Today, I have decided to write about something that I have been thinking about for a while now. What better time to do so than on my 49th birthday!

I am discovering that as we grow older we have to adjust to the many changes that are occurring in our life. I’m not a Spring chicken anymore! My body is not capable of some of the things I did when I was younger. My mind is not as sharp as it used to be. I’m not able to fight off sickness as easily as I used to.

I’m not saying that I am old and decrepit! I believe that you are only as old as you think you are but I also realize that you have to realize just how old you are sometimes also.

Which brings me to my next point. With all these changes that are going on in my life, it’s time for me to make some adjustments to compensate for those changes. Where I used to be able to do 10 things at a time, now I may have to limit it to only 5 things. Why? I need to limit the amount of stress in my life. I think the biggest problem I have had in the last few years is that I have had so much stress upon me. Some of it is just from growing older and some of it is because of me doing to much and thinking I can still keep up with the same pace I have always maintained.

I have to make some changes in my life. Will they be drastic? I don’t think so. I talked with my wife today and the topic was simply that I wanted to start taking time to enjoy life. I’m spending way too much time trying to do too much and I’m not able to enjoy anything I am doing because I have no time to.

So, in the next few weeks I will begin to try to make some of those changes. My plan is to try to lay a foundation for success in 2012 by limiting the number of things I have going on in my life. Work, bills, taxes and such like can’t really be controlled but things such as couponing, genealogy, time spent on the computer or watching TV can be controlled.

It is my plan to try to find a balance in all these things. I don’t need to be an extreme couponer, just a person who saves enough to make his budget a little easier to maintain! I don’t need to try to find my roots all the way back to the Garden of Eden, I just need to find what I can, one generation at a time and make sure that I document what I have found. I don’t need to mend all the bridges I have burned in the past, I just need to fix what I can one at a time!

I am so thankful for the 49 years I have been given so far. I’ve been blessed beyond measure! I could have never imagined having such a loving wife. I’m proud of my children, even though they do have a lot of growing up left to do. I just have to learn to be patient with them and let them make mistakes so that they can learn from them! I’m thankful for my grandson and all that God has brought him through in this past year.

I don’t know what the future holds for me. All I do know is that I want to learn to take the time to enjoy whatever it does bring me. I am confident that it will not be more than I can bear.

Times like today I really miss my Daddy! We never had a really close relationship but I did respect him. Now that my children are older I can relate to how he felt. I could really use some advice from him on that subject now! I don’t feel like a failure, I just feel like I need answers and I can’t really seem to find them.

Oh my, I find myself rambling! Suffice it to say that among the many changes that will occur I will soon be writing more often on my blog. Why? Because it is important for me to stay in touch with my family and I plan on using this blog as a tool for doing so. I’m not a phone person so I don’t make calls to everyone everyday. I do love to write and I look forward to writing many messages and sharing my life with my family and my many friends!

Thanks for bearing with me today. I hope you will stick around and see how these things work out for me!

Ken

If you remember, in one of my recent posts I mentioned about problems with family and how that hinders my research and such, well those problems are now behind me. The problem may not have been solved to my liking but, nonetheless, it is behind me now.

I now feel as if I can finally throw aside the things that have weighed me down and start to get back to life and living! My first task is to start doing some work on my website. I’ve let it go for so long and I really need to update it. I’ve got quite a lot of information that I have not been able to add to it yet! I also have quite a bit that I need to remove from it!

I will attempt to write and update everyone on the progress of my web site updates as well as what is happening in my life. I also plan to start trying to be involved in the blog carnivals that I enjoy participating in so much.

Bear with me everyone. Things are beginning to return to normal for me, or at least as normal as I guess they will ever be!

Have a great week!

Well, as you read in my previous post I have finally made it back from vacation. Don’t get me wrong. I would have loved to taken another month or 2 away!

Unfortunately, I had a rude welcome when I got home. The house was OK and everything else was fine but when I signed on to my computer and was sending my son a message on MySpace I was rudely hit with a virus! That’s the second time in 2 months that I’ve encountered a virus from MySpace! I’m seriously thinking of cancelling that account and just moving everything to Facebook!

Anyways, it took me reinstalling Windows twice before I could get the bugger off! I still wake up to my Norton Antivirus program telling me it captured several viruses and it will probably be that way for a while. Oh well, at least I can surf the web again finally!

So, what is there to say today? Well, let me just say that I have learned recently that being a parent doesn’t get easier as your kids grow older. As a matter of fact, it becomes so much harder! I’m still learning but I hope that I don’t continue to make mistakes as I have in the last week or two!

