OK, so my last post via text didn't work...it may have been the smiley face I tried to add at the end of the post.  What I said was that the picture on the left hand side of my blog is a picture my oldest daughter took while we were in Florida this past January.  I was at a work conference and the rest of the family got to goof around and have fun...

I think I might be biased (because I'm her mother), but she seems to have quite an eye for seeing the beauty in ordinary things and capturing them on film.

And it worked!! Wow, sometimes I am in awe of how technology works; which I MUCH prefer to the times it makes me wanna rip my hair out!

OK, so this is my first attempt at posting on my blog via text message...let's see if it works!

Utilizing technology to capture life stories

On my drive home after our class on Sept. 11th I started feeling convicted that during our technology class, I hadn't really shared enough personal information about myself with my cohort because I had been too concerned with being short and concise so we didn't run over time.  I felt like I had cheated you all (my cohort) because you had all shared so much personal information about yourselves and your lives.  That lead me to thinking about the importance of telling our stories and how by sharing those, it helps others to come to understand and know us in ways they otherwise wouldn't.  I my typically a writer; I enjoy writing and have numerous journals (both electronic as well as paper & pen) written.  However, I started thinking how powerful actually hearing personal stories are and thought about using the voice memo function on my iPhone to record personal stories.  That got me thinking that it'd be cool to visit with my dad and my aunties and uncles and record their stories about growing up with my grandparents (who I never knew because they passed when I was a baby) using my iPhone.  It could be a way of getting to know the grandparents I never knew and capturing some of the knowledge and wisdom they had and passed on to their children.

Then I thought would also be cool to just get stories from my dad about his life; anything and everything he's willing to share.  That lead me to the idea that it would be good for me to get my story recorded for my girls so that they can learn about me and know me in new and important ways to better understand who I am and how I got to where I am today.  So, needless to say, I started recording my stories on the way home from class using my iPhone.  I have since made 2 recordings (the first was nearly an hour long, the second 20 minutes).  I will continue to record my stories and then find a way to download them into a file where I can put them together, do a bit of editing (if need be) and save copies for each of my girls.  I am looking for any suggestions for good/ free or inexpensive audio programs I could do this in.

I can't say that I'll post these stories on my blog because they are so personal, but I'd be happy to sit down with anyone in our cohort for the opportunity to continue to share our life stories.