RealTimes Turn Into Real Memories- How Do You Share Yours? $300 #Giveaway

This is a Fashionista Event and a promotional item was provided to me. Hosts for this event are Still Blonde After All These Years and ModlyChic

Momma Told Me: Everything I need is right here.

Momma never fussed much over the thought of chronicling her life in pictures. In fact, 99% of the photos I have from my childhood are of me, alone, or with my father- and all of them taken at his or another relative's request. "Everything I need is right here," she'd say as she tapped the side of her head with a warm smile.

But the purpose of photos, much like a wedding or funeral, are not so much to memorialize an event or moment for the subject, but to share the memories and stories with those who were not there to experience it for themselves. For grandchildren yet to be born, Prince Charmings yet to ride in on their white horse, and friends yet to be discovered.

Growing up all of the photos taken were intended for relatives. We must've had stock in Kodak and the USPS for all of the money spent developing half blurred disposable camera film and shipping padded envelopes. Growing up, and still living in California, I have family in Massachusetts, Louisiana, Texas, and Oregon. That's a lot of mail miles to log before the internet was really a 'thing!' I remember every Saturday I'd get on the phone and play with the slinky like cord while talking my grandparent's through that week's stack of photos. Of course, they'd already be a few weeks old by the time they were developed and in their hands, but it was the speed of the times. (Pssst, I'm the one with the perm above, that's one memory I might not have minded if it was lost to the steel trap!)

Today everything is instant. Nobody wants to wait for anything and sharing memories must be immediate, or we feel as though they have lost value. And, with digital pictures it seems like we have almost lost sight of what photos are for. We snap pictures of our newest duck lips face, the sandwich we had for lunch, and a piece of link we think looks like JFK, and all of them go out into the world through social media, for anyone to consume. But photos are meant to tell stories. How do you share those stories with the ones you love? It's not always easy to filter what can and can't be seen on social media, and most of the time I've lost a folder by the time I start a new one. I simply take too many photos. Wouldn't it be a shame if these moments, above, were lost in the fold of pictures of ice cream and my cat chasing some lint?

A Cloud Based sharing program or app, like Premium RealTimes service, can help you organize all of your photos, audio bytes, and videos for targeted sharing and consumption anywhere in the world. Free subscribers can take advantage of a massive 2GB of cloud storage (+5GB when you enable Auto Upload,) or enter the limited time code COUPONSCOM15 for 30 days of Premium RealTimes service and 25GB of storage FREE.

RealTimes is much more than storage- it's a way to organize moments and memories into living stories, montages and videos with in app editing, filters, touch-ups, labels, and more. Best of all, since it's cloud based you can allow remote users, such as grandparents or family friends access, or pull up your content on any app supported device with WiFi service. Parents will also save time when it comes to organization as RealTimes instantly and automatically creates montages of photos and videos organized by file name and date; never spend time fumbling to find the right photos when the relatives hit town, again! Look for RealTimes coupons  on Coupons.com.

As you know 2015 has been the year of doing for us. All of our expendable (does anyone ever really have expendable income?) income has been going towards travels and experiences. While, ideally, I'd be sharing these amazing experiences with all my friends and family in real time, because they'd be there, it's simply not possible with my network spread so far across the country. However, I can chronicle my adventures without fear of data hoarding thanks to cloud services like Premium RealTimes. I'm starting with the FREE trial of 25GB premium service and considering upgrading to the unlimited cloud storage down the line.

As you know I recently went up to Oregon to visit Momma and, despite being sick with the plague, made sure I talked her into a rare photo. I can count the photos we've taken together in the past decade on 1 hand, so this is definitely a shot I want to protect with multiple storage formats, and cloud storage is just one of them. If you have small children you are constantly reminded that no day is ever the same and the world constantly keeps turning- but this is equally true in all of our relationships and experiences. Yes, my mother's mind may be like a steel trap, but just think how sad it would be if I could never share those beautiful memories with my own children someday?

There is no such thing as a useless photo in a day and sage when photos are instant and infinite in production. Don't let a lack of storage stop you from chronicling all of those magical, and even mundane, moments. Who is someone you know who would love to see your photos and stories on RealTimes cloud storage?

What Daughter Says: Don't keep your memories in a steel trap, share them with those who matter most. Use a cloud storage service.
 

To help you plan and create new memories RealTimes is hosting a $300 Target Gift Card giveaway, enter below!

