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Update 7: Reporting, Documenting or Sharing?

I am getting used to the 3 posts weekly (2 in FamMijangos.com and 1 here), yet every time I sit down to write I struggle with the voice of what I am writing about.

Pirate School PostTake for instance this post on an outing with my daughter.  It was an event put on by the city.  I look at my images and start narrating what happened; and then I think: “Am I a reporter?”  Since I don’t think I want to be a reporter, I change my voice, now I’m recording history!  Isn’t that what I want that blog to be, a family history?  But I struggle with that voice too, because even though I want to open that window to the public, I also owe the readers a window to my thoughts and feelings.

Now I’m talking about feelings, being a dad and seeing my daughter have fun; happiness, fun and youth slipping away. I don’t want the blog to be too sappy, too much introspection; it is not my journal, but close to it.  I don’t want to pour all my heart, I think there are things that are personal and I do write those in my journal (although often enough).

I guess we need a bit of everything, enough context to understand the feelings, and enough feelings for things to matter.

So those are my struggles when I write, the lens or lenses that I think about as I write those posts.  I do report a bit, sometimes the opening paragraph, sometimes I document (trips, restaurant, adventures) and sometimes I just share my thoughts and feelings.  I guess we need a bit of everything, enough context to understand the feelings, and enough feelings for things to matter.

365 Photo Challenge

I’m still going, almost a month and a half! The last photo this week was #43, so 43 days of opening my camera for this purpose.  As you can see, not everyone is great, but I’m learning, and thinking about what I want to photograph.  Hopefully by the time the baby comes, I’ll be a lot better.

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Update 6: Use of Video

MeEncantaVerTemploNikiHawianaThis week, not really planning for it, my posts on FamMijangos.com where primarily videos. I haven’t been very successful with videos, first I don’t have a good recording device and second, I’m always in terrible lighting conditions. This week one of the videos also had poor sound, so I know I am beyond help.

In spite of all these conditions, the posts did pretty well. It helps that both feature a cute 4 year old, singing and dancing. It’s just so weird for me to post bad material, and people like them. I guess is goes back to having a meaningful message, and people can forgive the medium.

Readers are not expecting professional videos, with perfect lighting and high resolution. They are content with me allowing, an otherwise closed, door into our family. In 20 years, it won’t matter to my children that the quality was bad, but rather that it is available.

I am learning to forgive myself more, I shouldn’t expect perfect material, it should be the best I can; but not to limit my output due to quality. The value is in opening those doors, hopefully by doing so I will get better.

Again, my objective is for FamMijangos.com to be a record of our family’s history, the most important part is not perfect quality, but continuity. So I will continue to work on my imperfection, someday I’ll produce better videos, for now readers will have to bear with me.

365 Photo Challenge

So I completed the first month, 31 days of picking up a camera and shooting. Here is January, and the 7 pictures for this week (Friday Jan 29 – Thursday Feb 5).

January2015

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Update 5: On Good Times and Bad Times

This week I published the post “Un procedimiento impresionante“(An Impressive Procedure), which tells our experience with TAC (Trans-Abdominal Cerclage), where the uterus, with a baby inside, is taken out and the upper part of the cervix stitched to prevent the baby coming early.

I debated whether we should publish that or not, was it TMI or was it just reality.  Looking at FamMijangos.com you would think that our family is always happy, no trial, just fun times.  I don’t want that, I also don’t want to be a pity party, but I want to maintain that balance.

I saw this week a post on 71toes.com, and the author also struggled with that reality.  She even has a page (keeping it real) with a list of post of examples of not so happy times.  So I do see that others are struggling with these types of decisions.

I do think that there are things that you shouldn’t share to the public, but I do want to have a balanced output of our family dynamics.  What do you think it’s the right balance?

And here are the pictures of the week:

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Update 4: On Kaizen and The Collect App

Back on the saddle again, posted 2 posts this weeks on FamMijangos.com.  It feels good to stay on course, I also noticed that I was faster at editing images and writing, I was surprised that I wrote almost 500 words in an hour.

So going back to my original post on Kaizen, this is exactly what I wanted. I wanted to improve, and the only way is by practicing.  I want to share our family adventures, and I want to do it well, and I guess I want to write it faster too.

Another thing that I found this week was The Collect App, several websites said that the App was a great help when doing the 365 Photo Challenges.  It has been a great motivator to see my images, one by one start filling up my calendar (I’ll share the calendar at the end).

Another thing that happended yesterday, with regards to this Challenge was that it was around 9pm.  I had forgoten to take a picture and just didn’t feel like it.  But I didn’t want to break the stretch, so I just put my phone and took a picture infront of the mirror.  It was so simple, yet it boosted my confidence that I can do this challenge, even if I only take dumb pictures like that.  So today I’m happy, and see th images bellow.

365 Photo Challenge

Calendar using Collect
Calendar using Collect
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Update 3: Creating vs Recording

I’ve been in training all week, plus my wife underwent a surgical procedure over the week end. So in short, I didn’t meet my goal for this week for publishing material on Monday or Wednesday on FamMijangos.com. I don’t know if it’s sad that I broke my stride so early in the year, I don’t really feel sad.

I do wish I had more time to work on this project; but I realize that the primary goal of FamMijangos.com is to document our family adventures. Focusing on documenting, missed the point of having adventures. Having to choose between spending time with the family, and documenting our time together; spending time will always win. I rather have my family remember my participation, rather than a memory of me editing last year’s pictures.

