Ready for 2013

Ready for 2013

More than starting a New Year, I am retiring. The folder with the umbrella is a vacation folder.

That won't make much difference to my readers since I am planning to keep writing my Granite-in-my-Blood and Beyond the Horizon blogs and teaching my Cemetery 101 course for Family Tree University, but I may be posting less frequently as I am now only working on my own family history. But, I will maintain my status as a professional by renewing my membership in the APG for this year. So, I am now a retired professional genealogist.

I have always used my own family as an example. Several genealogists gave me this idea to use my own research to help others. It worked rather well. I kept my client work to a minimum, preferring to help others when they asked instead of seeking out paid work. As an educator, I'd rather teach than speak. I have done a few presentations but I could never justify the cost of a projector. (If you do buy one, be sure and check the cost of new bulbs before you buy one! They can be a killer.)

I have recently taken down my Web site, even my pages about genealogy so that I can focus on what I want to do and well, actually have a life!

This is a photo of my work table. It has folders for printed forms I use, plain paper to write on and "portable" work on clipboards. I like to work in my lounge type chair in our great room (the fancy new word for living room)  and on my wonderful porch. Wi-Fi rocks.

I am going to live a project based life. My work will now be organized a bit differently. I will be writing about this in the coming weeks.  The Project List

Some projects will be short term (like currently the gravestones in the Spring Hill Cemetery) and some will be long term (like researching my family business). That's why one rack in the photo is empty. It will hold the folders for each project

But, right now I am looking for some new ways to think about my research. RootsMagic's version 6 and the new iPhone/iPad app associated with it are to my liking and I plan to learn it more completely. That's not a project but it can be time consuming. I love software.

I found a nice collection of forms today and I thought I'd share them with my readers. So, while you are resting from preparing for the holidays take a look...

Have a great time with the living while you can...