow and some of us are rotating afternoons or days off, when summer hits we will be so busy that we will be lucky to eat lunch in peace but we are all thankful to have a job at this time. I took full advantage of my day. I decided not to sleep in, as much as I needed the sleep (I wake up on empty) I wanted to get started early as I had a Dr.'s appt. at 10:30 A.M. Sure enough that Dr.'s appt. took up so much time that I was having an anxiety attack about getting back to my filing and organizing! I waited almost an hour past my appt. time and then when the Dr. arrived, he took all of about 5 mins. Then I went to CVS to get a prescription and waited there for almost an hour. I kept thinking...this is really cutting into my day off to get my Genealogy organized!

I finally arrived back home some 2 1/2 hours later. I wanted to skip making something to eat and just jump in but I thought it would be better to fuel the body so I could keep going! After having lunch, I filed an entire stack of notes and resources, two surname binders and some misc. items. There are some papers that don't really pertain to a surname, it's more reference type material and so I am using hanging folders for those. Not sure what else to do with them. They don't belong in my surname binders, they are merely reference/info tools that I may need or use down the road...any ideas are welcome.

All in all I do feel as if I have accomplished quite a bit today, I want to just keep going until I am done and everything is in it's place but I am pooped out at the moment and taking a break. I would do it tomorrow but I have to attend a seminar in Irvine, CA for work that will take up my entire day...it's really tough for me to give up my genealogy time. It wouldn't be so bad if it were just for a few hours but I will be getting up at 4:30 A.M., picking a co-worker up that lives near by, meeting the rest at work, getting into vans and traveling about an hour to an hour and a half one way up to Irvine, the seminar starts at 9 A.M. and ends at 3 P.M., by the time I get home, it will be 5 -6 P.M., long day! So, hopefully Sunday I will be able to get a bit more done. It's a good feeling to get some of my piles taken care of. It will be even better when I have all the piles done...if that is ever possible.

I would love to hear more about how other Genea-bloggers file and organize. I feel that it is so important for a Genealogist to be organized. I am looking forward to Dear Mrytle's "Finally Get Organized: April 2009 Checklist"...she has helped me to get it together.