Have other bloggers experienced this paradigm? How have you dealt with it?

365 Photo Challenge

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Weekly update #2

So this is the second week of doing both the 356 Photo Challenge and sticking to a posting routine on FamMijangos.com.  It feels like I’m constanly having to think that I need to write more, edit pictures, playing catchup.  At the same time, when I look at what I’m able to accomplish, I’m amazed that I’m able to do all this.

This process has also allowed me to see where I need to grow: better pictures, better stories, writing faster, editing faster.  Every week is a sprint, I’m only able to stay ahead maybe a day or two.

I’m only posting on Mondays and Wednesday, sometimes I will post on Fridays, but only if I can (which is going to be hard).  I am also doing a #TBT where I’ll post something on Facebook from a few years back.

Here are my images from the last week (there are 5 this week, because I haven’t taken one today.

365 Photo Challenge

Jan 04 – Jan 08

 

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Year 2015 :: Blogging Kaizen

I keep struggling with what to make of this blog, I know I want it to be my personal space.  Where I come to think about what I do and where I improve. Over the break I feel that I want to improve in several aspects of blogging.  I have seen an steady increase in views to my primary site: fammijangos.com

The year 2014, was the biggest year since I launched the site in 2012 with 2,261 views, and December the best month of all time with 600+ views.  And it’s not like I want to become a blogger, but I do want to improve what I do, and how I do it.

The primary purpose of FamMijangos.com is to document our family’s history, a documentary of our familiy’s everyday life.  Views do not mean higher meaning, but rather it says that I have become better at telling our story.  I want to be a better writer, a story teller.  If I ever have any chance of future generations of reading this story, then I have to tell a compelling story, both with words and images.

For this reason I’m calling 2015 the year of Blogging Kaizen, kaizen meaning continous improvement.  I want to refine both my writen skills as well as my photography.  So here is how intend to improve:

Writing

  • Post 2 times per week on FamMijangos.com (Monday and Wednesday)
  • Post on this blog every week (Friday), this blog is my meta blog about blogging 🙂
  • Goodreads challenge: 24 books.  My goal is always to read more, I want to finally meet my goal of 24 books in the year.

Photography

  • #365PhotoChallenge I will take 1 picture everyday and post them on my weekly update
  • The Art of Photography vlog, I’ve been watching the AOP Video Blog, it is such a different thing for me, and I’m learning a lot.
  • Continue reading Click it up a Notch Blog, I find it also a cool place for tips.
  • I hope to buy a DSLR for Christmas 2015, wow big step.

So this is my week 1 update (Jan 01 – Jan 03) and here are my images:

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Mind your Mobile Readers

As I look at the viewers of the family blog, I can see that more and more people are consuming the content from mobile platforms. From the report I pulled up from Google Analytics you can see that the total Desktop readers fell from 71% to 57%; most of them are now replaced by mobile users, both tablets but mainly phones.

google analyticas desktop mobileI do all my blogging from my PC, so I consume, and see my posts from a desktop perspective.  Have you checked how your website looks from a phone?

If you come to your site and it looks terrible, fix it!  The easiest way is to use a theme that recognizes your screen, not only if you are using a mobile platform, this way people will always have the best experience depending on the devices they are using.

 

 

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Backing up in WordPress

So I have been doing this blog for now 2 years, wow time flies, and I have been doing regular backups, and all of them manually.  So I open up my host’s cpanel and downloaded the database backups, then I would go to the each site’s wp-admin and created an xml file.  Sometimes I would also do a backup of the child-themes I’m using.  I have gotten quite fast at it even, probably 15 minutes max, if the connection is fast.

A few days back I started to think, there has to be a better way.  I saw several options, but were paid.  I really didn’t want to pay another $5/month for something that I could do for 15min every week; then I saw an article on wpbegginer.com – How to Create a Complete WordPress Backup for Free with BackWPup So today, I gave it a go  I tried it with the smallest installation I had, 10 minutes later I had configured and ran the backup.  I moved to the other sites, and I had it.  So try out BackWPup.

I backup the database, the child-theme & the xml export, every week to my Dropbox; just like I did before, but now I don’t spend 15 minutes everyweek, plus it always happens.  I just get an email telling me that it went through.  I wasted 26 hours doing this for the past 2 years, in 15 minutes I’m set for the future.

 

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Playing Catch up

Our family went to Guatemala in September, we spent about a month out there with our family, it was a great trip.  Now I’m trying to play catch up and preserve our adventure in our family blog.  It almost feels like a part-time job; editing pictures, laying the format and flow, and then writing the post.

Each post I try to limit to about 300 words, but it seems like I can’t put everything in such a limited word count.  For most I’m close to 1,000 words, and the last one was 1,200 words.  And it’s not that I sit down to write so much, is just that I want to convey the feeling and preserve the memories.

I’m very grateful that I have the medium to remember what we did and share it with others.  I still get excited about doing it, and I like it so it is not a burden, I just look back and I’m amazed.  I really hope that someone finds as much value to what I’m doing, but if not I am fine with just how rewarding it is to remember.

I started with the desire to write 15 posts of our adventures in Guatemala, it looks more that I’m going to write 11, and I just have 3 more posts to write; meanwhile I’m behind on the things we are doing, so it’s a catch up game.  Hopefully I’ll have some quiet time to finish, yeah right ::SIGH::