Sorting Saturday

Sorting Saturday is a day when Geneabloggers ... go figure ... sort ... piled up information, olf files, texts, whatever we have been storing up and putting aside. Today I sat down and tried but my head was just not in the game. I need a sorting day for all the little compartments in my head.

It snowed here today and I still had 8 baskets to deliver for my Hospitality Basket. I'm scared to drive in the snow. I had a really bad car accident back on 27 December 1996 and by all rights I should have died that day. I used up all my guardian angels that morning. Today my husband actually left he house and drove me because he knew I was stressing out about the impending weather. It started out good but the snow continued and within only an hour and a half we were slipping and sliding. I sat there and prayed as he drove and he pointed out where others had driven off the road. Not a fun morning. I deliver 50 baskets every month and every month I run til the end and sometimes even over my deadline of the 28th. This month - I tell myself - Christmas got in the way. Wow what an understatement. Christmas got in the way.

I hate American Christmas. I always feel like I'm not good enough for my girls. God love them they do not complain. They loved what I was able to get. Some fun things and some serious things. I know sometimes they feel bad too because they don't have jobs so for them to get me something they almost have to have me choose it and get it and then say "here you got this for me". Not too much fun in that. It's not just the materialsm ... well maybe it is. I just feel like the whole thing is so fake. So much stress. I cannot wait until we celebrate Nativity.

Nativity. As I get older I find myself wishing I would have been more open as a child/teen to my dad's family. I think perhaps mom may be to blame on that one. Daddy worked all sorts of hours at the Mill (Lukens Steel Mill) and mom would take us over to visit her parents but we did not go to Baba and Gigi's unless Daddy was with us or it was a holiday. I remember spending a week there though during the summer when I was in elementary school and maybe middle school. I remember Baba used to take me around - Gigi was still working at the Mill at the time - to all the aunts. Many - actually all but one - have passed now and I feel so bad that I did not pay attention and that I do not remember much.

As I sit here, staring out my bedroom window - where I feel sequestered and all alone - I mentally sort through my goals for the upcoming new year.  I sorted through ways to shake off my apathy towards pretty much everything at the moment. My goals involve writing, and my work with Hospitality Basket, and my kids, and health related issues and of course finances.

My goals for 2013 include (but are not limited to!):

• Write more! Ideally make a living writing again. Concentrate on the following subjects: diabetes, preparedness, genealogy and Orthodoxy.
• Obtain - and then maintain - 50 total paid businesses in my Hospitality Baskets for Manheim Township. If YOU own a business that could service new residents of Manheim Township, please contact me!
• Loose weight. I'd be pleased with 25 but ideally I need to loose 75 pounds.
• Keep in better touch with family and friends. Warning -- expect letters, postcards and simple hellos, y'all!
• Cross the pond! Genealogically speaking of course. I know where my Hruszczak, Matys, and Kurenda families came from but I am still working on mom's side and Daddy's Skrabalek line.
• Write a family history of the Eckman line. I have the outline pretty much done (I keep finding more people!) but I want to write what I have.
• Publish above family history book. I would love to find a publisher instead of self publishing but I am open to all ideas.
• Research what it was like when Daddy's family immigrated and what Prusy, Austria and Sambor was like in the 1904 - 1913 range.
• Start walking again on a regular basis. My girls like to run but I am not up for that ... yet. I have to save something for 2014, right?
• Walk a 5K by mid year.
• Jog a 5K by the end of the year.
• Learn to count carbs.
• Eat better - I am such a picky picky eater. Being diabetic that is probably one of my biggest hurdles!
• Get my BG under control.
• Obtain health insurance ... somehow.
• Research what it takes to be a CDE and see if it is feasible for me.
• Study my faith more.
• Take my girls on a short trip - a couple day trips would actually be ideal.
• Write more travel related or local history articles, maybe even a book.
• Catch up on our bills.
• Better financial control in our lives.
• and the list goes on ...

And of course as the list goes on ... I feel more and mroe inadequate and useless ...