Prioritizing: What Should Really Come First?

Written by Ruby A. Iadeluca

There have been some recent goings ons:
 
     Spring,
     And Grandma's passing,

that have gotten me to thinking....

Maybe I should rearrange my priorities.

During Spring cleaning, which for me, amounts to the cleaning of the downstairs office area and sorting the previous  years worth of bills and receipts so that I can calculate our tax returns. I actually enjoy doing my own tax returns. I really get into reading the instructions for each line and then following the instructions' guide to the appropriate worksheet, tax table or other essential forms and their instructions.

In cleaning my office area, the boxes of old restaurant paperwork are gone through. Old payables files are set aside for the fire pit. 2007 was the lucky (and last) year for this. Now all that's left are the important things, like articles of incorporation, tax documents and personnel files.

I also had the pleasure/sadness of going through the short filing cabinet (heavy steel, three drawers tall and 2 feet deep).This cabinet was bought along with the rest of the office furniture in 2007. This one, however, has been used primarily to house my beloved genealogy research: Family Tree magazines, Reunion magazines, county birth, death and marriage records, previous copies of our ancestral lines, previous reunion invites, games, secretary notes (dating all the way from the early 1900's) address lists..... OH! How I've missed it!

I've often wondered what I would be doing if I didn't have "regular" job. My guess is that I would be researching our family lines.

The first several generations of the four (it may be five - my mind is a bit foggy on this as it has been quite a while) original Juker brothers were laid out by Dorothy Sonntag (Sunday) and my sister and I were able to add on to those. I had also started on the other lines in my family, but never really had the chance to bring them to any kind of (dare I say?) completion. Though "completion" is something a real genealogist knows they will never reach, as there is always another birth, death, marriage or adoption to uncover.

And then, Grandma Ev passed away on Sunday, April 6th. Her visitation and funeral were Friday and Saturday, April 11th and 12th respectively. At the visitation I had the chance to see so, so many family and friends that I hadn't seen in such a long time. Aunts, Uncles, cousins, friends from school. It was amazing to see those faces again.

And, more than once, I felt that this year was the year I should desperately try to bring back the Youker Reunion. Sure, it takes a lot of planning and work, but I'm up for it. What else do I have to do? Take care of 4 kids? Work a 40 hour/week job? Clean the house and do laundry for 6? Sell Mary Kay?

Family needs to come first. And planning this reunion needs to be done. It was said earlier today in my office, that when a death in the family occurs, it really makes you think that you should spend more time with them (your family).... but then life happens...

And from there, the sentence kind of faded into darkness....

But I thought to myself, 'Yeah, life happens. But in reality, excuses happen.'  And with the things that I had listed above (4 kids, regular 40 hour job, laundry for 6 and Mary Kay, etc., etc.), I also thought that 'It must just take some re-organization, some re-prioritization. Look at Grandma: she had six kids, jobs, taking care of the family, the elders, the farm and still had time to get dinner on the table and bake for and look out for her neighbors.' I think I can plan a simple reunion!

So, for the next couple of months, I'll be planning a family reunion. It will be fun. My sister, who has helped me tremendously plan and put together the last several that we did together, also helped me coin the phrase: "How hard can it be?" And we remind ourselves just how hard it really can be all too often!

And, I may even start dabbling again into the family research. Start laying it all out on a USB drive and get myself an early birthday gift of a subscription to Rootsweb or Genealogy.com or some such. Maybe I'll even try to attend some of the GTAGS meetings again. Hopefully the old bats won't start arguing this time!

My cup of tea!

Does anyone want to hire an amateur genealogist/researcher? You would only pay for for travel and expenses and meals, on top of my 'retainer' fee.

Seriously, the thought of this is really starting to appeal to me.....

I'll keep you all posted.