It was an unseasonably warm day here in the Big Apple, I just got back from a meeting of the Archivists Round of Metropolitan New York at Green-Wood Cemetery. It was a chance to see and hear about some of the behind the scenes activities of the 175 year old garden cemetery. A special treat was to behold the original hand-written list of men from the 14th Brooklyn wounded at Gettysburg. Many of the men from the 14th are now interred there, some having died of their wounds and others having returned from the war to live out the rest of their natural days before meeting again in Valhalla. As I said a few weeks back, I am trying to think holistically in my personal and professional endeavors. Yesterday I started Brenda Dougall Merriman’s Genealogical Standards of Evidence: A Guide for Family Historians, a primer on the basics of proper genealogy. It is part of my longterm plan to become BCG certified.

This morning I emailed a friend who agreed to critique my book proposal to see if he would read it and comment by the weekend after next if I got it to him one week from today. It is part of my plan to keep my feet to the fire. It is so easy not to do it. In a piece of serendipity, a colleague in the library where I work asked in the afternoon if I want to be part of a writing club she is founding. The idea is that once a week the group will get together to check our progress, read each other’s work, and that type of thing. I think this is going to work well.