Friday, February 06, 2015

Compelling Reading

What could be so riveting?
Choosing Joy started as a way for the older girls to keep up on the younger's childhood as they left home. It morphed into a huge "hobby" complete with memes, deep musings and such  and then nearly died....as I realized I didn't have the time to "be cool and perfect." ::snort:: THEN Michael deployed and asked me to please blog the mundane and a photo each day so he could keep in touch with us. I agree....for the deployment.

It turns out we spouses simply don't have time to share the dailyness on those overseas calls. We prioritize. Michael loved being able to see the every day goings on....That saved letters and phone calls for romantic notes and business.
 
Daily blogging was a habit by the time he returned home. I wasn't convinced I wanted to keep blogging, but Michael was convinced I should - even if the only thing I did was share what we did each day. He said it was a legacy I was creating for the kids and it would be our family journal. Well SHOOT -  I am a TERRIBLE scrapper - still not fully convinced I agreed to continue.
 
During another deployment I printed a Shutterfly book to send Michael. Stacia was AMAZED to see "ME in a BOOK." I realized she'd never seen a single photo of herself PRINTED out. All her photos were online. We decided to put out the money and work on  printing the blog...it's NOT cheap. I'm not totally happy with the end product we receive from Blog2Print/Shared Books, but some of them are printed.  We're working towards having them all printed.  The first years of the blog have to have titles added as blogger didn't have a title field a decade ago.

This week our blog books from 2011 arrived. 2011 was a life-changing year for us - the year of the Earthquake and Tsunami and the subsequent recovery. Clicking "Earthquake" in the side bar will take you to posts about the year.....Yes, we are glad to have the years chronicled.
L printed with "medium" photo option - R printed with large option


7 comments:

Kathy in WA said...

Thanks for posting this. I've always wanted to see how your printed blogs came out. What size are they?

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

They are the 8.5 x 11 size, hardcover....and the photos on the right are "large" - the ones on the left are "medium" and we really like the bigger photos - but that does wonky things with leaving lots of white space. I want to be able to get into individual posts and arrange them AFTER they have been slurped to blog2print but I can't do that.....wish another company did this. I'd be so there.

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

Oh - and I can NEVER get a whole year in one book. I print them quarterly - but recently they are telling me they can't 3 months in one book - and that is frustrating as I know their max is 2000 photos and 600+ pages - there is NO WAY we are over that in 3 months. I find the website clunky....but I've been waiting and looking for something streamlined with a few more options and I"m not finding it. I think Tim needs to start a business.

Laura said...

I also use Blog2Books and have printed several thanks to your recommendation. It is wonderful to be able to pull the books off the shelf and look back. :) I do love seeing the larger photo option in your picture there. I also agree with all the things you said are frustrating to you. Same here. But, like you, I am not aware of another option. If you (or I) discover one, we must be sure to share! :D

Laura said...

Blog2Print I mean.... whatever they call it! ;)

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

Yes, Laura. Let's keep each other updated.

berrypatch said...

Thanks for sharing. This has always been on my "to try" list but I haven't done it yet.