Where's the Time?

Since April I've been focusing on family history, making a case for creating a space for it in your life because it can transform who you are.

But do you want to know what I've been doing with my time? NOT family history! Sure, I spend a lot of my time going to genealogy meetings, creating, scanning, and uploading charts for my blog, and connecting to other family history enthusiasts. Time well spent really. No complaints.

I just find it very amusing that I have an intense desire to follow a lead I've had for my great grandmother since late March that conflicts with the rest of my day. Every day! 

Figuratively speaking, Olga's right down the road. A new friend one town over is waiting for a call from me to have her show me the documents waiting in her town's library. But I find myself bound and gagged and out of gas ALL the time. 

So, she waits.

Loose ends. That's what I keep telling myself. Just clean up those loose ends so that you can focus on the big stuff. It's hard for me not to start new projects. I don't feel overwhelmed, just a bit scattered. Like, I know that finishing one last piece of promised artwork, one more chart, and one new video could all get done over a weekend. But then I remember my Spanish and Portuguese friends who might miss some really good stuff because I write in English. So, I spend an hour or so translating my blog for them.

And the phone rings. How can you Not talk to someone? Go with the flow says my brain. Love the moment and the ones you're with.

I truly get it when people say on the one hand they want to start their family history, and on the other they've got stuff going on that they'd never have the courage to talk about for fear of looking...I don't know. You fill in the blank.

As I'm writing my 2 1/2 and 5 1/2-yr.-old children have taken a HUGE amount of clothes out to the deck in 90+ degree heat and started "washing" them in large buckets of water that they were playing in. The hose has made a lot of mud puddles, a friend called to tell me about some crazy dating experiences, my son called to tell us to pick him up at the airport next Tuesday morning, the first of my school-aged children arrived home, and my brain started to melt!!!

But life goes on.

I have to keep reminding myself that I can do one small thing today for my great grandmother so we both know I'm making my way down the long, winding, and cluttered road, with kids needing me to tie a shoe, pour a drink, solve a math problem, encourage them to get off the roof one more time, or convince them to dive feet first into the pool so that I'm not writing their life history too soon.

I think my great grandmother, Olga Dorothy Eugene DeDenonville is thoroughly enjoying my balancing act. I think she likes kids and a good laugh. Maybe we'll make it a family joke. 

Where's Olga?

One of these days I'll hear her feet stomping and her fists pounding. Funny how that'll magically make her a priority. For people like me the saying, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" is what makes all the important stuff eventually get done. I just have a lot of wheels that squeak at the same time!

Anyone else?