For many, it was a normal Friday. A day to get through before the weekend kicked off. For us, it was kind of like a holiday. You see, may aunt, uncle and cousin’s son were coming to spend a few hours with us in our Massachusetts haven (amazing how close that word is to heaven). Why would they go many hours out of their way to visit us? Because they love us. Which made the day even more incredible.
Expecting them around noon, Chris hit the slopes, trying to catch some runs before it began raining too hard. A tough time of year for us slope-fiends. We embrace the warmth and beauty of spring, but know the fun time on our sloping playground is limited. Then I got a message that they were close, even earlier than expected. Bonus!!!
It was a bit drizzly when they arrived, but amazing sports that they are, they popped up their hoods and walked outside for a tour of our little ski center. A soaking wet Chris passed us as we headed out, and we said we’d join him soon.
We walked past a small waterfall, which was pointed out to Aunt Anne, since she loves waterfalls so much. Then I showed the lift she vicariously rode on with me and the run we went down together. Strolling past the coffee shop and firepit area and shop, we headed back to the room for our now signature luncheon of egg sandwiches (a fun machine Hudi and Mollie gave us makes those).
Aunt Anne eating our traditional lunch – Egg MuffinsA few fun finger foods with family
Of course I had to take a picture of the handsome chef as well 🙂
We have to make the sandwiches one at a time, which might bother some, but we were all of a like mind that this gave us plenty of time to talk and catch up on each other’s lives. I shared my new favorite drink of seltzer mixed with berry tea, and Uncle John shared his train magazine. I swear the man knows everything there is to know about railroads. I particularly love how be brought us an article about the new train bridge in Letchworth, a park near where we used to live.
Aunt Anne is a big fan of Chris’ art so they spent some time looking at the pieces in our place, and Chris showed her some of the processes he goes through in creating — sharing drawings and such. A very pleasant time!
After lunch, we hit the pool and hot tub. And I got a nice pic of this wonderful couple and some other treasures.
I particularly enjoyed having the bonus of seeing David. While he and his brother used to spend time with us every other year, his life got busy with college and all (and our kids grew up and moved out). It’s been a bunch of years since we have seen him. Back in the day, we charted him on our growing wall, and he was so small, you couldn’t even see Chris’ name on the wall above him in a standard picture.
Just look at him now! All grown up.
David is as tall as Chris now
Although not so grown up, he won’t take time to play in a pool when given a chance (see images of that on Aunt Anne’s Blog post). She got the action, I got the residual hair style, haha 🙂
David’s fun hair after a swim
They had to continue the journeys so we wrapped up the day with some coffee final smiles for the gift of our time together. I love this image of Aunt Anne particularly because it shows the twinkle in her eye that is familiar to me. And Uncle John is grinning as if he’s already working on coming up with a new pun. I feel the beauty of their souls really shine through.
Warmer weather hit the Berkshires and Chris and I were ready to really enjoy our “weekend” days (Thursday and Friday). Added to the fun, today I got to share the experience with relatives, including my aunt who also loves snow and mountains. I think a lot of you already follow her, and if not, you should check out her site 😉 She is a brilliant writer who takes everyday life and makes it super fun to read about. Anyway, today she joined us on the slopes — virtually. And my cousin joined in later as well.
At the base we met up on Facebook video from my phone. Any video service would have worked, but this was easiest at the time. I popped in my earphone and held the phone as we went to the ski lift and journeyed up. We showed her the slope we planned to hit, a hotel where a relative had stayed recently, our home and a windmill we would see closer in a bit.
Actually an end-of-the-run shot
She was very patient as I got off the lift and strapped in. We were able to talk even when the video was shaky, then it was time to hit the hill. I went down a relatively easy trail that I knew I could handle. It was a good day for this. Warm, slightly slushy and some patches of ice, but not terrible, and no crowds.
Our piece of paradise is Jiminy Peak Resort in the Berkshire Mountain Range in Massachusetts (answering her questions from her post here). As I went down the mountain, I kept the camera facing away so Aunt Anne could see the run in front of us. She got to see Chris playing around, demonstrating proper snowboard techniques (not my heel-side only stance). I did explain people who do it right mostly point straight down and not keep going side-to-side as I do. haha.