The Death of The Postcard

Momma Told Me: Practice your penmanship!

I had no problem with handwriting as a child, especially cursive; which I would have wrote in all day if my teachers had let me. There was always something somehow therapeutic about putting a pen to paper and watching all of those thoughts spill out in ink. No matter the subject, it was like a mini confession, for anyone to uncover between those lines. Throughout the years, and especially when I got into illustration and (basic) graphics design, as a pre-teen, I even created various publications, and my own line of greeting cards. While only distributed locally (to my family, haha), Jenmark is still very much around today. I stamp that logo on the back of every Shutterfly card I make! Of course, today, I feel like the art of the written word is ever-fleeting. Even I, who make an effort to write every day, limit the majority of said writing to digital content. Which is precisely who I enjoy participating in the blog swaps (PetPals and Foodie PenPals), I do each month. Not only is there the physical connection of receiving a parcel full of hand picked goods, but each box contains a hand written note, a sort of personal long distance handshake.

When I was a child, and more-so when my own parents were children, and the American Road Trip was reality, there was a method of communication known as a postcard. Why am I referring to postcards like they're bell bottoms or a Super 8? Because, at one time, you couldn't walk into a drugstore or gas station and avoid the spinning racks by the door. You could walk in, passing through town, pick up 10/$1, and have them posted the very next morning. Of course, mail was also slower 'back then', and the postcards often wouldn't reach their destination before the individual that sent them had arrived home, but this was the way society shared glimpses of their travels. In modern times, this ritual has been replaced by a constant stream of social media. Just a few weeks back I was visiting my family for my Grandfather's birthday and was transfixed as my Aunt's phone went off every 5 minutes. Her 23 year old daughter was quite literally sending her blow-by-blow photos of her day trip up the coast for New Year's. I recall pondering how many of those 'candid' shots were in the process of invading my Facebook page at that moment.

Where are we going with this? Well, a week ago I got it in my head that I was going to begin sending a postcard with each my my 'swap' packages. I had a little lightbulb and I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if my 'written requirement' was some sort of element that could be held onto or collected?" I wanted to send something that gave a tiny glimpse into my corner of the world. So I thought I'd go out and buy a bundle of postcards just for this purpose. Well, this proved to be quite the task; even delaying the speed of my Foodie PenPal box by several days, for lack of postcards in sight. I stopped by all the major gas station-fast food- Jiffy Lube conglomerates off the highway, and was even disappointed at local drugstores on Main St. I live in the middle of the coast in California, just an hour outside of Los Angeles, and 2 hours down from a major tourist area. How was it that there were no postcards to share my town, or at least my state?

I was quite frustrated. When was the death of the postcard? I still had an entire collection of them stashed away in storage; the most vivid snapshots of my childhood, and the world back then, frozen in time. Without postcards how would people have known about the amazing Wagon Wheel Resort, Restaurant, and Bowling Alley here in my hometown? Driving by on the highway you certainly wouldn't recognize it, a shell of an alley barely still in operation today. But at one time families had vacationed there, at the nicest Olympic length pool in the county, before retreating to their cabin like bungalows. And how would I know about the Madonna Inn (San Luis Obispo, CA), where my parents had spent their second honeymoon on the way to Vegas. To this day I still pull out the, highly collectible, postcards of the dated decor; each room themed with extravagance and 'state of the art' luxury. It's those scraps, those visions of history, I still cling to when I imagine romance, and envision my own similar memories to be made one day.

I understand we live in a digital age; but what would happen to us humans if one day all of those electronics were to fail. Looking back, 100 years from now, without the internet or digital records, how would our ancestors know who we were today in this age? I may be a little old at heart, and perhaps a little resistant to change, but the world around us seems to evolve rapidly each day, and it's scary to think the memories I will leave my own children consist of SNES vs PS3, or CD vs MP3. Let's face it, so many of our memories are kept in digital format, making them vulnerable. When photo albums are kept in an unseen 'Cloud' and road trip mementos consist of Instagram snapshots, where does our history really lie? Do you or your family still maintain certain 'old school' traditions to preserve memories and events? I try to physically print my favorite digital images at least 3-4 times a year to safeguard against digital unknowns.

What Daughter Says: While there's an irrational fear inside me that the written word may die out all together, I still practice handwritten letters and postcards today.