Accomplishments

A couple of my accomplishments of 2023:

I read 52 books.

         

A few of my favorites were The Last Voyage of Mrs Henry Parker by Joanna Neil, Band of Sisters by Lauren Willig,  and Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I accomplished my indexing goal for the year.  Since 1893, our church has filmed genealogical records to be used in doing family history research.  Looking through these records was tedious until 2006 when the church started a program of creating an index of records. It's a volunteer program done by members of our church, as well as nonmembers, that creates a searchable digital index of scanned images of historical documents that can facilitate research.  There are 350,000 indexers in 130 countries. At the end of 2021 these were 5.8 billion searchable records on Family Search.  An average of 400,000 records are indexed each day.  That is amazing and I am proud to play a very small part in this enormous project.

October

Crazy times for me!  I do love being busy and I love traveling but this may even be a bit much for me. A recap and a preview...

September  26 - Drive 431 miles to Portland

• Fun visit with our good friends Martha and Larry.
• Our traditional fall lunch at Skamania Lodge
• And traditional burgers at Burgerville
• Uneventful visit with my cancer doctor - no news is definitely good news!
• A chance to spend time with Scott
• And the Downton Abbey Movie - It is magical!

September 29 - Drive 431 miles back to Eagle, Idaho

September 30 - Finish getting ready for my trip to Kenya

• Stuff 4 bags to the brim with books, sanitary kits, and other supplies plus a few clothes
• Organize all my 'to-do' in Kenya Lists and supply inventory list
• Bake George a birthday cake and also 4 loaves of bread; put a roast in the crockpot.  Matt and George are thrilled!

October 1 - Happy Birthday George! - Drive 353 miles to Salt Lake City

• Check everyone on the team's bags to be sure they have maximized their weight limit
• Add more books if possible
• Spend the night with my friend Carolyn

October 2-3 Fly 9374 Miles from Salt Lake to Mombasa Kenya

• First to Amsterdam - then Nairobi -then finally Mombasa
• Hopefully sleep some 
• Read and watch movies!

October 4 - 19  Be an ambassador for Kenya Keys

• Visit schools 
• Pass out almost 300 books
• Give several hundred sanitary kits from Days for Girls to the most needy young women you can imagine.  Without these supplies, they have to stay home from school during their periods.
• Participate in a conference put on by the Kenya Keys Kenya staff for the International Day of the Girl Child- they are expecting almost 500 girls!  Can't wait to see this unfold!
• Take 1000's of photographs - probably closer to 3000!
• Enjoy a two day safari
• Help the team to be safe and happy

October 19-20 - Fly 9374 Miles back to Salt Lake - This time through Paris

October 20 - 23 - Rest and Recuperate at Tammy's house in Provo

• Laundry
• Get over jet lag
• Write trip reports
• Visit with family

October 24  - Drive  279 miles from Provo to Zion National Park

October 25-27 - Enjoy being with all George's siblings and spouses 

• Hiking
• Eating
• Visiting
• Hopefully a 'bucket list' hike to Angel's Landing

October 27 - Drive 279 miles back to Provo

October 28 - Drive 353 miles home to Eagle

Sounds kind of crazy but I am excited too!

By the numbers!

A couple of 'significant numbers' from 2014

I indexed just over 126, 000 names last year!  My goal was 100,000 so I'm pretty happy with that.

If you haven't heard of indexing, let me explain.  For many years our church has photographed genealogical records from all around the world.  These have been available on microfilm at Family History centers.  After their conversion to a digital form, beginning in 2006, volunteers like me started making indexes to the records.  That means that many of the records are now freely searchable on line.  Since it's beginning this unprecedented crowdsourcing effort has produced more than one billion searchable records.

I am just one of hundreds of thousands of indexers from all around the world.  To quote from the Family Search Website, "Through this selfless effort, millions of people worldwide have found information and discovered stories about their ancestors".  So if you are interested in family history, take a look at familysearch.org!  You might find that long lost great grandfather!

1,000,000 Delta miles....George achieved that milestone this year.  That is a LOT of time spent in an airplane.  More than 40 times around the world!

I'm glad that I got to take some of those trips with him.  And I'm thankful for his years with HP since they paid for a good number of those miles!!!

December 31 - Goals

Scott inspired me when I read this quote from Christmas Eve on the Desert on his Facebook page -

I should not fail to set my feet upon the star-bound trail.

Then I saw this on Facebook

                                                          

                                 so I got inspired to think about goals for 2013!

2012 had 12 goals.  I did 6 of them 100%; 3 of them about 75%; one not at all (and I don't even care); one I'll be working on for the rest of my life, and then there was my weight goal....hmmm...let's just say that I think I gained about as much weight as I wanted to lose last year!  Not good!

2013 has 10 goals.  Hopefully I'll have better success next year.  Here's to success on the 'star-bound trail' and worthwhile writings in the book of 2013!