Enough on that subject. I have to go back to work tonight and will be busy getting back into the swing of things. I still have plans to share my vacation journal with everyone but until then I will just leave you with this thought: The ocean is beautiful in the daylight and walking the beaches with your daughter to hunt seashells is awesome!

Take care everyone,

Ken

I’m just dropping in to say that I have made it back from my vacation!

Now comes the fun part! Unpacking, cleaning, organizing, developing and writing! I’ve kept a journal of my travels and thoughts and would like to share them with you all in the next few days. It’s nothing fancy but it is just a way of letting everyone experience our vacation with us!

Right now, the dear wife is ready to go do some shopping. We cleaned out our refrigerator and all before we left and now it is time to replenish our food supply! Yippee! I love going grocery shopping! Just take a look at my pictures and you can tell that!

I’ll write back more later. I just wanted to establish that this blog isn’t dead but it will live again very soon! Don’t forget, I’ll change the focus in the next few days!

Have a great weekend everyone!

If you don’t know, in August my family will be leaving to spend a week with my son in North Carolina. I haven’t seen my son since January 2 of this year and I can’t wait. He is serving in the Marines at Cherry Point. I will be traveling with my wife and two teenage daughters.

We originally planned on leaving Saturday morning and stopping in Nashville on Saturday night before travelling the rest of the way on Sunday (to Cherry Point, NC). Well, we’ve decided to do something a little more different. My main concern has been to not spend an outrageous amount on this trip but the simple fact is that this is the first real vacation we have ever taken! I say we owe it to ourselves to enjoy this time because I don’t know when we will do another trip like this. Our plans may not seem that great but they will work just fine for us.

The current plan is to leave out on Friday morning and travel to Memphis where we will visit the Memphis Zoo and enjoy seeing some animals we have never had the pleasure of seeing. Who would have thought I would find a zoo in Memphis that would have Pandas, Polar Bears, Komodo Dragons and so many other neat attractions! Admission and parking will set us back about $60 but it is well worth it for the 4 of us. We are leaving early enough so that we should be able to get to the zoo about the time it opens around 9:30. If we spend about 3 and 1/2 hours there we could leave around 1:00PM and head to Nashville. I have no firm plans for Nashville yet but I do know we will spend the night there and a few hours the next morning. We will head to Asheville, North Carolina after that and stay overnight on Saturday. On Sunday morning we plan on getting up early and visiting Chimney Rock and then heading on to Cherry Point. We shoud get there by Sunday night around 7 or 8PM. We have a room reserved at the Transient Enlisted Quarters on base and we will probably be more than ready to crash when we get there.

No solid plans for what we will do while in North Carolina. My son and his girlfriend have a few things planned as well as the fact that Wednesday is our 20th anniversary and Thursday is my wife’s birthday (Big 4 0).  We are still trying to figure how we want to travel home but I do have a desire to stop in Chattanooga on the way home and check out Lookout Mountain! It sounds pretty awesome. Coming home will be a 2 day trip as compared to the three day trip going out so we will have less time for visiting things!

So, for those who are curious, I will be working a little more on this in the next week or so and will then be gone for about 2 weeks. Very, very light blogging for the next month or so! I will definitely share pictures with you when I get back. Times like this make me wish I had a laptop so I could share my trip on my blog!

Have a great Sunday everyone!

I just wanted to take the time to say “Thank You” to all those who have answered my call for suggestions about my upcoming trip to North Carolina. I’m still not certain what I will be doing but I have had some very good suggestions. I am just amazed at how expensive it is to visit some of the places I had thought would be nice to visit. It’s outrageous to think I would pay over $100 dollars for my wife, two girls and myself to visit Graceland! I loved Elvis but “COME ON!”

So, I have to do the frugal thing and pass on this one! Fortunately, I believe we will be just fine, thanks to the suggestions I have been given.

Now, I will update you all on my move. We moved on July 6th into a 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment. It’s quite a change from our 3 bedroom, bath and a half house with a little office add-on to it. Since the move I have had to work every night until last night! So, this weekend I am finally getting a chance to tackle some things that have needed to be done. Fortunately, my wife caught me in a good mood this weekend. A lot of the “stuff” I had been hanging on to is now in the trash! After all, who needs the spare parts I had saved from my old computers (8 years ago) and all the old game manuals and such for games we no longer own! Surprisingly, the huge storage area under the stairs has gone from being packed full to probably less than half full!

I’ve still got quite a bit of work to do and it will probably take a while. I’m off again next weekend and then will have another 12 day stint at work before I start getting ready for North Carolina. With that in mind I know that time to post and research and all will be very limited.