She saw the mountain coaster, the alpine slide and the pool and hot tub in front of our place. Also seeing how close we are to the slopes. When I was nearing the bottom, my cousin’s son, David, joined us for the run.
It was really fun for all of us, and they agreed to let me take the screenshots above. I hope we can do it again sometime.
This was the Ski Tracks app stat summary for our run together:
In her blog post, Aunt Anne commented that I was telling her about toes and heels. The rest of this post is kind of about that. Once upon a time, a bit over 24 hrs ago….
Part 2 of my fun slope days this “weekend”
Yesterday (Thursday) the slopes were unbelievably perfect for a person of my skill level. As Chris pointed out, you could point straight down and not worry about going too fast.
Ice was rare, and the sun was shining. The rides on the chairlifts were like basking in the sun on a beach (but a bit more fun). I heard robins and phoebes and saw some buds on the trees. And even some friendly faces in the woods 🙂
If you look closely, that little one has a smiley face etched on it. Kind of reminds me of a tree Gumby.
This is always a bittersweet time of year. Summer temps and longer daylight are wonderful, too, but it’s sad to say goodbye to all the beautiful snow. So we are grabbing all of it we can.
This season I was really working on turning right (toe-side) better.
As you can see in this pic, I’m a rather embarrassing heel-rider. Can you tell which part of the board is closest to my heels?
The toe-side turns are kind of starting to happen. I don’t have video from today, but I was able to do it at a much faster pace than in times past. Here are some video clips from last autumn and yesterday. Feel free to mute. Some people like the sound of snow scraping, but it can be annoying if you aren’t in the mood.
Here is a clip from November:
And here is a clip from yesterday (March 14, 2019):
Please note how stiff I was and how flat the terrain was in the first video compared to the second video 🙂 I’m working on relaxing, bending my knees and leaning down the hill before I turn.
If you want to see the entire top half of that run – here it is. Beautiful views at the start:
Jumping back to today. I saw this video of my turns last night. I do see how my right arm is winging out and is quite tense. Today I practiced going down the hill with my right hand pinching the left side of my jacket as if it was in a sling to train myself to not count on it for balance.
Chris noticed I was much more relaxed when holding the phone for my aunt so in my final few runs, I let my right arm hang down, but pretended she was on the other side of a camera and focused on keeping it smooth. It’s really working. Yay!
The Views Here Blow my Mind Regularly
Zephyr, the windmill at hill topChris enjoying the viewClouds extending the mountain view
Yup, God done good! And I’m so thankful to be able to be out enjoying the gifts given.
From Feb 27-March 2 I had the privilege of talking about website creation while working at the WordPress.com booth at RootsTech 2019. Genealogy is so interesting, and the stories that come out of research are incredibly fascinating. During the conference I gave a talk about Using a Website to Tell Your Genealogy Story.
All the options I am writing about here can be done using a free WordPress.com plan. It’s important to note that one of the great reasons WordPress.com is perfect for compiling genealogy information is privacy policies. Entire sites can be private, or a site can be public but certain pages and posts can be private. This is described more on our privacy support page.
Disclaimer: The examples I used are not factual. Parts of some are, but I mish-mashed/fabricated names and geographical locations for the sake of privacy.
How can a website and/or blog help you tell your genealogy story?
Take a moment and think about the information you would like to share with others if you were writing a book. What is most important for you to pass on?
With websites, if you can dream it, you can almost always make it happen.
When I was a child, I remember learning that my aunt was delving into our family history. This was at a time where people didn’t have ready access to computers so she was doing all her research by scrolling through hard-copy records. It was an amazing gift for our family.
I saw the list of names, and it was kind of cool.
That is something that can be shared. After many trips to a copying center where I copied stacks of documents and mailed them to family members, I can really appreciate the thought they they can go to a site and download a copy easily.
Now my family can have easy access to those records and can download the file whenever they want.
What else can we do?
Something that really stood out to me when I was a child was the visual of our family coat of arms.
How I loved seeing this. It made me feel like I really was a piece in a big puzzle — a part of something awesome. Not only did I have a family, but we had a common goal. Yield not to adversity.
