Roadtrip, Days 5 and 6

Here's a question for anyone living in the Chicago area... "How do you afford it?" Seriously?! $16.00 to park the car for an hour and twenty minutes. If that doesn't lighten your wallet, try tossing all of your change to the toll booth as you zip back and forth across town.

Today was our Chicago day. Definitely not as easy a city to navigate as Salt Lake City. We finally found parking (at said outrageous prices) and got our bearings. We thought the kids would enjoy the Navy Pier. Within a few minutes of arriving, the rain came. (That's four out of six vacation days with significant rain!) Tried to stay dry by ducking into some of the overpriced tourist attractions but after $40.00 for ten minutes of the Fun House Maze we decided to outrun the raindrops back to the overpriced parking.

Couldn't leave Chicago without the memory of Chicago style pizza. Lou Malnati's came up on our Google search for best city pizza. Oh man, were they right!

If the high prices don't break you, trying sitting in Chicago traffic for a couple of hours. It took us 60 minutes just to go 15 miles. This time the kids got to feel my pain as there were no trees available for 'watering' when the call of nature came.

We are now headed for a day of memories in my old stomping ground of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Kids are rolling their eyes. Guess they're tired of hearing me relive my yesteryears. Can't wait to see if anything lives up to my sixteen year old memories.

Road Trip, Days 3-4

Lessons learned in the last four days...

Lesson 1: Days go by even faster when you are relaxed and enjoying them. We were sure that eight vacation days would give us plenty of time to see the sights... we're running fast and hard, and skipping half of our to-do list.

Lesson 2: Don't assume that because it's a popular national historic site that it will stay open late. We took a two-hour detour just to see Abraham Lincoln's hometown of Springfield. We arrived just as the park was closing.

Lesson 3: Don't trust 'Never Lost' GPS services to never get lost. Have back-up paper maps!

Lesson 4: Kids that are loud and obnoxious at home are going to be even louder and more obnoxious on vacation.

Lesson 5: Put _____ (fill in the blank with any of our kids) in a padded room and he'll still find a way to get hurt.

Every once in a while we like to poll the family to determine individual preferences. Here's the current list of vacation favorites:

Trent - Nauvoo Pageant (it really was spectacular!)
Davis - Coach House Restaurant (loved the candlelight dinner...and the shrimp!)
Kevin - Nauvoo Temple (made three visits)
Lauri - Land and Records Office (found the records for several ancestors' properties in the Nauvoo area)
Colton - No specific site or activity. His favorite memory is the number of times his mother swore over the course of the vacation. Sad, but true... remember lesson 4? That's my only defense.

Gratefully, most of the memories are happy, and the rest of them are the stories that we'll enjoy telling for years to come!

Food for Thought

This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned by the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it’s the family stories that are worth the storage. ~ Ellen Goodman (1948 - )

Memory Monday

Here's a fun idea that has made the rounds through different blog sites. It's EASY, so of course, we had to share it!

This interview can be done with a son or daughter, grandchild, nephew or niece or any little friend. Be sure to record the answers and the interview date. Throw in a picture (or two) of the two of you and you have another priceless memory preserved!

**So you know... the sites where we found this idea posted had the cute comments of family members for each question. My boys just aren't at the cute stage... we think 'surly' is a better description. We don't want to taint your perception of the activity, so we'll leave our kids comments out!

What does mama (or nana, papa...) always say to you?**

What makes mama happy?**

What makes mama sad?**

How does mama make you laugh?**

What was mama like when she was little?**

How old is mama?**

How tall is mama?**

What does mama like to do?**

What is something mama doesn't like to do?**

What does mama do for a job?**

What is mama's favorite food?**

What is mama's favorite color?**

What do mama and (child's name) like to do together?**

How do you know mama loves you?**

Road Trip, Days 1-2

We're on the road and makin' memories. The two hour plane trip was palatable; no delays, no screaming babies, no lost luggage. The kids seemed a little surprised that we didn't spring for a Hummer, but they willingly crammed into our midsized rental for a whirlwind tour through the mid-western states of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Wisconsin.