I will still try to check in and let you all know how things are going. Sometimes things happen and we have to put other things we enjoy doing on hold. Unfortunately, I am not retired and have plenty of other things to do. I will try to make time for posts though.

Have a great weekend everyone!

It’s been a while since I posted and I am sorry for that. My progress in researching and in writing has been stymied by my move. All my research is still packed up and I am still trying to figure out how to condense what used to be a huge office into a little corner of my bedroom! I’m sure I will figure something out.

Today I just wanted to take the time to ask you all for some suggestions. I realized today that I am only 1 month away from my big trip! I rarely travel. As a matter of fact, my wife and I have been married almost 20 years and have yet to take a honeymoon! Last year’s trip to San Diego for my son’s Marine Boot Camp Graduation was our first trip in almost 15 years, the only other trip being to family reunions. Anyways, let me ask my question.

I am traveling to Cherry Point, North Carolina and I am taking Interstate 40. I would like to occassionally stop to see some interesting things and to take a break from the long drive. My initial plans are to drive from Paris, Texas to Nashville, Tennessee on the first day (Saturday) and then stay over at Nashville before continuing on to Cherry Point on Sunday. I haven’t decided what route to take home yet.

I know there will be little going on on Sunday so I am looking for suggestions on places I could visit on Saturday. I have had ideas such as Graceland and the Grand Ole Opry and such but, as I am on a very tight budget, these are out of the question. I can’t afford to spend over $100 for a tour of Graceland and a night at the Opry! Oh, did I mention it is my wife, my two daughters and myself?

Does anyone have any suggestions that wouldn’t be so expensive? I don’t mind paying a little but, as I said, I am on a tight budget. I hadn’t planned on moving and this short notice move has left us a little depleted. I am reaching out to all my genea-blogging friends and relying on your wisdom to help out a soul in need!

I have looked at the idea of stopping at some places along the way to see cemeteries and such but I simply thought this wasn’t the time. It’s our first “family” vacation ever and I don’t want to do this to my daughters! So, feel free to fire away with those suggestions.

By the way, when I said I hadn’t decided which way to travel back it is because I am debating taking a different route that would take us through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and such instead of the way we are going originally. I am still debating that one though!

Have a great day everyone!

Juanita Eudora Delcinia Forbes was born on November 16, 1922. She was born in a little place called Potter’s Point, Texas. It was just a little community by Caddo Lake where all those who were working on the oil pipeline were living. It no longer exists today.

Aunt Juanita lived a good life but, as you can tell by her birthdate, she was born and raised in a very trying time for our nation. She was born during what would become Prohibition and became a teenager during the Great Depression. I never really discussed this much with her and I really wish I had. Perhaps it was something to do with the time she was born and perhaps it was just something bred inside of her but Aunt Juanita was always a very independent woman. You would definitely say she stood out among the family. However, everyone respected her and a lot of us, myself included, admired her!

Aunt Juanita was forced into some situations that were not of her own choosing. She was married in 1939 and was about 4 months pregnant when her mother died in February of 1940. Being the oldest of 8 children, she took on the responsibility of looking out for her younger siblings, one of which was only 6 months old at the time of her mother’s death. Still, Aunt Juanita stuck to what she believed and did the best she could with what she had.

It is strange when I sit back and think about it. Aunt Juanita was married and raising her child as well as her littlest sister and looking out for her other siblings. All this time there was drinking and gambling and all kinds of other things going on around her. My Uncle Bill ran a still right by where they were. Amazingly, my Aunt Juanita was able to overcome all of this and establish that if you were going to visit her house, you were to respect her rules! No smoking, no drinking, no cussing and no gambling! She was a very devout and some might say “hardcore” Baptist. Everyone respected her wishes though and I believe everyone looked forward to going to see her as much as anyone else because you knew she was the “real deal”!

I remember when I was younger and we would go visit Grandpa that I always loved Aunt Juanita’s cooking. She would go out to the garden and pick fresh vegetables and make some of the best meals. The one and only time I ever ate Polk Salad was when I was visiting Aunt Juanita! Even the last time I visited her she was wanting to try to get us something nice to eat but I wouldn’t have it. She was so sick at the time!

She spent the last 21 years of her life living by herself. She didn’t want it any other way. The man she had loved all her life had gone before her and she didn’t want to share that love with anyone else! She took care of the house, mowed the yard, did everything that most folks would do, well up into her 80s. She didn’t complain. She always was thankful for what she had! Oh if I could be just half of what she was!