I want to share that on my site so all our family members can see it. But I also want to know more about it so I’m going to ask family members for input then share responses in a future post.
This adds more to my genealogical story.
Last year while I was here at RootsTech I was talking with a person about the Contact Form, which I used to create that response form. The person came up with the idea for using it for photos from family events she could not label. Brilliant.
A comment section can be used for that as well. Create a post with an image of a special event (maybe last year’s reunion?) and ask people to share their favorite memories from the event. The same can be done with the image of a person.
Decades went by and technology changed. As did family reunions. I bet you can relate. Years ago it was all about playing with cousins seen once or twice a year. Relatives sometimes kept in touch by phone or an occasional letter, but communication wasn’t constant. Reunion time was spent re-creating the family connections and re-discovering common interests.
But then social media happened.
Suddenly reunions weren’t about re-meeting but became more focused on bonding. This opened opportunities for stories about family history. Very cool stuff. Suddenly, the names on that original family tree became real.
Another person from last year told me they were taking advantage of the option to schedule posts so they could write a post for each family member they were close to. The posts would come out on the family member’s birthday. What a gift to that person, and to the rest of the family as well, as they get to know a relative better.
This bonding can happen with a website, too. As family members talk, share treasures and reminisce, the bond grows stronger.
Imagine how this can build over time! Unlike a book, a website can continue expanding, and facts can be edited and added on to as time progresses without having to go back to a printer.
Think of the things you might share:
Poetry from a century ago? A letter written from a WWII foxhole? Now treasures an entire family can appreciate.
With the search tool on a website, the treasures are easily found. And the menu is also a handy tool for sorting. You can set categories to highlight different branches of the family tree.
Those can even be color-coordinated to show the family branches.
With WordPress.com, people can have more than one site on an account. Some families might choose to have a site for a father’s line and another for a mother’s line (or other family members). These sites can be interlinked from the menu as well.
Searches and menus are very handy tools for telling a genealogy story in an organized fashion.
As with a book, aesthetics are important and you don’t want to overwhelm people who come to the site to learn about family treasures. You can use sub-menu items to highlight other fun family items for sharing.
Uncle Charlie’s famous eggnog recipe? Great memories.
Grandma’s pancakes? A family favorite.
Dad’s chicken? All now shared family recipes.
One of my favorite parts of this sort of sharing is that you an access these recipes even while traveling so the next time your family gathers at the beach house or on your ski vacation, the treasured recipes are right at your fingertips.
Aside from recorded posts and pages, there are also other ways families can share experiences on a website.
One family I know has a book club. This can be organized through a website, and you can add a calendar showing the date of a meeting.
There is even a countdown Milestone Widget you can add to a site to note the event. (This is also handy for family reunions).
When the time comes, there can be a group chat about the book.
Even if a family is spread out across the country, it’s still entirely feasible to start a chat using a widget to discuss a book or talk about other topics, without ever having to leave the website.
In this screenshot I used the tlk.io widget for chat.
Someone can take notes and write a summary post for the family who couldn’t join to see. In that summary, there can even be a link to the book discussed
Links are one of the greatest features of a website and can be used to really enhance a genealogical story. They can be used to add details to a family story. Birth records, descriptions of hometowns, public records of events a family member was written up in.
If other family members have websites highlighting their own lives or their businesses, links to those sites fill in the gaps in the family story.
When content on a page comes from research, links are great for citations and footnotes. A simple click will lead people to original resources.
Sometimes there is nothing to link to. That’s okay. There is a tool built in to WordPress.com that you can turn on. It’s called related posts. These lead people to other posts you have written that connect to similar topics.
For example, in a post I wrote recently, I mentioned Mor Mor sewing pockets for my cousin, and the related post at the base of my current post was my article about Mor Mor from when she died. Of course, when I went to grab a screenshot, that option no longer showed. Ah well, here is another example:
Another handy way to help people experience the story you are sharing is to use images and documents to make stories real by grabbing screenshots of information you don’t want to link to that might add to a story. For example, if you wanted to write a story about a family trip on Christmas day from decades ago, you can go to a site such as https://www.weather.org/weather-history/.
