First created Generations Poetry! We started with our home page, Potpourri, StoryQuest, Meet the Poets, and a very simple Photo Album! Pages were created with CoffeeCup HTML Editor and uploaded with CoffeeCup FTP.
After 9/11 I added "God's Problem" by Helen Graebner to the Potpourri page. I also added a link on the Home page to donate to the Red Cross.
October 2001
Diane changes jobs after the hotel in which she was working has to lay off a large number of employees due to current events. Diane immediately accepts a job as a receptionist in a private country club.
November 2001
Diane offered a promotion in her new job to Manager and also becomes the Administrative Assistant to the Club's Director.
Site hosting is moved from the free 2itb server to a free server with the ISP Directvinternet.com
Diane moved from Florida to South Carolina to become Administrative Assistant in a new Golf and Country Club in Bluffton, SC. The Clubhouse Director for whom she worked in Florida had gone to work at that club and needed an Assistant.
Helen moved from Cleveland, OH to Rapid City, SD to be near her daughter Judy.
The site moved from a free server to its permanent home at www.generations-poetry.com thanks to an early Christmas gift from Diane's brother Jeff!
The Flash introduction was removed from the site for maintenance.
The site earns the title of "Featured Poet of the Month" from Poetry in a Cup!
July 2003
Helen Graebner celebrates her 91st birthday!
The Meet the Poets page is updated for Helen's birthday, Diane & Helen's relocation, and to add links to websites explaining some of the information in the biographies.
November 2003
Andrew Robert Graebner is born to Diane's brother Jeff and his wife Ilene! New photos of baby Andrew are immediately placed on the Photo Album page - Diane isn't a proud aunt at all, is she?
After a long period of not working on the site, the Volunteers page is added to the Meet the Poets page to showcase some of the organizations that are important to Helen & Diane
Added the Gift Shop to begin selling items featuring Helen & Diane's poetry as a way to help offset the cost of hosting and editing the site.
Also began taking donations via PayPal on the Home page to help defray costs
Added a news page through a CGI host to begin to keep visitors updated on changes to the site and to let everyone know about important Graebner events
February 2004
Helen is hospitalized after experiencing chest pains. Surgery is performed and Helen is sent home. Several days later, she experiences more pain. The doctors perform an additional procedure to correct the problem. It is decided that Helen's current condition makes it necessary for her to live in a more managed care facility, and Helen moves into a nursing home in Rapid City, SD.
For reasons known only to Diane, she suddenly is inspired to make major changes to the site! The Flash Introduction is repaired and replaced, and the decision to convert the site to CSS is made. Unfortunately, Diane knows NOTHING about CSS, so her education on the subject begins!
Added new navigation menu and buttons to main pages and new graphic "Back" button to poetry pages.
Changed animated GIF on Christmas page to a photo of Helen with Santa.
March 2004
Diane finally feels confident enough to convert the site to CSS. It receives a whole makeover, with new styles and layout on many of the pages. Although no one should notice a huge difference, you should notice that the site just overall LOOKS better!
The CGI news page is canceled, and this page is added!
An invisible stat counter is put in place of the visible counter on the Home page to allow us to see how our visitors find us, and what we can do to improve the site for them. The Privacy Statement is updated to reflect the change in how cookies are used.
Removed page transitions from the entire site in an effort to make them load faster. A word about the transitions; I like them even though in some circles they are considered bad web coding. That's why they stayed in the site for as long as they did.
Fixed the navigation again to make it more consistent.
I fixed some pesky (and stupid) coding errors and began the task of validating the HTML and CSS on the entire site. I also placed some of the JavaScript in external files.
On a trip to visit Helen in South Dakota, my parents stumbled upon a baby book with pictures and what may very well be Helen's first poem! The Potpourri Page was therefore rearranged to add the new treasures. The page also includes a link to the original, handwritten poem!
May 2004
New photo albums have been installed on the Photo Album Page. The album had become quite messy, was completely out of order, and relied too heavily on JavaScript so it wasn't very browser friendly. Now there are links to three albums, one for Helen Graebner, one for Diane Graebner and a third Family Album.
August 2004
On August 12, 2004, Helen Graebner passed away. She had recently celebrated her 92 birthday. A new memorial page was added to the site (View the Memorial) and the Biography was changed. I wrote a poem entitled The Book to memorialize my Grandmother and added it to the memorial page and the home page.
July 2005
Removed the link to the Bards of Fortune School of Shakespeare competition since that site was no longer active. Also removed the link to purchase the "Tribute to Mom" book since it is no longer available for sale.
Moved the Tribute to Helen from the index page to a separate page and renamed the Home page to make it the entry page into the site.
Thanks for viewing our site! I hope you'll keep coming back to see what's new and different!