We've hit most of the local sights. Some were more interesting than others. We couldn't believe that the kids were more interested in the local wildlife (mainly frogs, hundreds of them) than the history of the area. OK, maybe we could believe that. We have learned why it's important not to drink large amounts of liquid beverage when traveling through unfamiliar territory. Especially, areas lacking the convenience of fast food pit stops, or even old, decrepit gas stations. (Not so important a lesson for boys who are willing to pee anywhere as it was for their mother with standards to uphold!) The landscape is amazingly different from our desert scenery. Tonight we learned why everything is so green. Twice we were detoured off the freeway due to local flooding. Not a worry. We're equipped with GPS and old-fashioned paper maps. We became pretty handy at negotiating the country back roads. About two hours from the day's final destination, the sky turned ominous and the radio warned us of impending hail and high winds. The Weather Channel indicated that we should take shelter immediately. We quickly calculated that we might make the next big town...if we hurried. We had already missed lunch and didn't want to miss dinner, so we hightailed it to the Coach House Restaurant in Quincy as the raindrops fell in earnest. Just as our dinner was served, the storm hit in all its furry. The storm was everything predicted, and then some. Emergency vehicles wailed outside. The winds howled and the rain pounded all around us. The lightening was intense and caused all of us to jump on more than one occasion. Within a few minutes the power was cut off and we spent the next 40 minutes enjoying our delicious dinner by candlelight. Once it was deemed safe, we headed back out in the storm to complete the day's journey. Hopefully, the rest of the trip will be less adventurous!

Here's a fun game that we called "And Then There was One." As we traveled down dirt roads, dozens of grasshoppers jumped onto the car for the ride of their lives. We cheered loudly as they were able to hang on. We cheered even louder as they lost their grip, one by one! Cheap and easy entertainment, who doesn't love that?!

Road Trip!

Why is it so much work to go on vacation? I get tired just thinking about everything that still needs to get done just so I can cram into a hot, stinky (I have ALL boys) car and spend the next seven days pacifying, entertaining and even threatening the kids into getting along. It's not so different from the road trips of my youth. We had a green station wagon, I think we called it "The Jolly Green Giant". Seat belts were optional, and we spent most of the trip flipping back and forth between seats. Pit stops were always minimal. Mom dutifully doled out boiled eggs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the fruit of the day. We played a lot of car games like "I Spy" and "State Plates". CB's were big back then and we loved to strike up conversations with anyone willing. My 'handle' was Chatterbox. Need I say more?

I imagine that my mom worked every bit as hard to get us out the door, harder given the fact that we ate our meals in the car and camped along the way. Things are looking pretty blurry right now, but I plan to come back with a thousand new family memories (most of them happy) that we'll be talking about for years to come!

Canvas Family Tree

Poking around on the web uncovered this beautiful family tree. It really doesn't seem too complicated and the end result produces a great visual of family names connected through the branches of the tree. The contributor is obviously a talented artist, but I think it would be equally eye-catching to let your kids design the background and add the leaves to their masterpiece!

Discussion Topics

Stories by Me began as a desire to help people find meaningful ways to preserve family stories. We recognize the importance of preserving history. We also appreciated the magnitude of living! The whole reason for creating this blog spot is to provide a place where you can go for inspiration to preserve your family stories. There are as many ways to tell a story as there are stories to tell. We'll share ideas that we've collected along our journey. We hope that you'll participate and tell us what you're doing to document history. Tell us what works...what doesn't. Let's learn together!

We thought it would help to introduce a different theme at the beginning of every month to get discussions flowing. Feel free to contact us regarding a topic that you would like discussed. Here are our topic ideas for next several month's:

August: Family History Summer Fun for Kids

September: Preserving Photographs

October: Gift-giving Stories

We hope this gets your creative juices flowing! Be sure to check back in early August and participate in the discussion.

Harvey Cox said it perfectly:All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by.

Let's start sharing our stories!

Food for Thought

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside the dullest exterior, there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.

~Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)

Reducing Picture Size

Have you come across this message using our Photo Wizard? Currently, our software works best with photo files that are smaller than 500 KB. You can load a larger file, but if you try to load anything over 900 KB you'll probably get this message. Our programmer tells us this road block has to do with internet connections and server size. Be assured that we are working on it! We want our Photo Wizard to be 100% user friendly. Here are some helpful hints that will let you resize your picture files so they will easily load into the Photo Wizard. If you get stuck, drop us a note at wizard@storiesbyme.com. You can even email your photos to us and we will resize them for your project.

The first step is to go to our Photo Wizard. Visit storiesbyme.com and look for the Photo Wizard (center of the menu bar). Click on it to bring up the Photo Wizard page. Be sure to read Step 1 Gather Pictures. Some photos just format easier than others for these projects and we want you to be pleased with the end results!

So, how do you know if your pictures fit the size requirements? You can try to load them into the Photo Wizard and see if you get the message. You can also open your directory and check the file size. Most programs will display a pop-up window with file data if you place your cursor over the file name. At 1.68 MB, this picture file is too big for the Photo Wizard.

We'll discuss two easy options for reducing picture size. If you have Photo Shop, Elements or another photo editing software, read option one. If you're not sure what is available on your computer, option two uses a free on-line photo editing utiliity.

Option1: Photo Editing Software

Open your picture in the editing software. Look for the command "Image Size," "Resize," or

"Resample."

This picture's digital file was created using a scanner and was scanned at 400 dpi (dots per inch). At its current resolution, I could easily print a large copy and be happy with the resulting image. Stories by Me products do not require high resolution images for great results! A memory candle picture is smaller than four inches and our memory block puzzle measures about a six inch square. The current size of the picture measures about 6.4 by 4.6 inches. We could reduce the measurement, but if we just tweak the resolution (dpi) we should have a file that can easily be passed back and forth across the internet. For this example, we changed the resolution from 400 dpi to 200. BE CAREFUL to save your changes using the SAVE AS file option! Otherwise, you will write over your original file and lose the high resolution data. We usually scan important pictures in TIFF format. We then scan (or convert) a second copy as a JPEG (a much more manageable file size and internet friendly). The original gets stored in a secure location. We won't touch it again unless we need to make a new copy of it. By making this one change, we were able to reduce a 1.68 MB file down to 296 KB.

Option2: On-line Photo Editing

To use the easy three step, on-line option, go to www.resize2mail.com. Use the browse option to find the picture that needs resizing. Our software will let you crop your picture so use the third option listed in step 2. We typically use 50% reduction unless we have a REALLY big file. You can also rotate your picture if it happens to be on its side. Press the OK button and let the software do its thing. Be patient! Depending on the size of your file, your internet connection and traffic on the world-wide web, it might a minute or two.

Confirm that the final file size falls into an acceptable range (we recommend something that is at least 100 KB, but not over 800 KB.) Be sure to use the SAVE AS option (see Option 1 above) when you save your new picture file.

Now you are ready to load your picture file into our Photo Wizard. Wait until you see how easy it is to format your pictures for the Stories by Me projects! Be sure to check back. We'll give you other helpful hints for using the software and let you know about new features that are coming!

When Life Gets You Down

I became familiar with the story of John August Peterson in recent years. I cannot claim to be a direct descendant of John's. I was lucky to marry into the family. My children, however, can claim this heritage and appreciate the family traits that fill their veins. No matter your ancestry, this is a story of hope and courage, and it can be appreciated by all.

My husband's family comes from early Mormon stock. For those unfamiliar with the term, this refers to the early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) also categorized as pioneers. The Peterson family joined the newly organized church in 1852. They were living on the Danish island of Bornholm at the time. Persecution was great for those of the LDS faith and the family's only desire was to go to America to be with the Saints in Zion. They sold their farm and home, but didn't have enough money to take the entire family. Fifteen-year-old Carl was left behind. It would take six more years to earn his fare and reunite the family. John August was the oldest living Peterson son. He had a wife and new baby. Altogether, seven family members made the voyage. The family records indicate a rough, but manageable ocean passage. It was after they had made their way to Wyoming and loaded the wagons that their dreams began to unravel.

