Follow Me

Hi, all!

I hope this email/post finds you well.  The girls and I are settling well into Colorado and are anxiously awaiting Adam's return from the far reaches of the European countryside.  It's safe to say that we miss him dearly and that these last two weeks (and some change) cannot go fast enough.  I've been emailing some and blogging some and generally trying to stay in touch with folks, but I have to admit that there's a lot on my plate right now and really I'd rather be taking a nap than even writing this email.

I'll admit right now that often I get lost in my own day-to-day that I don't always think to email about things going on in my life or the girls' lives or Adam's life, etc.  I talk to some people every day and some people once a month and some people less frequently than that.  I talk on the phone, I talk via text, I talk on chat, and I talk via email.

But, for the last three-and-a-half years, I have also communicated via our family blog.

My blog has never been meant to replace regular communication, and there are people that I talk to constantly and regularly.  Often I post my blog posts to Facebook as well, since Blogger only allows 10 people to receive email updates when blogs are posted, and as talked about below, I don't use a Subscribe sort of thing or otherwise because... see below.  Some might think it impersonal to be expected to check on our blog to hear the latest happenings of our family, but writing to the blog absolves me from forgetting someone on the email list or from forgetting to communicate at all.  I tend to use the blog to "track" our kids' lives (for lack of my ability to keep a baby book for them) and I like to blog about thoughts I have and things we've done.

Now that I'm starting my new job, I plan to blog more often again; there was a lot of stuff going on in the last couple of months that I couldn't talk about and now that those things have been determined, I feel freer to chat atcha again.  Thankfully Adam has been filling my void with his weekly recaps about school.

However, some of you might not know how to check my blog or don't think to check it often or… fill in the blank.  So, below I've compiled a couple different ways of how you can "follow" us and keep up on what's going on in our lives and doing this absolves me of any guilt for not having been more direct in communicating with you (or rather, more often).

Tangent:  Of course I want to know how you are doing and of course I want to talk, but let's face it, with email and text and chat and how fast all of that works these days, it is hard to keep up on everyone and everything all the time and still feel like you are paying attention to kids/spouse/home/self.  I almost wish we would go back to writing letters (gives me an excuse for taking some "downtime" from constantly talking).  Anyway, so that is another reason why I blog.

So… ways to "follow".

Adam clued me into this fun tool:
1. Visit http://www.feedmyinbox.com/2. Type in the website http://draegerfamilie.blogspot.com
3. Type in your email address
4. Click "submit"

You'll get an email letting you know when I've updated my blog.

Don't want to get 400 emails a day?  (Ha, ha, ha!)  Another way (if you have a Google/Gmail account) is to use Google Reader.  Go to reader.google.com, and you can "subscribe" to my blog by typing in the blog address above.  When you have the hankering to read my blog (or any number of other blogs you like to read), you go to Google Reader and bam, they are right there for you.

Forgive me for not having a "Subscribe" button on my blog or for not telling you how to set up a your own RSS feed (without using the above service).  I don't want to manage that sort of stuff and I have never done my own RSS feeds other than using someone else's service.  After all, my blog was never meant to be some crazy big thing that everyone in the world would find or follow.  And I'm all about saving time and using things other people have created (technology wise - ha!) so that I can focus my energy elsewhere.  So, please don't email me with a "how-to" on that whole business – as much as I like technology and the convenience, my brain is reaching capacity and I need to save room for new work stuff this coming week.  Unless you want to do a guest post for me or something.  Then, by all means email me a multitude of other ways that people can follow my blog.  I'll post that.

And… please don't email to tell me why you don't want to / won't use one of the services listed above because it allows Big Brother to watch you more, etc., etc.  That is your prerogative… and… well… just don't.  *grin*

Anyway… I'm sending this now because I'm beginning to blog more again now that everything with my old work and new work and old home and new home and everything else is getting settled.  Hopefully I'll be posting more pictures soon and updating you on life here and providing a little backstory on how we ended up in CO at all.

Love and hugs to ya!

erin

ps.  Off to take that nap.  Ha!