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Writing Your Life Story Blog

Here's where you find out what's new at Your Life is Your Story.

Oct 13, 2021

90 Year Old William Shatner Boldly Goes to Space

Shatner is best known for his role in the television science fiction series Star Trek as Captain James T. Kirk. He and his crew were on a five year mission to explore new worlds and "boldly go where no man has gone before." Now that statement has a deep and personal meaning for Shatner.

After the historic flight he stated, "You look down, there's the blue down there and the black up there ... there is Mother Earth and comfort, and there is, is there death? I don't know, but is that death? Is that the way death is? ... It was so moving; this experience, it was something unbelievable," he said.

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Oct 07, 2021

Special Shapes Hot Air Balloons Bring Joy and Art to the Skies

There are all kinds of shapes. If you like geometry you can enjoy countless ones. But nothing quite brings joy, and art, to the skies above than special shapes hot air balloons.

In Albuquerque there is the annual International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta and balloons from around the world come here to fly in the beautiful October skies.

Hot air balloons are pretty colorful and wonderful to look at just with their typical spherical shapes. Amazingly enough, some balloons are constructed with a special balloon envelope shape. It takes a combination of art and engineering to pull this off. But how cool to see cows, birds, bees, stagecoaches, various heads of famous people, and even unusual things like Yoda and Darth Vader of Star Wars fame.

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Oct 07, 2021

Your-Life-Your-Story - My Life Story Blog Archives, September, 2021

An archive of previous My Life Story blog entries from September, 2021 regarding personal history, life story writing and more.

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Sep 24, 2021

Reflecting on Volume

As a 5th grade teacher I get to teach my students a variety of subjects. I try really hard to include life lessons and life skills along with the things they should learn as part of their elementary school curriculum.

This week in math I have been teaching them the concept of volume. Volume is defined as "the quantity of three-dimensional space enclosed by a closed surface." So we talked about how to fill that space in boxes or other three-dimensional objects. And there is the well known formula of length times width times height.

Math lesson aside, volume is a concept that can speak, well, volumes about our lives and life experiences.

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Sep 15, 2021

Spiritual Memoirs Help You Consider the Meaning of Your Life

You are on a journey. This life journey takes you to physical places, but also places we can only call spiritual. The inner journey is where you try to make sense of it all.

In some ways I think every memoir has a spiritual angle. Some people write about their life and their spirituality, their faith, in an overt way. Others refer to it in a more subtle way. However you approach it, realize that the meaning of life is discovered only as we live it.

I really enjoy exploring the deeper questions about life and how things connect. It does require having a willingness to believe in things we might not be able to clearly explain or point to. That's okay. We all encounter the "unknown" at various stages of life.

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Sep 09, 2021

Memories of 9/11 or Learning the History

Twenty years ago. It seems like a long time. But the memory of that fateful day in September of 2001 is etched in the minds of those who lived through it. Not just those who were there in New York City, Washington D.C. or Pennsylvania. People around the country and around the world can recall where they were when they began hearing and seeing the news of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

But what of those who were just babies, or not even born? To them it is history that they hear about. We teach it in schools. We share it with our families. This kind of historical event is different from those long ago before we were born.

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Sep 06, 2021

Reworking Work

Today is Labor Day. It is historically a day to recognize the labor movement and workers. As a teacher AND a writer/personal historian I truly appreciate days off. So I am enjoying a slower pace on this holiday.

At the same time, I am someone who tends to stay busy. One of the gifts of an unrushed day is the opportunity to reflect, write and ponder how I can be a better version of myself. I become more productive when taking time to "stop and smell the roses", as the saying goes.

Our society has taken some gut punches surrounding how we spend time, what it means to have meaninful work.Companies and those who deal with them regarding labor and the workforce have discovered what I think has been on the minds of many of us, even if it was in our subconscious. The way we work, the kind of jobs we do, the rewards (or lack of) for giving our efforts to build a sustainable life have all been brought into a greater focus as the result of a pandemic, our turbulent politics and the realities of our use of natural resources.

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Sep 06, 2021

Your-Life-Your-Story - My Life Story Blog Archives, August, 2021

An archive of previous My Life Story blog entries from August, 2021 regarding personal history, life story writing and more.

Continue reading "Your-Life-Your-Story - My Life Story Blog Archives, August, 2021"

Aug 26, 2021

Charlie Watts Drumming Had Rock, But Mainly Roll

The news that Charlie Watts, drummer for the Rolling Stones, had passed away on Tuesday hit the music world pretty hard. It certainly was one of those deaths that made me pause, like the wind had gone out of me, and I literally had to sit with this information for a couple of days beforeI could post about it.

Arguably, the Rolling Stones are the seminal rock n' roll band. And Charlie, the smooth, dapper dress and drummer, had a wonderful way of keeping the beat steady and just this side of sloppy. What I mean by that is he wasn't a pounder of the skins, not a basher. And he also wasn't one of those cocktail piano jazz backbeats.

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Aug 23, 2021

Cell Phone Inventor Changed the World

My first "car" phone was like a regular phone attached to a big box. I could take it out of the car or plug it into the car. This was in 1987 and I was working in Southern California for a radio station. It was a primitive time for cell phones, but I thought I was quite the "hot shot" to have this phone courtesy of my employer.

Marty Cooper was and is a visionary. He is the "Father of the cell phone" and without his innovations and tenacity for seeing the birth of the cellphone become a reality our world would be very different. Think of all the apps and social media on top of texting and calling that we do with our modern devices.

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