Most of the family immediately became ill with mountain fever. The wagons started out in early August. Within a week the baby had died. The grave was dug and having no coffin, the women in the party filled the hole with a thick layer of wild flowers so John would have a cushion on which to rest his infant. The next day, John's wife died. John's mother and one of his sisters continued to suffer the effects of the climate change and laborious travel. Winter came early and added to their misery. Just as they family made their way down Immigration Canyon in the Salt Lake Valley, sister, Sophia died. A grave was dug in the snow near what is now the state monument "This is the Place." Another woman died during breakfast, so the grave was made wider and the women were buried side by side.

Whenever I think life is hard, I think of John August Peterson and all that he endured. Suddenly, my problems seem pretty minuscule. John never gave up. He made a new life in the Salt Lake valley. He married a wonderful woman by the name of Metta and together they had eight children, one of which is my husband's great-grandfather.

July 24th is a big holiday in the state of Utah. We always look forward to the celebrations and try to spend a little time reflecting on what got us to this point of our lives. It was one hundred and sixty-one years ago that the first Mormon pioneers courageously looked around and and decided to call the barren desert home. Familiar with Salt Lake City? Not so barren anymore! The moral of their stories? With courage, tenacity and faith, you can do anything. Scratch that, we can do anything!

"This great pioneering movement of more than a century ago goes forward with latter-day pioneers. Today pioneer blood flows in our veins just as it did with those who walked west. It's the essence of our courage to face modern-day mountains and our commitment to carry on. " ~Gordon B. Hinckley (read full article here.)

Inquiring Minds on Photo Scans

I received a phone call from a friend with a question about photo preservation. She has several thumbnail-sized pictures of ancestors. In some cases, it is the only picture that they have of the individual and she wants to make sure that they preserve these images in the best way possible. All of us can relate. Who doesn't have teeny-tiny pictures in our collection of family faces? Some of our photographs have been cut into oval shapes and dutifully pasted into genealogy records by those doing the best they could with the technology of their day.

So, given the wonderful technology of the 21st century, what is the best method for digitally preserving these pictures? We usually recommend scanning pictures at 300 dpi. This will create a file that is more than adequate for regular viewing and in most cases will let you enlarge the picture without sacrificing resolution. We know that the .tiff format offers a higher quality image as it is uncompressed, but it comes at the price of big (sometimes enormous) file size! Here is Brenda's question in a nutshell: Is it better to scan these little pictures at a high resolution, say 600 or even 1200 dpi, and save them in .jpg format, or will scanning them at a lower resolution in .tif format improve their resolution?

We did a quick experiment on Great-grandma Ellen. Thanks for helping, Grandma! This picture only measures .75 inches x 1.0 inch. To add to the dilemma, the image happens to be a copy of a long-lost original. We scanned the picture at 300 and 600 dpi (dots per inch) in both jpg and tiff formats. The file sizes ranged from 59 KB to just over 1MB.

300 dpi jpg = 59 KB
300 dpi tiff = 252 KB
600 dpi jpg = 241 KB
600 dpi tiff = 1.07 MB

There is virtually no visual difference in the resolution of any of our pictures. The print size of the 600 dpi is more than double that of the 300 dpi scans, but the smaller files enlarged easily and there is no noticeable difference in resolution when they are printed. Does this mean that we'll be happy with the outcome of pictures scanned at 300 dpi?

Please share any information you have on the best method for preserving small photographs. Inquiring minds want to know!

Every Child is a Story Yet to be Told

***If you're just checking out our blog for the first time - go take a look at our FREE GIVEAWAY!!***


This photo collection has proudly claimed prime wall space for the last decade and a half, even though we have moved four times! The pictures document our family faces at approximately the same age. It's easy to see the similarities with those sweet baby faces staring at you!

Everyone can be a fabulous decorator using vinyl lettering! We found this great saying from DCWV Home. It's part of their baby collection. We bought ours at Robert's Crafts where there were oodles and oodles of sayings in a variety of vinyl colors. Of course, we LOVE this sentiment as we have made it our life's mission to look for ways to preserve these stories!

Together We Can Do So Much!

I don't know about you, but as we slide into the bottom half of July, the schedule gets a little relaxed, the morning wake-up calls come a bit late, and the house falls into disarray. (Who are we kidding? It hits rock bottom on the cleanliness scale!)

