November 17, 2008
Stay connected with grandchildren by blogging
[Editorial note: We are pleased to feature Grandma Marlene Kaiser as a guest writer. She has 17 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild, and stays connected with them through her personal blog.]
I started a blog as an older grandparent, to express to my grandchildren my beliefs, and the family stories. This is a wonderful way to share with them, since everyone is so busy. They all have very little time. I try to add to my blog every Sunday. I currently am talking about miracles I have seen. This has been a journey for me. In pondering and thinking about miracles, I have come to appreciate the world so much more.
Expressing my thoughts has required I think about those I am writing for, and also those I am writing about. I try to write just two or three paragraphs and keep it to one subject, so that it isn’t too much reading at any one time.
Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children. ~Charles R. Swindoll
I still work, but we have 5 wonderful children, grown grandchildren and we now have one great grandchild. When I was growing up, I knew my grandparents, and one great grandmother, plus much more extended family. This is not so with the younger generations, so a blog is a great way to connect. I encourage other grandparents to jump in and blog too. It is work and takes some study, but get started and watch it grow as you grow and learn. My blog is rgkaiserfamily.com. Visitors are welcome!
Visit Grandma Kaiser’s blog.
We want to here from you. Tell us about your blog our family website where you share your life with your grandchildren? Please leave a comment below.
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Filed under Connecting, Cool Technology by Grandma Kaiser
Comments on Stay connected with grandchildren by blogging »
@Grandma Kaiser – Thank you for sharing your love for connecting with your grandchildren through your blog.
I would like to encourage other grandparents to start and maintain a blog or other family website. We are preparing tutorials on the various options.
It tickles me to see how old some bloggers are. According to The Ageless Project, these are the three oldest bloggers (who are registered with the project).
Born: 1911
Site: 95 years old blogger
Born: 1913
Site: Don To Earth
Born: 1917
Site: My Life At Ninety
If you have a personal blog, please comment here to let us know. I also encourage you to register it at The Ageless Project.
Well, I think that everyone should be aware too that some blogs are often temporary. Imagine how bad it would feel to have these amazing blogs and then in 10, 20 years the blogging host removes them or goes out of business and they are lost.
I suggest:
keeping copies of your posts locally
printing a copy of posts (create a book if you want)
using our site, which is designed specifically for this purpose – to collect stories and then share them thru the generations.
I cannot stress enough how important this is. A blogging company many not exist in the future, books & cds can be lost/destroyed, if you create your own site what happens after you stop paying the hosting fee or lose the domain registrant?
Keep your precious stuff secure….. I don’t plug this just to plug the site but that this article is a perfect segway into why our site exists
@Antje – I agree with your suggestions. It is a good idea for folks to keep copies of important articles, stories, etc. But people should not let anything scare them away from starting. Too often people worry that everything has to be in place to get started. My advice: Just DO IT. Start, blog, write, express yourself. NOW!
I agree with everyone on this subject! Kudos for you, Grandma Kaiser, for putting so much effort into your blogging. Keep up the good work. Please save them for the generations to come. I am currently going through my Dad’s 50 yr old 35mm slides which are rapidly deteriorating and I plan on having them printed in book form along with some of the stories I remember. Modern technology helps us do that now. My son found this company blurb.com – which I think I will use. I recently bought a scanner that scans slides for under $100.00! I love it. Now I will be able to upload the best of Dad’s slides to a book when I am ready! Exciting.
I keep my geneology on a separate external hard disk, and I am putting my blogs on it too. Also periodically I put in a usb thing and save it that way too. I had a lot of geneology on several types of medium, and they cannot be used so I try to preserve it the best way possible, but printing it out would take up more space than I have. I have boxes and boxes of papers and pictures and am trying to get rid of them.
Totally agreed. Since this is my job, I work with a lot of people who’ve lost precious documents and things, so since I hear these horror stories (floods, fires, etc) I just want to JuMpUpAnDdOwN to tell people to save stuff. I want people to realize that paper, hard drives, photos books can all be lost or destroyed (no matter what you’re saving).
Another problem is technology – who knows what will be accessible in the future. Maybe we will look at jpgs, blogs, mp3, doc, pdf’s etc. files as “antiquated” as we do with 8track tapes or 9mm film etc.
Thanks for all of the nice comments everyone. We appreciate each of you.
Greeting from Sydney, Australia.
You and your readers may like to read this story about the oldest men in America and UK sharing the same birthday. It has just been posted at http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2008/12/supercentenaria_1.php
Merry Christmas to all of you!