SabrinaP
Pearl Clutcher
Busy Teacher Pea
Posts: 4,350 
Location: Dallas Texas
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Post by SabrinaP on Dec 26, 2021 18:42:38 GMT
We are celebrating Christmas next week with my family. I’m thinking about getting my mom and dad Story Worth. The company sends them a question a week and they respond through email and then at the end of the year the company complies the stories and any pictures submitted into a book. My dad is about to retire and loves telling stories. I thought he might get a kick out of it. He’s very computer savvy, so no issue there. Anyone have any personal experience? link to the site
Article I read |
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Post by tommygirl on Dec 26, 2021 18:51:49 GMT
I have heard of it and it sounds like a great present for your dad. I love he idea of preserving stories.
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Post by Skellinton on Dec 26, 2021 19:34:49 GMT
I did it for my mom and dad a few years ago. My mom left it so much she has for an extra year of it. We just got volume one of her collection for Christmas yesterday.
My mom absolutely loved participating in it and I think my dad did too. I can attest that the bound books are beautiful. The photos of the included print crisply and cleanly and the colors are great. It's a great quality end product. I'm very very pleased.
That being said, I would absolutely hate to have to have done it myself but my mom and dad both seemed to enjoy it. My mom is actually getting my sibling it for their birthday , she knows better than to give it to me. It would be like torture.
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TankTop
Pearl Clutcher
Refupea #1,871
Posts: 4,767
Location: On the couch...
Jun 28, 2014 1:52:46 GMT
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Post by TankTop on Dec 26, 2021 19:54:39 GMT
I gifted it to my stoic, non emotional father. He loved it! I think he is excited to have all the stories recorded.
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SabrinaP
Pearl Clutcher
Busy Teacher Pea
Posts: 4,350
Location: Dallas Texas
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Post by SabrinaP on Dec 26, 2021 20:24:07 GMT
Thank you so much for the reviews! I’m hoping they love it and don’t see it as homework. I’m thinking my
Dad will really enjoy it.
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Post by stampinfraulein on Dec 26, 2021 20:56:34 GMT
I gifted a year of it to my parents. I hope they both stick with it! I know my mom will, my dad may have a harder time. I may have to call or FaceTime him to get his answers and then transcribe them.
I think truly it will end up being a gift for ME to have their stories recorded! I am really excited about it.
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Post by ameslou on Dec 26, 2021 21:04:50 GMT
I gave each of my parents a subscription yesterday and they were thrilled.
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Post by gramasue on Dec 27, 2021 0:41:50 GMT
My wonderful granddaughter gifted me a subscription to Story Worth for my 74th birthday in February. It has been such fun answering the questions. One thing I did experience, though, was that a question each week was a bit too much for me. There were weeks when I was too busy or just not in the mood to write. I felt I was getting behind, so I had her change it to every 2 weeks. It's been a lot easier to keep up with it that way.
It's really making me think! I have memories surfacing that were long forgotten, just because the questions ask about a certain event or about a specific time in my life and I'm surprised and pleased that so much of it is coming back to me.
I'm sure your parents will love it and have lots of fun recording their memories. The big plus is that you will always have their stories and that in itself is priceless.
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scrappinghappy
Pearl Clutcher
“I’m late, I’m late for a very important date. No time to say “Hello.” Goodbye. I’m late...."
Posts: 4,306
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Post by scrappinghappy on Dec 27, 2021 0:47:19 GMT
I bought it for my mom but she became too sick to do it. The company was absolutely amazing in processing a refund under the circumstances. I would 100% recommend them for the customer service alone.
You can also ask your own questions which was a nice feature and send questions more frequently then once a week
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Post by peasapie on Dec 27, 2021 1:24:02 GMT
I love this idea and might create one myself for my kids/grandkids. I gave my mom a book years ago called grandmother remembers, and reading it now sheds so much light on her thoughts and past. I think it will be a treasure for generations to come.
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Post by Legacy Girl on Dec 27, 2021 7:25:56 GMT
I asked DH to buy me a subscription for Christmas. He hasn't done it yet, but our Christmas has been somewhat upended by a COVID scare, so I'm still hopeful. I'm a writer on hiatus at the moment, so I'm hoping this will jump-start my writing practice.
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Chinagirl828
Drama Llama
Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 6,467
Jun 28, 2014 6:28:53 GMT
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Post by Chinagirl828 on Dec 27, 2021 9:16:26 GMT
We bought it for my Dad a few years ago. I love that you could customise the questions, which let us remove the ones we knew simply wouldn't apply and in some cases write our own. Dad ended up not liking the question format, it was too haphazard for him as the questions jumped around different time periods. He did, however, end up using them as a starting point to write his own memoir, which we had printed through the site. As Skellinton said the quality of the finished books was lovely and even though Dad ended up using it in a different way than was intended, I'm still incredibly grateful to have so many stories in his own words, which would never have happened without this.
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PLurker
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,739
Location: Behind the Cheddar Curtain
Jun 28, 2014 3:48:49 GMT
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Post by PLurker on Dec 27, 2021 10:59:54 GMT
That looks neat. Would've great for so.wine ho likes to share stories.
