I am participating in the Genealympics (see previous posts for my activities). I’ve been looking over the list of tasks at AnceStories and I am confounded. It appears I have forgotten about all sorts of ways we geneabloggers network and interact online.
My problems started in 2009 when my elderly dog was going downhill. She died in July of 2009 at the age of 14. Then, a family member gave me a puppy. I went from a slow, elderly dog needing my help to a hyper helpless puppy needing my help.
Life didn’t really settle down from there. My Dad’s was having problems with his COPD. By January of 2010 his health was slowly going declining. From January to May, he had been hospitalized 4 times. The last time, he did not come home.
Though I continued with genealogy when I had the brain power, I had to settle bills, prepare for moving, and then, dealwith the grief. This took up most of my energy. I blogged when I felt like it, but for the most part I didn’t feel like.
The first year after his death was hard, but it got progressively easier the second year. I began blogging again. But, for some reason, I felt a disconnection with the genealogy community. I still kept up with many of my genealogy friends, but it seemed that I used to participate more in the genealogy games and memes, only I couldn’t remember what they were or where to find them. I hadn’t been keeping up with blog posts, so I was out of the loop.
Well, tonight after I went over the list at AnceStories to see what tasks I needed to do, it hit me. I had forgotten about many things. For instance, genealogy carnivals…it’s probably been two years since I’ve looked any up and tried to submit an entry. Then, there are Networked Blogs on Facebook. I don’t think I’ve looked at my profile in two years. And, what do you know. They’ve completely changed the format. Everything seems to have slipped my mind!
I’m really glad that I decided to do this challenge because I’ve been feeling out of sorts as a blogger. I think it may just be the thing that I need to get back on track.
I’m trying to get back into the swing of things. To start with I’ve gone through my Google Reader and visited every single blog this weekend. Some of them aren’t active anymore, so this is a good way to weed those out, and maybe look for some new ones to read.
Then, I added some new blogs to my networked blog list at Facebook. This was one of the tasks I needed to complete, so that gives me a check mark 😀
Tomorrow, I’ll be off to see if I can remember where the genealogy carnivals are.
Talk about feeling like I’ve had memory loss! Grief can play on you that way. Thank goodness for these challenges or I may not have thought of many of these things ever again.
Enjoying your new posts, welcome back, and you can relearn and rediscover what you forgot, been there, done that!
Thanks Carol! It is amazing how life gets in the way, so much so that you begin loose track of where you are. I’m looking back to getting into the blogger challenges.