I've been mulling over the idea of blogging, scrapbooking and our memories and the best way to preserve them.
I used to scrapbook a lot; I still like the idea of scrapbooking, but have not done any since the Littles have come home. So, my dilemma, what good is scrapbooking if you don’t actually do it?
So, my next thought, how about just putting the pictures into albums, forget the fancy stuff and just get them in books. I like this idea, but again, have not implemented it. I haven’t even gotten most of my pictures made into prints yet. I have several SD cards full of pictures. So, should I go ahead and get the albums and then hope this will inspire me to get my pictures done up? Or, should I get my pictures printed and then hope this gives me the incentive to buy the albums? Hmmm.
Add to this the whole idea of blogging. I enjoy keeping my blog. I’m not really sure why. I don’t think very many people read my blog. I know Bri enjoys reading it and there are several people on the SHS list and my stitching list that read it and I think Sally does, maybe Sue, but that is about it. So, is that enough people to warrant the time and effort it takes to do it? Is it okay to do it whether anyone reads it, just for myself? Is this a good enough means of keeping our memories? I don't really think so.
This week, Blogger started posting the amount of space you have used for photo storage. I knew that there had to be a limit, but all of a sudden, I feel the need to conserve space…why? I’m not sure what will happen after I run out. I think you can pay for more storage space. I don’t use a terribly large amount because I resize my photos for the web, so it would take a while to use all my storage up, but this has gotten me to thinking about scrapbooking again. Can you see the cycle this is taking?
My thoughts and problems…as coherently as I can make them are…
-I do want to preserve our photos and memories somehow.
-I don’t have time for fancy scrapbooking very often, but do enjoy it.
-I’d like to be able to look at our photos even if I don’t have time to scrapbook them.
-I want to keep blogging.
So…some solutions to these problems
-Print up the photos.
-Buy some albums with photo inserts and put photos in them.
-Work on scrapbook pages as time allows, maybe doing major events, birthdays, Christmas, vacation, etc, then fill in with everyday pages.
-Keep blogging and not worry about storage space, cull out old posts that are not that important, cross-stitch blocks, maybe recipes, that sort of thing.
-Keep a copy of the text from the blog, put it in a journal type Word document to keep the "memory" part of the blog even if I lose the picture part.
One of my brothers had a interesting point on all this and I have thought of it so many times. He said, don't lose the moment by trying to capture the moment. Do I spend too much time taking pictures of other people living and not doing enough of it myself?
6 comments:
My take? Blogging for me, is a means of escape; a way to track stuff that goes on in my life (due to the constant failure of memory, lol). The pictures I post, along with what I've written are a good way to preserve scrapbooking, too. Later, when time allows, you can print those shots, then print what you wrote as your own journalling. Much easier than trying to remember after a few years, because the posts are usually written when your thoughts are fresh.
You do it for yourself. I could never keep a journal where I actually had to write things down. My handwriting stinks and I hate writing, it gives me cramps! But it's easy for me to type something down and it's done so quickly. My family and friends read it. If others read (through links from my signature, other blogs, etc) that's fine, but if not, I don't care - it's for me.
As for space...with all the changes that blogger's come around to making, you could consider other places. Wordpress will import all your posts, pictures and comments included! I started to use them, but haven't really gone back other than to do the initial import. I guess I'm just comfortable with Blogger right now. But should they limit me more, I may have to switch. You could also consider hosting your photos elsewhere (like Photobucket, Picasa, Flickr, etc). A variety of places could hold more pictures and you can just link them...
Whatever you do, it's up to you, but I DO enjoy reading about your daily life...it's so refreshing!
How about just doing a scrapbook of one holiday--like a scrapbook of all of your Christmases or a scrapbook of each child's birthdays or plane days? I do one each year for Jonathon, but I have one kid, not five.
Tammy,
Kansas
Well - I've been having this debate for a year now. LOL
I AM going to begin just getting my photos in CM albums....plain, just photos and writing and they'll be AVAILABLE. I've "scrapped" now for 8 years. BEFORE I scrapped my photos were caught up and a family past time was to look through them. NOW I'm years behind....and no one has the pleasure of looking at them. I do think *I* am guilty of trying to preserve the moment and missing the moment or however you phrased that. LOL For a year, I've told myself this must change...but everytime I get out the album and get ready to slap the photos in I freeze....
However - I began blogging for my friends and family....they love the blog. My older kids and Mike love to read it. The younger ones like to see the photos on it. I'm going to do the Word thing (has journal and photos) and that will be a great record...and my albums are going to be dated, quickly journaled and slapped in....maybe note where there are more stories or such in the journal for years from now when someone wants to read more. LOL
That's my plan.
Hi Debbie. I'm only at 11% of storage so I've not had to think abut that yet.
I do enjoy scrapping, but I have a time problem AND a space problem. It takes ages to set it all up and then I have to get it all away for us to eat a meal. The only way I can do it is to GO to a crop, and that costs money. Did I mention that I have a time problem also? {g}
No suggestions, but all your possibles look good.
Dorothy
Well, there's that slurping option. What about pasting into MSWord and printing from there? (I don't have Word, only WordPad, and haven't had time to try it yet.)
You could begin another Google account and another blog.
I enjoy keeping my blog too, and while I like that my online friends read it, it's not my main goal. It's been nice for my family to keep up, although Robert's family doesn't. (That surprises me, I think they'd WANT to see the kids' pics since they live far away.) My dh would NEVER read my blog unless it's for a specific post, or he glimpses a certain photo. It's definitely the easy way for me to "journal" everything, and now I am much, much more motivated to take pictures.
I so appreciate all the "fingerwork" (as opposed to legwork) that Cindy's doing to figure out the photo space stuff.
Great post, a lot of us are in this boat!
LOL.. I worked on figuring out the photo space thing. As nearly as I can tell there's no rhyme nor reason to what blogger does.. photos I resized uploaded slightly larger than ones I did nothing to. I'm going to continue blogging because it's a great way for me to record what we're doing and even if I have to delete the photos at some point and just make a notation of which picture went with that blog I would easily be able to find it in my Memory Manager program. Speaking of the MM program. It's awesome.. it allows you to journal beside your photos which I LOVE! I'm experimenting right now with using a wordprocessing type program (or simple digital scrapbooking program) to see how I can simply take a page from the blog, send it to Costco.com and have it come out in a size I can then put into my album... we'll see how it goes, but figuring this out IS my summer project this year... last year it was landscaping... this year photos/blogging/jouranaling/scrapbooking/organizing the old photos, etc...
When you figure out what to do let us know!
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