The Simple Gifts Genealogy Blog Hop!

Post #1

Thanks to the producers of the Flip Pal scanner, I will be receiving one of their products soon to try out in return for blogging about ideas for producing holiday genealogy gifts.  It sounds like fun, and I appreciate Thomas MacEntee from Geneabloggers.com for putting this special offer together for me and six other geneabloggers.  Please see the Flip Pal http://flip-pal.com/

I’m a member of the sandwich generation.  I’m taking care of my husband, myself, my own child and our aging parents.  My daughter is newly fledged, leaving us as “Empty Nesters.”  She is working in Boston, and is on her own.  However, not too long ago she sliced her leg with a piece of glass and called me in New Hampshire for help.  “Mom, I’m bleeding all over!  So I’m in the bathtub so I won’t get the floor all gross.”  My advice?  “You are blocks from some of the most famous hospitals in the world and you called New Hampshire?”   We had her call a taxi and go to an emergency room, and met her there within the hour to “help” her wait four hours to be stitched up.  I’m sure it always helps for Mom to be there, no matter what! It’s a good thing we are not too far.

My mom is living alone one and half hours from me, which is close enough for visiting but not close enough for emergencies.  And my in-laws?  They live in Spain.  My husband is a third generation only child.  With no other siblings to help out, this week we were in Madrid helping make sure all their lifelines and other help are still set up and working well from six months ago during our last visit.  Father-in-law spending two days a week in a Parkinson’s day care, and mother-in-law with her back strained from osteoporosis receiving a cleaning lady and home health worker to check on them four days a week.  Of course we had a “honey-do” list to work on, too, during our visit. Don’t forget that we also made time to just visit, chat, play dominoes and enjoy family, too. 

This was also a great time to find out that I was being sent a Flip Pal through a special offer set up by Thomas MacEntee of the Geneabloggers.com website.  The Flip Pal Blog Hop will feature seven geneabloggers writing holiday posts on using the Flip Pal scanner to produce gifts for the gift giving season.  I saw on line that several of these bloggers had already received their Flip Pal scanners via UPS.  However, I had to depend on my cat sitter to watch for the UPS delivery for me since I was not at home.  She wanted all the fun of announcing its arrival to me via email, except that the weather threw a cog into those plans.

Little did I know that the big Halloween Blizzard of 2011 was going to cause so many problems while we were away.  On TeleMadrid I heard the TV reports about New England and New York.  On Facebook and email my cat sitter friend and others reported power outages and cold nights below freezing.  Was Mom alone in Massachusetts without power?  I got my daughter, and other friends to try to call her since my calls from Spain weren’t connecting.   Finally, we all connected with Mom at the same time!  I think she got five calls all in a row, and she was fine, and even had power!  I appreciate the internet for helping us through that crisis, and cell phones, too!  I appreciate my daughter, friends and fellow geneabloggers who all jumped in to help contact Mom, too.  Friendship is appreciated even more when thousands of miles separate loved ones.

With all this excitement happening within a few days, it will be great to get home and get back into the routine of blogging.  I will finally see my Flip Pal in person, and begin the new project of creating some family oriented holiday crafts and gifts.  I’ve been picking everyone’s brain for ideas, and I think I’ve come up with a few good ones.  It will all come together when I finally learn how to use my new scanner.  And after I throw out the contents of my fridge, which sat a week without power while we were gone.

Please follow these other geneabloggers as we all post about our Flip Pal Blog Hop adventures between now and Christmas:

Participating Bloggers

Sheri Fenley
The Educated Genealogist
http://sherifenley.blogspot.com

Drusilla Pair
Find Your Folks
http://www.findyourfolks.blogspot.com

Marian Pierre Louis
Roots and Rambles
http://rootsandrambles.blogspot.com

Caroline Pointer
For Your Family Story
http://www.4yourfamilystory.com/blog.html

Heather Wilkinson Rojo
Nutfield Genealogy
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com

Nancy Shively
Gathering Stories
http://nancyshively.blogspot.com

Julie Cahill Tarr
GenBlog
http://genblogjulie.blogspot.com

Disclaimer- I was chosen by Flip Pal to participate in this blogging event, and will receive a Flip Pal scanner to evaluate and use.  


The Simple Gifts Genealogy Blog Hop press release
http://www.pitchengine.com/couragentinc/flippal-mobile-scanner-presents-the-simple-gifts-genealogy-blog-hop

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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo