Adventures in Genealogy ~part 1

I have been putting off and putting off doing my family history for years.  I have managed to get a couple of things here and there about the very basics.  The very basics are filling out your 4 generations chart.  Well, I would loose what little I had and always thought the challenge too daunting.  The kids were asked to work on their 4 generation chart and it made me grumpy.  I was like "just leave me alone, my kids don't have it ok?  It's not going to happen."  Then my next door neighbor and friend told me that we were going to go to the family history center.  Well we never really confirmed so on the day that it was happened to be a day that I didn't feel the need for a shower before the bus stop.  I found her dressed and ready to go.  Man, I had stuff to do!  Sigh.  Ok, I decided that if she would wait for me to at least get clean I would drag my sorry behind there.  Well, while I was getting ready I contemplated several times telling her to just forget it.  The pull to my bed was too great and my head hurt too badly.  I just kept getting ready though and the next thing I know I was in her car heading to the family history center.  I told her that I was already starving for lunch and I really didn't want to be there for more than 30 minutes.  I fully expected to be sitting there twiddling my thumbs waiting for her to discover thousands of her long lost relatives.  I was pretty complacent with just having stepped foot into the building and then next time maybe I would actually find something.  Baby steps, right?  Well the older lady (Pat) that is know as a miracle worker when it comes to helping people find their ancestors wasn't about to let me sit there.  She handed me that dreaded 4 generation chart and a pencil and told me to fill it in with whatever I knew.  Well, it wasn't much.  When I handed her my finished work she put her hands on her head and said "this is all you know, oh brother."  I had "Great Nan" written in.  She wondered how it was possible that I didn't know her name.  I explained that it was simple.  I called her Great Nan and nothing else!  Well, we sat down at the computer and started with the person I knew the most about, My Nana, Olivia.  I knew her married name to her second husband and I knew her first husbands last name because that is my maiden name.  With that little bit of information we were able to go back 5 generations on my Dad's side.  Once we would find something it would trigger a memory and I could know for sure that we were on the right track.  I kept getting up and dancing and signing the angelic voices song.  What is so cool is that 1 document leads you to another which leads you to another and pretty soon you know that a few generations back your ancestors came from Germany and Wales.  Well, at the end of the 2 hours Kim was dragging me out of the history center so we had time to grab some lunch.  My head was pounding even worse than before, but I really didn't care because lame o me found my ancestors and it was exciting!  I couldn't wait to go back and do some more.