We need an escape to the beach! As a true-blue Southern CA girl, I miss my roots. I tried to take the kids to the Great Salt Lake once. We spent less than 10 minutes floating amid billions of shrimp flies...I kid you not. It took hours to rid the muck between the toes and the smell...oh the smell defies description. Gratefully, we can now laugh at the memory!

We don't see any beach time in the foreseeable future. Who can afford 1000 mile road trips on $4.50 a-gallon gas? (Especially if you're stuck driving a 12-mile a gallon guzzler!) This favorite beach scene conjures feelings of how summer should be spent. Who wouldn't go for a couple of uninterrupted hours of fun in the sun, accompanied by a great friend, and (not to be missed) being the epitome of high fashion! We'll hang on to the old memories and live vicariously through the stories of others!

Love the picture? Look for it on our vintage tins!

It's About Time!

We are finally ready to unveil our Memory Tree Magnet Boards. They have been a long time coming! We are so excited about this new product and can't wait to share it with everyone.

Pick your favorite pattern (we offer several) and start hunting for family pictures! We provide enough materials for you to display 3 or 4 generations. Two sizes are available: 12x12" magnet boards for a powerful family representation and a portable 8x8" version for families on the go.

Personalize the magnets with your family faces and create a dynamic memory of your heritage! It's a great way to learn your family lineage, or an equally fun way to mix things up.

Our Memory Tree Kits aren't online just yet, so if you are interested, please email us at sales@storiesbyme.com.

Here's our 12x12 patterns. Clockwise: Steel Swirl, Gray Diamond, Peach Dot and Green Leaf. 8x8 versions are available in Peach Dot or Green Leaf. Douple click on the picture if you want to see a bigger version.

Food for Thought

We all know that books burn—yet we have the greater knowledge that books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and force can abolish memory. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt. (1882 – 1945)

Vintage Tins

The creative juices are flowing and here's another fun way to get those 'need-to-be-seen' photographs out of the books and boxes and in front of our faces!

We've taken an 8x8 inch magnet board, added a vintage photo as a background, distressed the edges because we LOVE everything OLD and thrown in a couple of magnets (different magnet options based on the package). You can use them to post messages, photos or just as great wall art.

Print a birth announcement or wedding invitation on to vellum paper and create a personalized magnet of the featured individual(s). Talk about a much appreciated gift!

We've created more than a dozen designs featuring vintage photographs and other great art work. They are only in a few stores right now, but we're working on making them easy to get. We'll also offer them on our website in the near future. (Somehow, there is always more work than time in a day!) If you can't wait to see the different options, go ahead an drop us a line at sales@storiesbyme.com. We can send you a .pdf of what's available. Suggested retail for the tins is $16.00. Shipping will cost a few bucks more.

If you live in the Salt Lake area, consider having a Block Party! We love sharing our ideas and there's no better way help people see how easy it is to preserve family stories than by attending one of our classes. We'll help your group (12 or more) complete one of our projects. We even offer discount pricing to the group to sweeten the deal! Contact us right away because dates are filling quickly!

Family Links

Here's a WOW statement: mother and daughter links through six generations. This version was custom-cut on beautiful linen (archival-quality, of course) mat board. The inner core is a dark brown color which complements the sepia tones in the photographs. What makes the project extra special is the personal sentiment included for each individual. You can study the pictures, looking for similar features, and then read about what set them apart!

Of course, we had to make our own version. I created this project featuring my husband's heritage. It now proudly hangs in our living room. Every once in a while, we'll see a kid slip in to compare family faces. Someday we'll make a copy for each of the boys!

Project needs:

Copies of family photographs. Most photo shops can help you resize your pictures. They can also help you alter the colors for a uniform look (our samples are sepia-toned). You can do this yourself if you're familiar with Photoshop or other photo-editing software. Your final layout will determine each photo's size, but the standard 3x5, 4x6 or 5x7 (depending on the number of generations featured) will work.