That way your readers will have more of a connection to the story but don’t actually have to break away from your page by following a link.
You can also connect people to stories – past and present – by using maps.
If I read a story about my grandfather from Hungary, I would think it was interesting. But if I followed a link to a page that told me about the history of the area and the cultural treasures of the area then looked at a map to see where Hungary was located in relationship to where I live, then I will feel more connected.
That’s great for stories from the past. It’s also handy to have maps that show current family connections.
Adding a map to a site shows other family members where you live. If you are traveling to an area, check the map to see if anyone is close. It’s great for a coffee and catch-up.
Of course, this would all be voluntary so only people who want their locations showing would have it there.
In addition to adding maps to specific stories, you can put maps on separate pages showing where family members came from in case anyone wants to take a tour through their family history.
That’s what Roberta Estes did. She has a blog on https://dna-explained.com and one of my favorite posts on her site is the one in which she wrote a story in the voice of her grandfather, and actually travelled to the places his story took place in.
Back in the early 1990’s I interviewed my grandmother, asking her story of the past. It was a Christmas gift for my extended family. Now I can take the cassette and convert it to an mp3 and add it to the website so we can hear her voice regale our family history.
We have videos of my father-in-law preaching from years before he died. Now we can embed them into a website so our children and grandchildren can seem him and listen to him.
I don’t have those recorded and embedded yet, but I do have examples of some fun family treasures.
I added that audio with an audio block and the video with a YouTube block.
Perhaps you want to share your book with others and need them to help cover costs. Or order shirts for a family reunion.
Gone are the days where you have to call relatives and wait for checks to come in the mail as you meticulously keep a list of who gets what. You can now take payments and orders right through your website.
Or by using Simple Payments if you have a Premium or Business Plan:
If you have the Business Plan, you can even use a plugin such as Woo Commerce to add a cart and take orders that are drop-shipped.
Not only that, but if you wanted to create some special swag for reunions you can find the most popular items or designs by setting up a poll on your website.
So many things you can do to share your story!
On a serious note, one question I get asked a lot is this:
What happens to my site when I’m no longer around or are too busy to maintain the site?
On WordPress.com, it will remain an active site until it’s cancelled. It’s recommended that one uses the User Role options to add a trusted few people as Administrators. They can then keep the site going if the site creator is no longer able to work on the site.
Remember you are not alone.
You probably know this even more than I. Your genealogy story has so many facets. With our user roles, others can contribute to the family story, and you can still have the final say regarding what is actually published. A site can have admins, editors, authors, contributors, and of course, followers. Each who can contribute in their own way.
Followers can still comment and take part in polls. Contributors can submit research and stories for others to approve. Authors can submit stories and research and edit their own work. Editors can provide content review, and Admins can do anything.
There are many other things you can do to tell your genealogy story. And sharing the work to get your genealogy story told can stretch across platforms.
With Publicize and Sharing tools, you can share your work to a Facebook page, Twitter feed and other social media platforms.
There are many other things you can do to tell your genealogy story.
If you have relatives who aren’t comfortable with browsers, they can follow the site by email so they are updated whenever you create a new post.
You can also create a newsletter for the family. Or highlight a podcast.
With upgrades, you can use plugins to embed and expand family trees or share information from some genealogy software you use. In this session I wanted to highlight could be done for free.
If you have ideas to share or questions on something you are wondering about implementing, please let me know in the comments. 🙂
Fifty-six years ago, our world was given an amazing gift. That was the day my husband was born. There are so many things I adore about this man, and I’m ever so thankful we are journeying through the adventures of this life together.
One of the greatest delights in my existence is opening my eyes every morning, looking at Chris, and seeing him grin at me. It’s the simple little pleasures, you know?
Anyway, here are some of my favorite photos of him from this past year. The images in no way delve into the true reality of his amazingness, but in them you can get a glimpse of fun and serious sides of this man I love.
December is a funky month, full of highs and lows. Perhaps for everyone, and certainly for Chris and me. And this year it seemed particularly diverse in emotions.
In December I:
Celebrated exciting life milestones.
Mourned for people no longer breathing in our earthly sphere.
Re-learned lessons I should have known and came pretty close to burn-out in work.
