"Start of Something Neu"...comes to an end.

Ten years ago (yesterday), I started something new....this blog! I had just moved into a new apartment in NYC and was in the process of interviewing for a job at RGA, which I ended up working for over six years. This blog was to serve as a means to share my NYC adventures and love of travel, Broadway, and food with my family and friends all over the USA. I really enjoyed all my adventures and documenting them here, but it's time it comes to an end....on blogger at least.

One of the benefits of blogging is that it's easy to share information with others and it's so easily accessible to so many people, including myself! When talking with friends, Jeff or I could just pull up the blog and share pictures of our latest escapades.

Second, I love photography and I personally feel that it's important to document our lives through pictures. It helps us remember our past and help us measure how much life has changed. I've truly enjoyed showing Cohen pictures of himself from when he was a baby and sharing with him all the fun times we've had. The blog helps remind me!

So, why no more blogger. Well, two things....

1. You many have noticed that I don't post a lot of pictures with Jeff in them. He allowed me to do this when we first got married, but about a year in he asked me to stop. He doesn't like his pictures shared on social media or on my blog. I totally respect his wishes and only posted pictures when I got his permission. I've also not posted a lot of pictures that include Cohen's friends. This is done for the same reason. I've been wanting to respect their privacy and would only post if I had their parents’ permission. 

While reviewing old posts with Cohen, I appreciated that my blog served as a journal of our family, but I noticed the large gap of not having pictures of Jeff (and me for that matter, but that's because I'm usually the one behind the camera). I mentioned it to Jeff and he said he would be ok if I posted on a website with a password, but it couldn't be blogger, because he doesn't trust google.

2. I also realized that I didn't like the idea of being tied to one platform. I don't think that blogger will go anywhere, but what if someday I wanted to have a hard copy of all our adventures. I started looking into printing my blog, which there are companies that do that, but due to formatting issues it wasn't going to look very pretty. I take a lot of pictures and printing them off without reformatting every post was going to take forever, and if I was going to take the time to do that, I would rather to it in a way that allows me to use many different platforms.

So, what was the solution? 

After mauling over this for the past summer, I think I have come up with a solution that will satisfy all my concerns and obtain my goal. I've created a website called Neu Family Yearbook (erikaneu.com) that is password protected. It is there that I will post photo book page layous that people can see and flip through. I will then have copies on my computer, so that if I ever want to get them printed it will be easy to do so. So, really, I have the best of both worlds. I have a digital copy online that I can share with family and friends and then have a version I could easily print off if I wanted too (Jeff and I are kind of apposed to printing them off at this point because I'm assuming it's going to be hundreds of pages and a lot of books....I take lots of pictures).

I’m going to continue posting pictures on Facebook, but if would like to see the Neu Family Yearbook, please reach out to me.