100th Post Or Is It? Reflections – Past, Present, and Future May 7, 2014

Dashboard shows this will be my 100th Published Post. It shows All (120), Published (99 – before this one posts) Sticky (1) Scheduled (1) Drafts (20) Trash (2). Not showing is my first blog post. You won’t find it anywhere on my blog as WordPress ate it after I spent four hours writing it and WordPress showing it saved a copy.

Reflections Past

My blog went live with this auto-generated post on 26 July 2013. I plan on editing the post soon which is why I haven’t deleted it. My first post attempt was so tasty WordPress ate it, and it was titled Why I Grave and I will try to post it in the near future. My first successful published blog post was on 30 November 2013. Thank you to Lisa Moncur of BillionGraves for her blog interview with me, You Never Know Who You’ll Find.

In case someone didn’t read the first blog link above, I am a psychiatric survivor who has battled Bipolar Depression (Type I, mixed episodes, rapid cycling, DSM classification in the 296.?? range, variable between 296.4X, 296.5X, or 296.6X) for a long time.

The first 99 posts took longer than anticipated. I didn’t post for parts of December and sometimes go days without posting. I found Geneabloggers daily blogging prompt list and will be implementing some of the daily prompts from the list. I joined Amy’s 52 Ancestor challenge. I am developing my own personal 52 Cemetery challenge and hope to finish up the details within a week. Addit: I get weekly e-mails from WikiTree showing upcoming birthdays and I incorporated those in my blogging.

Reflections Present

I recently signed up with Weebly to see which I like better. My Weebly and two WordPress are all paid versions. I chose Pivotol Nexus to host this blog. It is more expensive than the more common WordPress hosting companies, but a friend recommended it and I like it. I rarely have downtime and the downtime is only a few minutes most of the time. My other WordPress blog is inactive and I am debating what to do with it. I don’t have it hosted anywhere at the moment. My Weebly blog will focus on cemeteries and cemetery related stuff so I can become an official Graveyard Rabbit, but also to offer those who are more interested in the graving side a place to visit without the other topics covered on this blog.

Reflections Future

I plan on discussing mental health/illness more. Some of the discussion may cover my personal first-hand experiences as a psychiatric survivor, but other portions will cover mental health/illness topics in general. In cases where I am talking about other psychiatric survivors, I will be using pseudonyms most of the time. For example, one of my future 52 Ancestor individuals successfully battled paranoid schizophrenia for decades. I don’t know how freely she shared her condition and she does have living children and grandchildren. Out of respect for her privacy, I will refer to her as Aunt K (not her real name). You will see more posts about organizations like #DBSA, #Bring Change to Mind, #Breakthrough Club, and links/comments about mental health in the news.

On the genealogy front, I am continuing the #52 Ancestor Challenge. I may not always get an ancestor posted before Wednesday’s deadline, but I am almost caught up. I have prepared my Week 11 entry and have it scheduled for 18 March 2014.  As a tease for my 52 Ancestor for Week 11, Dorothy Lorraine Strange, who is the scheduled post.  I will be highlighting more genealogy blogs and articles. I will also tie in genealogy with mental health and some of the problems facing genealogists and family historians as they try to work through brick walls resulting when mental illness is added to the genealogy mixture.

With DNA, my BIG-Y results should be completed by the end of next week and I will do one or more posts about the results. I am working on articles for the different companies and my perspective and experiences about them. On the more complicated DNA issues, I will continue to link to other blogs and articles that are more knowledgeable on the subject.

History has been a favorite subject since Sixth Grade. Posts on history will include military history and World War II, but will cover other wars, other countries, and other time periods with the occasional book or article review.

April is the 72nd Anniversary of the 1942 Doolittle Raid so there will be a number of articles during the coming months on it. Other posts will cover anything from major events like D-Day and Pearl Harbor to lesser known events.

Posts on First Nations items will cover tribes, individuals, groups (Navajo Code Talkers of World War II, for example), among other things.

Cemeteries are going to be a regular part of posting as they relate to most of the above topics in some way or other. Ancestry has released an iOS 7 app for Find-A-Grave and is working on an Android app. BillionGraves recently added Supporting Records. CotD (Cemetery of the Day) will be implemented within the month and any suggestions for future CotD are always welcome; the cemeteries can be anywhere in the world. There will be articles on cemeteries, headstones, and related websites. Tombstone Tuesday is one of the new weekly features and makes it debut next Tuesday and Kent Sidney Smith (1943-2017) is highlighted. You read correctly – 2017 is the death date on the headstone.

My blog does not presently have affiliate banners, links, or ads. At some point, I will be adding affiliate links and banners. I will strive to do them in a way that is least intrusive to readers. It is also the reason I haven’t used some photos from many sites that allow non-commercial usage of photos and images.