2020: April A to Z… Family Stories: Theme Reveal

2020: April A to Z… Family Stories

“Theme Reveal”

I have been preparing the past few months… and today is the day  to finally reveal!

The AtoZ Challenge is in its 11th year… and I’m back in 2020 for my fifth year of participating in this yearly April A to Z challenge… and as usual I racked my brain scribbling ideas on paper since the end of last April. It wasn’t until early January… that the lightbulb finally went off in scrolling through the 85+ of unfinished blog posts in my draft folder. Bingo… there was my A to Z topic… Family Stories as told to me… mostly by my husband!

From the moment I married into this Italian family… I fell in love with their stories… their memories… and the family. My husband grew up in West Haven, Connecticut… where there was so much to enjoy as a young boy… especially a place known as Savin Rock… although long gone now, it was somewhat of a Coney Island… and it was even larger when his parents, aunts and uncles grew up. They had stories… and I was always an eager listener whenever they told those stories…  scribbling them down to preserve, just as I did with the family recipes that had once only been in their heads. 2020 has became the year I’m telling many of those stories… along with my husband’s memories to preserve for the generations to come. Many of those who told me their stories, are no longer with us… and I hope to keep their memory alive in these stories… as they are now my family also… and I love them all!

My previous years of A to Z Challenges are listed below, and if you’ve never caught up with them… I do hope you’ll drop in. I have two years of great recipes and fun memories on my Italian and Southern favorites. If you’ve ever read even one Nancy Drew book, you’ll enjoy the 2018 year… it’s been my favorite!!! And if you’ve followed my blog, you’ll have read some of my conversations with mom… I wrote the AtoZ on my favorites in 2017.

• 2016: A to Z Southern Foods and Memories… they said write what you know… and being a girl born in the South… well this was what I knew.
• 2017: A to Z Conversations with Mama… it was a somewhat easy one for me to write as I’d journaled our conversations for years… I researched favorite topics to write.
• 2018: A to Z All About Nancy Drew… this one has been my favorite topic so far, and I don’t know if I’ll ever come up with another one to equal it
• 2019: A to Z Italian Famiglia Foods and Memories… I felt it was time to finally write the favorites of my husbands family foods.

If you haven’t signed up to participate… there’s still time! I only discovered my first year a couple weeks out, and even though I scrambled in preparing my blog posts… it was so much fun!

I wrote a short “how to” last year… read Here

There is a “Like” button and “comment” box at the end of each of my blog posts… please take the time to click and leave me a short comment… let me hear from you! If you are a new blogger, don’t hesitate to ask me for help on your blog… I love having new bloggers join in on the fun… it’s addicting!!! There is also a Facebook AtoZ group where you can access information as well as many photos for your posts. You can also access their AtoZ webpage over Here where you can sign up on their Master List… and you only have until March 26th to sign up… so hurry up! The master list is very informative as it lists everyone’s blog and their theme… making it easy to find your favorites from years past, as well as discovering new ones.

Another hint I might offer is… make yourself a draft post and log the urls to the blogs you’ve read… making it easy to check back in on. I know from previous experience that I missed out in re-finding many posts I wanted to go back to. Plus, the other hint is… at the end, you’re asked to write a “reflection” post on your experience… who you liked, what you learned, etc. Keeping that running list of favorites you’ve found will help you compile that post!

Are you READY to join…

Continue reading 2020: April A to Z: Family Stories… click HERE
To read more Family Stories… click HERE

© 2020, copyright Jeanne Bryan Insalaco; all rights reserved