Do you have old videotapes lying around?
Memories don’t belong in a box.
These cute little DV tapes are full of memories… your wedding day, the birth of your first baby, your child’s first birthday, your favorite family vacation to Disney. So many BIG things on such a small tape. The problem is, they are stuck on those tapes. And what’s the point of having these magical moments on tape if you can’t do anything with them? Continue reading LifeFlix: Memories Recovered
I met my Grandma shortly after I was born. I was actually lucky enough to have meet all my grandparents hours after I was born. I was fortunate that all 4 of my grandparents were heavily involved in my life and I got to know all of them quite closely. I lost both my grandfathers when I was 15 and then I lost one of my grandmas a few years later. I consider myself blessed to have spent time with all of them hours before they passed.
My final grandma lived much longer. My last remaining grandparent quietly passed away in the early morning hours yesterday. Our 35 year relationship finally came to an end. As I think back, I realize she impacted me in a lot of ways.
Every summer, my sister and I would stay with her and my granddaddy while my parents worked. Monday through Friday my parents would drop us off on their way into work and pick us up on the way home. She would take my sister and I to the library to get books for the week. She was an avid reader and loved mysteries. Her love of mysteries rubbed off on me. She loved Indiana Jones and Rambo. We watched those VHS tapes so much I’m surprised they didn’t break. To this day the Indiana Jones franchise is easily my favorite movies. I believe Rambo is my sisters.
They had a pool and we loved to go swimming everyday. She taught us how to dive and how to jump into the pool without holding our noses. We would regularly take walks around their neighborhood and she instilled in us to stay on the sidewalk so we didn’t accidentally step in dog poop. To this day I make sure to stay on sidewalks. I could talk for days about the silly little things that make me think about her. She would always remind me to brush my tongue.
Growing up she wasn’t big on saying “I love you” instead she would always say “Be sweet.” That was her way of saying “Bye, I love you” and we all knew it. That was her thing. Be sweet. It became a thing to say in our family as part of goodbye. Recently as she was battling cancer she traded “be sweet” for “I love you.”
As her health and mobility has deteriorated in recent years she hasn’t been able to get around and be quite as involved in my life but she has always remained a huge influence and I imagine she will continue to be. I’m sad she won’t get to meet her 6th great-grandchild but I’m thankful she got to know her other 5.
All those summers I spent with her have left a lifetime influence on me. As December 20, 2015 came and went without much notice to most people, it’s a day I will never forget.
Be sweet Grandma, tell Granddaddy hello for me.
The written word can be very powerful. It can be a great way to express love, record memories and give advice. Many parents have started journals or scrapbooks for their children and many others have started blogs. I have recently come across another way to preserve messages you want to pass on to loved ones.
Letters From Me is a service that allows you to store messages and pictures to be viewed at a later time. Letters From Me was started by a dad who was writing letters to his daughters so that they could read them in the future. He was saving them in an e-mail account but then one day the e-mails were lost. He set out to create a better way to save messages for them. The result was Letters From Me. You can read more about his story here.
You can write letters to be read after you have died, or on a special day for the recipient such as graduation, a birthday or a wedding day. There are two way to get messages into your account. You can go to a their webpage and select the tab “Send a Letter” or you can send an e-mail to the address of your account.
This has so many different applications. A spouse could write letters to their significant other and leave the login information in their safety deposit box to be read after passing. A parent could open an account for their child and give the e-mail address to all their family members and they could send letters into the account to be read when the child graduates high school. You could just keep a journal for yourself.
The best part is the service is only $9.99 for life. Without getting too technical, they currently have enough funds locked into escrow accounts that will keep the servers running for 10 years if they never make another sale. So you can rest easy about your data staying put for a long time.
I actually just lied, the best part is they are giving away 5 accounts to 5 of my lucky readers. Enter below, it would even make a great gift to any new parent.
Good luck everyone. It because you keep clicking and voting for me as a Top Dad Blogger that I am able to bring you contests like this one. So keep voting and maybe one day I can give away a car. Hey, it’s my blog, I’ll dream big if I want to! Thanks for reading have a great rest of your week.
In case you hadn’t guessed, this post was sponsored by Letters From Me.
