Inaugural Post - let's see if there's interest in a family blog

Marybeth had the fun idea of sharing photos taken on the same day from wherever we live ... and possibly even turning this into a seasonal (or more regular) thing we could do as a family. I'm all for more connections. Emailing dozens of photos might be a problem for some of our family members who have slow internet connections or can't accept large file sizes. If we make the photos small enough to email easily, the quality of the photos suffers.

I love the idea of starting on Ground Hog Day. on Feb. 2nd
I'm wondering if this might be a good time to start a family blog. Some of you already know what a blog is (you may even have visited my blog, Raven's Nest and not left comments (hint hint -- I like comments)

Others of you may have never heard of a blog -- you may even think "blog" is something gross, or alien or at least -- it's probably not wholesome.

So, what the heck is a blog and why is it called a blog? Go here to find out.

On the contrary, blogs can be fun and educational and can promote the kind of back-and-forth comraderie our family naturally has. (just for the record, blogs can also be gross, but we won't go there)

With a family blog, we can all be "members" of the blog, thereby allowing us all to post photos ourselves or write blog entries (which can be as short as a caption or title for the photos ... to a long treatise about whatever ...) if you wish to do so. Even if you don't want to ever write anything on our family blog, you will be able to view the photos easily with a simple internet connection, you will be able to download the photos from the blog (if you want to) onto your own hard drive. And you would be able to leave comments about any or all photos on the blog -- comments other people in our family could read and respond to.

Here is the photo that started this discussion. Thanks to Mom for the photo and thanks to Marybeth for her idea of "A Day in the LIfe."




You do not have to be a blog member in order to view and save the photos or comment. But all you have to do to be a member is make up a username and password and sign up after I send you an invitation to join. If you want to join and you haven't received an invite (because I'm going just a few at a time) please email me (Maureen) and I'll do it pronto!

If you don't know how or don't want to bother posting (uploading) your own photos to our family blog, you can send the photos by email to me (I'm volunteering cuz I'm used to this, but someone else might want to do that in the future) and I would be happy to put your photos on the blog for you. I have a super fast connection and can easily get large file sizes by email attachment.

This blog setup is just an example. We could also decide use a different blog-host, but this one is the easiest to use. It literally took me only 5 minutes to create this new blog and make the template for it.

Oh, one last thing: if anyone is concerned about privacy online, we can deal with that. For one thing I have not listed this blog publically -- you'd have to know about it to find it. And secondly, don't put up photos you wouldn't want anyone in your town to see. Personally, since any of my photos are viewable to anyone and I just try to keep that in mind when I decide what photos to share.

If you're interested in seeing how another blog works, please check out my personal blog here. Leave me a comment if you visit so I know you've been there and what you think (please...)

-- Maureen (aka RavenGrrl)

Some of the Shaughnessy Clan at one of our reunions, this one at Peter and Roma's.