Brief synopsis of featured person. Use any word processing software to write up a brief history. Include the full name; sometimes it offers clues to these family links. We also documented the relationship: Daughter, Mother, Grandmother, Great-grandmother, etc. and the birth year / death year of each person. Write a descriptive paragraph about each person. This might include talents, accomplishments, favorite sayings or something else that provides a glimpse in their life. Format the statement to fit a box the same width as the photographs.

Mat and Frame. Unless you are REALLY good at cutting mats, we'd recommend having the board professionally cut. It'll cost more, but this is a heirloom piece that will be enjoyed for generations so feel good about the splurge!

A Tribute to Stanley

ho·bo [hō bō] homeless traveler
a poor and homeless person, especially somebody who traveled around the United States looking for work in the 1920s and 1930s.

I am the product of a hobo. Let me rephrase that. I am the PROUD product of a hobo. Last week, my sixteen year old and I found ourselves in an area of town that we rarely frequent. The streets were filled with migrant workers waiting for the chance to labor for a day’s wage. This was a foreign concept for my son. As I tried to explain the process, the image of my maternal grandfather came to my mind. Pops didn’t have much in the way of material wealth, but he left a wealth of stories proving dedication and perseverance can pave the way for a better life.

Pops came to America at the turn of the twentieth century. He was eighteen years old. He left behind his entire family, and other than a sister who made her own journey, never saw them again. He worked whatever jobs he could find. The early years found him cutting back and forth across the nation in search of the elusive better life. He told many a story of jumping railcars and run-ins with the police because of his vagrant lifestyle. When he met Grandma, he decided to settle down and work the coal mines. I didn’t know him until he was in his eighties and really can only remember those last few years of his nineties. Blindness and old age had finally crept in, but he still wasn’t afraid of a little hard work. He must have been 93 the year he cut down our family willow trees, in the middle of summer...in temperatures that were nearly 100 degrees.

Pops never had much money. He never owned his own house. I don’t think he even owned a car. However, he did a great job raising eight respectable kids, who in turned raised their own generation of musicians, doctors, law enforcers and engineers. Now the next generation is creating their own life stories. Pops didn’t leave much in the way of material belongings, but he did leave a treasure-trove of rich stories that continue to set the course for the generations of today.

Another Memory Candle Idea

{A project from the Inspired Ideas Archives}

If you live in the Salt Lake area and DIDN'T go to This is the Place Heritage Park today, you were in the minority. There were a bajillion people there! We've been going regularly for the last four years and I can't remember ever seeing so many cars parked in the parking lot, overflow lots, side lots and even some sidewalks! Our demonstration area was off the beaten track so we only got to meet a small portion of you, but what an AMAZING group of people with FABULOUS ideas on preserving family stories! Please be sure to add your comments here, or contact us via email: mystory@storiesbyme.com to share your project ideas.

We met a LOT of people and I'm sorry that I am so terrible with names, but someone out there asked about adding pictures to a glass family tree that she has created. We soooooo want to see pictures! Here's a great project that will let you transfer black and white photographs to glass. We haven't had a chance to try it, so if you beat us to the project, be sure to let us know the outcome! http://inspiredideasmag.blogspot.com/2008/05/making-memory-candles-project-from.html

July 08 Upcoming Events

We're heading to This is the Place, Heritage Park today. If you haven't been to 'The Park' in a while, it's a good day to check things out. It's Family Day! (Go to http://www.thisistheplace.org/ for more info.) If it's anything like last year, there will be thousands in attendance. Adults normally pay $8.00 and kids $6.00 just to get in. Today, it's FREE! Don't worry about standing shoulder to shoulder with the throngs. The park sits on, what seems like, a hundred acres. (Have you ever tried to walk the entire Park in a day?) They now have a train to pull you up the more strenuous hills, unless of course your kids are doing the pulling.

If you can't make it today, then you really MUST try to get there on the 24th of July. That's the big Utah holiday celebrating the pioneer's entrance into the Salt Lake Valley. Never mind that they actually arrived two day's earlier. It's a fantastic way to discover your roots...or just learn about Utah's history.

Be sure to look for Stories by Me. For several years, we had a little shop in the basement of Smoot Hall. The Gift Shop now carries a selection of our products, but today (and on the 24th) we'll be there demonstrating how to make a memory block puzzle...just like the pioneers!