Janet's Blog

I used to do it for Mom. I would post pictures on Facebook regularly because I knew she would want to see them. There was a time, not so long ago, when Mom would turn on her computer, play a game or two of Solitaire, and check Facebook to see what her 28 Facebook friends were up to. Mom was on Facebook for one reason only: to keep tabs on her family and a few very close friends. Mom with her greats, just a year ago.   Grandchildren are the crowning glory of the aged; parents are the pride of their children.   Proverbs 17:6 So, I posted pictures I knew she would appreciate: photos of wildflowers and western Nebraska landscapes, and especially, pictures of her grandkids and their kids, her greats. Then Mom would dutifully print the photos, often full-sized on a single sheet of plain old computer paper so she could make out the details. She showed the photos to Dad, who never learned how to use a computer because he thought it would consume too much of his time and, besides, he c...

It wasn't too long after Christmas when my brother-in-law, Kent, invited me to join a Facebook group known as "Mystery drone swarm chasers." It started as a reaction to numerous reports of drones flying in formation after dark, mostly over northeastern Colorado and southwestern Nebraska. I had heard some accounts about the mysterious drones, but I was about to hear a lot more. A drone is a fairly small, unmanned aircraft, like this one, used by hobbyists, commercial or government entities, or the military, to take aerial photos, map the terrain, deliver packages, or even spy on the people below them. I didn't accept the invitation to join the group, but, apparently, a simple invitation was enough for me to receive all of their posts. At first, the posts came at a fast and furious pace, reporting sightings of large drones, several feet in diameter, flying after dark in groups of four to six, or even as many as a dozen. The obvious problem was that no one knew w...

I am feeling discouraged about my blog. If you are one of the few people reading my blog lately, you may have noticed that I'm not writing as often as usual, certainly not once a week, as I have intended. I just can't get excited about writing since my readership has declined so drastically since October. I can attribute this sudden decline to a couple of things. First of all, Facebook has changed its algorithms again and, this time, it affected my blog immediately, and not for the better. Secondly, Google is dropping Google +, which also directly affects the number of people who read my blog. I know I am not the only person who is grieving the changes that have been happening on Facebook. For me, and for many others in my extended family, Facebook originally provided a simple, suitable way to communicate when our family was enduring some challenging times. Later, I was pleased to be able to spend a few minutes each day catching up with old friends, and getting to know some...