Though I am a crafty lady, and though I have tried my hand at rubber stamping and scrapbooking, I find I need something a little quicker and lower maintenance. Thus, I tend to blog as a way of chronicling my children’s lives.

Though I blog here at AdoptionBlogs, I have a personal blog for homeschooling, as well as a family site. Blogging provides a quick way to summarize each day, or events such as trips or special days. Most blogging tools allow the posting of multiple pictures. Best of all, most sites are free or offer a free version of their premium services. You can save these blog pages to CD/DVD, so that they can be viewed for years to come.

Many blogging sites now also allow the posting of videos, podcasts and audio files, so you can have a rich multi-media platform for recording events. Some sites have these tools embedded in their proprietary blog software, others work with external sites such as YouTube to embed them in your blog entries.

There are many free blogging sites out there. Some have very easy to learn, and easy to use interfaces. Others are fly by night, or are much more difficult to use, if you don’t have extensive computer or programming knowledge.

A few sites offer several “add ons” or “plugins” to enhance the look and feel of the blog. By this I mean that some sites offer (free) software created by a third party to help get the most out of your blog.

All blogs offer RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. An RSS feed is a way for an interested party to be notified when new content is posted. So, family members with computer access can “subscribe” to your blog and get notifications when you make a new entry.

The “Big Three” in the blogosphere tend to be Blogger (now affiliated with internet giant Google), WordPress and TypePad. Blogger is free and has a few add-ons; WordPress has a basic (free) option (with many, many free plugins and widgets), with an advanced option containing fee-based premium services; and TypePad has a tiered fee-based system starting with a low price-point that increases with various options. Other popular free sites are Yahoo 360 and LiveJournal.

If you aren’t crafty, or are looking for a quicker yet visually pleasing way to create a life book, you might consider blogging.

Photo credit: Stock Xchng