2017: A to Z Reflection Post on Conversations with Mom – The Best Of

2017: A to Z Reflection Post:

Conversations with Mom: The Best Of

I made it…. all the way to April 30th, Letter Z! Hip, Hip, Hooray!!!

Congratulations to everyone who participated this year. It is my second time participating in the A to Z challenge and I’ve enjoyed each time. Even though it’s sometimes, somewhat hectic…. I’ve enjoyed meeting new bloggers and learning from their blog posts. It’s brought new traffic and readers to my blog, and that’s always a good thing. And if you’re reading this and haven’t read my A to Z of Conversations with Mom, please do stop in!

This year, I kept a list of blogs I read, as last year I regretted not doing so and I lost touch with many that I enjoyed reading. You learn from your mistakes!

A few of my favorite A to Z Blogs from the 2017 challenge:

• https://earlieryears.blogspot.com/     Memories of life on the farm in the nineteen fifties and sixties in South Australia. (This blog caught my eye as she wrote somewhat similar to my Conversations with Mom. A different continent, but very similar times.)
• http://blog.southerngraves.net/    Telling the tales of tombstones, primarily from those found in the Southern United States and usually the State of Georgia. (If you know me, you’ll know that the two words… “Georgia and Tombstones”  always grab my attention. Being a family history researcher, and from Georgia… well this blog is right up my alley! I have enjoyed scouring her posts.)
• https://nancythorntonwriter.com    Nancy writes about her mother Mary and life in the 1950’s. (Similar posts, as we both wrote about our mothers.)
• https://lawsofgravity.blogspot.com/2017/04/justification.html    An A to Z blog about the random things in her life: writing, knitting, and substitute teaching. (I can relate to the writing and knitting, and I enjoyed reading)
• http://ifamilyhistory.blogspot.ca/search/label/AtoZChallenge    This A to Z wrote technical helps for anyone trying to find and share their family history and genealogy. (What a great blog chocked full of hints and ideas)
• http://mollyscanopy.com/   Molly Charboneau is a writer-editor by day and a genealogist-family historian by night/weekend — growing family trees one leaf (and road trip) at a time. (I loved reading Molly’s post and look forward to catching up on what I’ve missed. We both share loving the road trips!)
• https://findingmymom.wordpress.com/   Another great blog on remembering Mom (I’ve enjoyed reading other blogs as they remembered their moms)
• https://aggiekesler.wordpress.com    This blogger challenged her memories with a Memoir encyclopedia of posts from A to Z. (Last year I thought of doing this for this year’s challenge, but I knew it would be too time consuming unless I had all the posts written. Instead, I challenged myself to do an “A to Z… All About Me”  of 52 weeks – more time to write them all.)
• https://stampintotheoldies.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-is-forapril-fools-day.html    Stampin to the Oldies with Wilma appealed to the crafter in me. Do stop in and check out her stamping, card making, and various crafts. I can’t wait to explore more on her site.
• https://meganmorganauthor.com/2017/04/05/d-is-for-dialog/    Megan wrote her A to Z on 26 Things To Hate About Writing. (This was quite an interesting idea as it seems she enjoys writing. I’ll be back to check out more of her suggestions on writing… or how to hate writing!)
• http://saraallie.blogspot.com/   If you’re feeling hungry…. click over to Sara’s site and enjoy mouth-watering photos…. and they all come with “no calories.”
• https://stacybuckeye.com/    Check out Stacy’s A to Z on books…. and do let her know if you have more books than she does. Don’t we all have those book stashes, and while you haven’t yet read them, you still don’t want to part with them!
• https://drunkonlifeblog.com/      What a creative blog title…. it definitely caught my eye. I loved discovering that she enjoyed some of my favorite wineries in Dahlonega, GA….. my favorite place in the North Georgia Mountains.
• https://what-is-hoped-for.com/tag/a-z-april-challenge/    Such a cute idea for the A to Z in drawing Disney side-kick characters. Very Talented Artist this blogger is. Do stop in and enjoy her creativity!
• http://linensandlaurel.typepad.com//ancestry/a-to-z-challenge-2017/   So what caught my eye in this blog… the word Ancestry popped out to me. She blogs on family history and related stories. I will have to go and catch up here.
• https://jennsmidlifecrisis.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/s-is-for-squirrel-games/#comment-5176     Jenn’s midlife crisis name intrigued me and her stories were funny and interesting; so many I can relate to.
• https://moodmovie.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-queen.html    If you like movies, check out her A to Z on movies…. I fell in love with the movies of the 1940’s recently while home nursing a broken foot.
• http://lessbeatenpaths.com/blogging-a-to-z-challenge-the-complete-list-for-2017-atozchallenge/  Photographs of the travels on the backroads of this blogger…. and what I’ve seen so far – will have me back for more. I love to travel the back roads and photograph what I see, so I might find new places to discover from this blogger.
• https://talesofafamily.blog/2017/04/30/spinning-yarns/.   Another great family tales and history blog by Nancy Bryant! Writing on family pulled me in… love reading about someone’s family and learning new research directions.
• https://mhsusannematthews.wordpress.com/ Susanne writes “Living the Dream”. She is a Canadian blogger living her dream of writing novels. Do check out her work – she has a passion for creating characters.
• https://chaoticshapes.wordpress.com/2017/05/05/colors-colors-and-more-colors/  Brandon intrigued me with his drawings and colors and has me hooked on trying to figure out his last drawing as he colors it… I guessed wrong!

Check back for more of my favorites, as I’m still discovering and adding!

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Now that the A to Z challenge is completed, and I survived… I’ll have more time to re-visit blog posts I missed! I also will be checking back through the A to Z posts to discover other blogs I missed. It was fun… now to take a little breather before writing new posts, but I’m already feeling lost in not having a post to edit daily.

As I only experienced the “Linky Link” last year, I can’t say whether I missed it or not. I checked the  “letter” post daily for new blogs, so it worked OK for me. My only problem was how Facebook sometimes only posted the URL link with nothing else so I would have to write the name of my A to Z theme for interest…. as to just having a plain “URL” show, isn’t always eye-catching

One of my suggestions to future A to Z bloggers is… to post a link at the bottom of each post directed back to your first post; I sometimes had a hard time finding the other posts.

My views on the A to Z Blog Challenge

My top post was Letter B… for stories relating to Mama’s brother and Boo, her cat!

My mother grew up on a small farm in Georgia and has more memories of her childhood than I can only dream to remember. If you’d like to follow along from day 1, click on 2017: A to Z… Conversations with Mama – The Best of!

© 2017, copyright Jeanne Bryan Insalaco; all rights reserved