On Tuesday of this week I got a call at 7:30 in the morning. It was my Aunt Winnie, the youngest of the siblings and the one who Aunt Juanita had raised as her own. She was calling me to tell me that my Aunt Juanita had gone home to be with the Lord! At first, all I could do was cry! I thought of all I wish I would have asked her about and how much I was going to miss just listening to her talk about the old days. I thought of all the fun times we had had visiting with her and how much it was going to tear my children apart to know that their great-aunt Juanita was gone. Then I thought about how she was no longer suffering and that she had lived a full and happy life. It was then I was able to smile and be thankful that I was blessed enough to at least know her!

It won’t be the same without her! I really don’t know what will become of the old homeplace. It was so unusual to drive so far to go to a place that probably had a population of about 100 or so. Yet, we looked forward to visiting as often as we could. It was just something about Aunt Juanita that made you look forward to seeing her. Life will go on and people will still go about business as usual but there will always be a little blank spot in my heart!

I will miss you Aunt Juanita! I feel I know where you are at tonight and if you can hear me, I want to say one last time that “I Love You”! I will miss sharing those special moments together and all the wisdom that you imparted to me over the last few years. Thank you so much for being willing to share your life with not only me, but with my children also. I never knew they were as close to you as they are until today! Know that Joseph would have hopped a plane and been her today to see you but I had to tell him no. Julia just cried and cried. Jessica is being strong but you can tell it’s tearing her up inside. You made a great impression on many people, more than even you yourself could realize.

I look forward to when we can meet again!

I just need to drop in and ramble a while today. I’ve had lots of stuff happening lately and I wanted to fill everyone in on a few things.

First off, we have cancelled our move. We encountered a few unexpected snags and decided it wasn’t worth it to move right now. Of course, you always seem to pay the price no matter what. My landlord had no problem with us staying but decided he wanted to raise the rent by $50. Whatever!

I’ve finally got most of my computer up and running again after my little virus scare. I hate having to reformat and then reinstall everything. I’m sure that I will still find more things that I have overlooked but for the most part I have got everything going for now. Also, fortunately, I haven’t lost anything as of yet. I am still moving some things around from my second hard drive but I believe that it was spared the virus and moving all my pictures and such has worked for me. Fortunately, I didn’t have to move .exe files, which would probably have been infected.

One thing I am doing now is reorganizing my genealogy folders. Since I am making a fresh start I figured why not just do some of the things I have been putting off? I do have a backup of most of my genealogy now and I am hoping to finish my pictures this weekend. I will also look into obtaining a backup service, such as Mozy, this weekend.

I also need to take the time to re-examine whether I will be able to contribute to the Carnival of Genealogy this time around as well as the I Smile For The Camera carnival. I really enjoy contributing but I seem to have so much on my plate at the moment. I’m sure I will be able to come up with something.

So, there you have it. Things are quite busy right now! I’m also trying to figure ways to cut some things in my budget because my promotion at work has turned into a demotion. It’s strange how you can take a promotion, get an almost $400 a month raise and then within 2 months it goes to making $100 a month less than you were in your old job. Unfortunately, I’m stuck in that job until at least October but I do know that I will eventually get away from it. You know what they say about the best laid plans …

I wish you all a very good weekend and I will try to continue posting as much as possible.

TTFN

Monday night I came home from work (actually, early Tuesday morning!) and decided I would check some stuff on the computer. I typed in my password and logged on and the first thing I got was a big, red box saying “Trojan.Win32.Monder has been detected”! Wow! Welcome home, huh?

Anyways, I went through several of these and my antivirus program was deleting them as they came up. I then ran my Ad-Aware software and it found several instances and deleted them. Restarted the computer and, guess what? Yep, same thing! I messed around for a while and finally went to bed. I tried again the next afternoon before work and never could get rid of it. I was so frustrated. All my genealogy, pictures and other important info was on this computer and none of it had been backed up! I have been so busy lately that I probably haven’t done a backup in 6 months now! I wish I had taken the time to listen to all the folks who have been writing about the need to backup!

Well, today I did it! I formatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows and now I am back in business. The virus is gone and everything seems to be OK! What happened to my research and the rest of it? It’s OK! At least it seems to be. I have a second hard drive and I moved all my images and such to that hard drive and have been scanning them as I move them back. No infections yet. Of course, they are mostly .jpg or .tiff files and a few gedcoms.

But what if? What if I didn’t have that second hard drive to move that to? I really would suggest to everyone that you should look into backing up your information. You don’t have to lose it in a natural disaster. Sometimes it could be as simple as your children logging on to MySpace and doing something that they shouldn’t do! It only takes a moment and you could lose everything.

There have been several good posts about backing up your research lately. I would highly suggest you do a search on blogger for those posts and take advantage of the knowledge of a few who have lost everything or have came very close to losing everything (research wise). I know I will be checking in to Mozy sometime this weekend.