Took some time away from work/computers (hence the lack of blog posts this past month).
Relished in some slope therapy.
Celebrated a birthday, Christmas, a 27th-year-wedding anniversary with the yin to my yang (and vice versa) and New Year’s Eve. All very simple celebrations, but beautiful–with people who love me and who I love.
Felt lost in my own existence.
Started finding myself again.
At the end of November, I would not have predicted that December was going to hit so hard. In retrospect, I’m still not sure how or why it did. Perhaps it was because there were no kids in the house, and life was otherwise pretty stable. That gave me time to think about things a bit deeper.
All I can say is that it was a month lived. Highs, lows — that’s how it goes.
Here are some of the month’s highlights:
I got to swim after hitting the slopes. So lovely.
We spent a bunch of days playing on the hill.
Nothing like a good view while snowboarding. It fills my soul with peace.
Fire-pit at the base of the slope.
An ice cream cake from Mom Pollock for my birthday..
An amazing birthday gift – new snowboard boots 🙂
Our small Christmas tree inside.
Huge tree in the yard is a reflection of the small tree inside.
Walking home from church Christmas Eve with snow fairies kissing our noses..
Lots of love at church. Mom played the organ for the service.
Christmas morning 2018. A gift in itself.
Embrace who you are and your divine purpose. Identify the barriers in your life, and develop discipline, courage and the strength to permanently move beyond them, and keep moving forward.
I just discovered a new game, and I adore it. The game is called Iota, and it’s box is smaller than my hand 🙂 So yeah. Easy storage. But tons of fun. We played it with the young adults in our world over Thanksgiving, and it became even more fun.
Mollie, Hudi, Chris (and me) playing Iota.
Iota is kind of a cross between Scrabble and Dominoes. When played with adult rules, it’s surprisingly tricky. But it can be played with little kids, too. With rule variations.
Last time Chris and I played alone, it took almost an hour. You have to think of colors, numbers and shapes. Can’t have more than four in a line, and each card has to either be all the same in those arenas or all different.
We actually had a bit of a hard time with the rules at first, but Mollie is an expert Googler, and found help. I am pretty sure this is the site she found with great instructions. We also used a spreadsheet on the computer for keeping score.
Make sure each set of four is all the same or all different. Surprisingly tricky.
Playing games is really fun. But it’s difficult to find one everybody appreciates, and one that can be played in a short period of time or a long one. So far, Iota seems to be a winner.
I’m six “thanks” behind for the month, and I’m thankful that it’s okay 🙂 There’s one of the six, haha. There have been many thanks over the past few days, but I was busy living life and enjoying time with family and didn’t have as much time to write. So this is a six-in-one post to get myself back on track.
I am thankful for:
One:
As noted, the ability to take breaks from work and writing to be with family.
Two:
Finishing a 11.5 hr workday on Tuesday to find the dishwasher loaded with the Christmas mugs from the year prior — so they would be all set for our holiday celebrations with the kids, who were arriving that night.
Three:
Listening to my mother-in-law playing hymns on the keyboard. She also plays the organ in church, and I love hearing her at home as well.
Four:
Having Star come to visit. She lives with the kids now, and it’s great to see her so happy with them, but it’s fun having here back here, too.
Five:
Video Calling. Zoom, Skype, Facetime, Facebook Video, whatever. It just makes the holidays and other times all the more fabulous when you can actually see your loved ones even though they live across the country or world.
Six:
Gutenberg. Yes, I know this one is not everyone’s favorite, but I personally love blogging with the new WordPress block editor. I find it a LOT easier to organize my thoughts and portray them on the page as I visualize them in my head.
Oh my goodness. Sometimes you just need to laugh, and that’s what Pam’s blog does for me. She is just so real!!! A mother of triplets and a colleague of mine, Pam never runs out of interesting observations on life. Day to day stuff she comments on. Kids, dogs, sewing, family, friends — she covers it all. She dares to say what some of us might just think, and with such forthrightness and wit, one can only admire.
* For the month of November (the month of Thanksgiving in the United States), I’m sharing writing from some of the blogs I’m thankful for. If you want thankful posts from my own personal day-to-day stuff, check out my Inspired By and Thankful For blog.
