30 Mar, 2007
Adrenaline is a useful thing. The last few days we’ve been frantically cleaning out Mom’s house before the closing (which went off without a hitch, so I can breathe a little easier now). It’s not that I didn’t leave enough time to do everything, it’s that I trusted my sister to do her part. That was a mistake that I knew I was making even as I was doing it — she’s not the most reliable person, and she depended on her husband who can be counted on to go fishin’ when the weather is good but little else.
Anyway, I haven’t needed any extra painkillers for the past couple of days — I just kept working steadily and took frequent breaks and we got everything out and the floors swept and all that stuff you forget to do when you’re never coming back… (once we left a closet full of clothes — boy was that ever embarrassing! — so we check extra carefully now) and had the closing and drove home after a decent night in a hotel (whirlpool room ;)) and Now. I. Hurt.
There has to be a happy medium somewhere, doesn’t there? Some point where I can not-hurt and also be not-frantic?
21 Mar, 2007
I was poking around Rootsweb the other day, and found an entry for my great-grandfather and his descendants. Looking at the entries, it must have been filled in by a 2nd or so cousin of mine. That in itself is weird. I don’t think of myself as having cousins. (A topic for another time, perhaps.)
Anyway, so I saw my grandmother’s name, and noticed that the data is incomplete — understandable since she wasn’t on the branch for the person who created the tree — and I can’t decide if I want to contact this person to give them more information. This is partly due to shyness, and partly due to the fact that my mom seemed to not want to associate with her family once her mother died.
But that’s not why I started this post. I realized that Rootsweb and other genealogy-type research places tell you that birth, death and marriage records are a good way to fill out your family tree. And as far as the information in those records is correct and complete, I suppose they are. But what about the case, say, with my mother? Her mother wasn’t married when she was born. I have no idea if Grandma ever married my biological grandfather (not that it matters). It could be that the man my mom called “Dad” was just a guy her mom lived with. I dunno. I wish I could’ve asked, but it seemed to bother Mom to talk about it.
How odd we are, in this society. We think that not-married mothers must be a new phenomenon. People living together without marriage — how modern! Our generation invented sex, at least the interesting bits! How silly we are. Well, at least we aren’t illegitimate anymore, are we?
And how do you put all this on a family tree?
21 Mar, 2007
I’m sorry, Dad, that I thought you were being anti-social when you refused to go to the movies because “I can’t sit through them anymore.”
Back pain sucks.
20 Mar, 2007
It’s tax time again, and I’m even further behind than normal. I have no idea how to file taxes for my mom and dad who both had 2006 income. I haven’t started gathering up the papers for Plagioclase’s mom’s return. I don’t even know where to look for the papers to file our return.
Looks like there are some extensions in our future, but I hate doing that, because you have to do your return anyway to figure out how much you should have paid in to pay it in when it’s due in April. The extension is for time to file, not time to pay.
And it’s sunny out, and I’m out of clean clothes so I’ll be stuck in the basement. But at least I can put off the taxes for a couple more hours…