I got something similar but au.plwr forbothmy Grandmother and Mother. It was a small but thick spiral bound book that listed questions on lined pages for the writer to complete. It's nice to see it in their own handwritten.
I will say, I wish the questions were more probing as they both were direct and didn't elaborate much beyond the initial question. They were both no nonsense girls from Missouri so it made sense in who they were. But they were both talkers and liked to socialize, it just didn't translate to page. They often answered the question succinctly and moved on. Not much elaboration.
As in
Q:Who was your favorite actor?
A: Joe Blow
(no/little stories why or antidotes)
I never pressed them to say more, I didn't want to bother them) but wish I had now that they're gone
I'm still happy to have what I have from them both, though.
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momto4kiddos
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,151
Jun 26, 2014 11:45:15 GMT
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Post by momto4kiddos on Dec 27, 2021 11:23:55 GMT
I just saw it the other day for the first time and love the concept and wanted to get it for my parents.
Couple questions... Mom could definitely type up the stories, but i'm wondering how that works? Do they send her an email or does she log on somewhere? Wondering how easy it is to do because she's sometimes confused by technology (logging into hulu huge problem when it logs them out(rofl))
Also can you customize all the questions? We were just with them a couple weeks ago and Dad was telling stories about my grandfather. I know my kids would love certain stories retold. To be honest I was thinking it would be great to customize the whole thing to our questions, is that possible?
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SabrinaP
Pearl Clutcher
Busy Teacher Pea
Posts: 4,350
Location: Dallas Texas
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Post by SabrinaP on Dec 27, 2021 11:41:09 GMT
I just saw it the other day for the first time and love the concept and wanted to get it for my parents. Couple questions... Mom could definitely type up the stories, but i'm wondering how that works? Do they send her an email or does she log on somewhere? Wondering how easy it is to do because she's sometimes confused by technology (logging into hulu huge problem when it logs them out(rofl)) Also can you customize all the questions? We were just with them a couple weeks ago and Dad was telling stories about my grandfather. I know my kids would love certain stories retold. To be honest I was thinking it would be great to customize the whole thing to our questions, is that possible? From what I understand they receive an email with a question once a week and simply have to respond to the email. They can also send pictures with their response. If you gift it to someone, you are able to go in and customize the questions being sent. They have a bank of questions in different categories like childhood, etc or you can write your own questions. |
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Post by Skellinton on Dec 27, 2021 17:01:28 GMT
I just saw it the other day for the first time and love the concept and wanted to get it for my parents. Couple questions... Mom could definitely type up the stories, but i'm wondering how that works? Do they send her an email or does she log on somewhere? Wondering how easy it is to do because she's sometimes confused by technology (logging into hulu huge problem when it logs them out(rofl)) Also can you customize all the questions? We were just with them a couple weeks ago and Dad was telling stories about my grandfather. I know my kids would love certain stories retold. To be honest I was thinking it would be great to customize the whole thing to our questions, is that possible? From what I understand they receive an email with a question once a week and simply have to respond to the email. They can also send pictures with their response. If you gift it to someone, you are able to go in and customize the questions being sent. They have a bank of questions in different categories like childhood, etc or you can write your own questions. The author can choose to answer the questions sent or write their own as well. |
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Post by Skellinton on Dec 27, 2021 17:06:13 GMT
That looks neat. Would've great for so.wine ho likes to share stories. I got something similar but au.plwr forbothmy Grandmother and Mother. It was a small but thick spiral bound book that listed questions on lined pages for the writer to complete. It's nice to see it in their own handwritten. I will say, I wish the questions were more probing as they both were direct and didn't elaborate much beyond the initial question. They were both no nonsense girls from Missouri so it made sense in who they were. But they were both talkers and liked to socialize, it just didn't translate to page. They often answered the question succinctly and moved on. Not much elaboration. As in Q:Who was your favorite actor? A: Joe Blow (no/little stories why or antidotes) I never pressed them to say more, I didn't want to bother them) but wish I had now that they're gone I'm still happy to have what I have from them both, though. I do wish more stuff was written in my parent’s handwriting, but honestly it would take so damn long to decipher it typed is the way to go for mine. The ability to change questions and write your own is a huge benefit of story worth and I do think they ask questions in such a way that it required more than just a two word answer. My mom also enjoyed being able to type them because she was able to go back and make corrections and edit and embellish when she had more time or another thought occurred to her. Honestly, if a relative enjoys telling stories I think this would be a wonderful gift for them |
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Post by fotos4u2 on Dec 27, 2021 17:45:09 GMT
I actually did this for myself a few years ago and then gifted my mom a subscription. For both of us I went in and chose the questions, rewriting some and the order so it should read sort of like a mini-biography.
For myself, I answered all the questions but never got around to having the book printed (partly because I started putting pictures in and then got overwhelmed and wasn't sure I'd be happy with only a few pages with pictures and the rest just the "story").
My mom answered some of the questions, but then got really behind and never finished. I still felt it was worth it to read her stories, they email the gifter a copy (although there were a couple of entries where she was very critical of myself, her only child, and my kids because we've made different life choices than she would and one came across so bad I asked her to revise it because I felt it would really hurt my oldest's feelings if she ever read it).
I'd love to gift it to my dad who's not much of a talker, but I don't think he has an email address that he really checks (parents are divorced).
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