Seven-year-old Nicky was in the playroom, cleaning up the mess that a friend on a play-date had made. We could hear her as she made up a little song, "I r--e--a--l--l--y like cleaning up other people’s messes. I r--e--a--l--l--y like cleaning up messes that I didn’t make." The adults in the room knew that she r--e--a--l--l--y didn’t like cleaning the room, but she was making the best of an unpleasant situation.

When Nicky's friend goes into a room, everything gets turned upside-down. When it comes time to clean up, the girl is no help at all. She has no sense of organization. Everyone is better off if she just goes home and leaves the cleaning to them.

When I was a child, my father used to tell me, "People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones." I think about that as I look around my work area. It needs some organization. My excuse is that I’m too busy, but it could be any other excuse. The bottom line is that I need to spend some time organizing the area.

It’s times like this when I browse through Ann Carter Fleming’s book, The Organized Family Historian. I bought a copy of the book at the NGS Conference in Sacramento and read parts of it on the plane ride home. I was pleased to find that Ann has included organizational tips that fit my style of organizing. In other words, it’s good for people who have little time. I was also pleased to find that the book covers more than just organizing. It is a dandy "how-to" book. It just goes to show you that "You can’t judge a book by its cover."

My father never knew Nicky, but he would appreciate her "can-do" attitude. He thought we should all be "can-do" people.

Another saying that, he would remind me about "You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar."

The slogans that a family uses are part of the culture of the family. They are part of a family’s heritage. During the next few weeks of the holiday season, listen to what the relatives say to each other. Write down the old-time sayings. Ask the relatives where they first heard them. This is part of your family heritage, and it should be saved.

If your family did not have any of these sayings, you can go to a website that has lots of them, www.goenglish.com.

If you are interested in other helpful articles, go to my Columns page.

© 2000–2009

Connie Lenzen, CG^SM

CG, Certified Genealogist, is a service mark of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used under license by board certified genealogists after periodic evaluation, and the board name is registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office.