it's my blogoversary!

today's my 1 year blogoversary. is it weird that i just gave myself a cake? blogging seems to fit me and my current lifestyle very well as i've figured it all out and learned the ropes. when i wrote my first post, i didn't even know what a follower was or have any inkling of what i was getting myself into. who knew i'd have 160 posts inside myself, just waiting to come out in the course of one year. or that i'd get 500 hits on that one crazy post about shaving my head.

when i look back on that first night of writing, it reminds me of how far i've come in the past year. how much my life has changed and how you can learn and adapt to anything that's thrown at your way if you're willing to try. that was a really rough period (and i don't mean of the red, sloppy variety) because my husband was sick & suffering & we were trying to adjust to life without 2 vehicles. i seriously thought i'd be getting a replacement car at some point shortly after the dead one died, but instead, i learned to write & to cook. not exactly an even exchange, but valuable, none the less.

at first, i wanted to write out all my ideas as fast as i could. my posts were sometimes ridiculously long, but i wanted to squeeze every funny thing i thought of into each post. they were often of a listy nature rather than a story nature, but since then i've learned that i can do a story more justice by letting it stand alone as a solo post rather than abbreviating it and putting alongside several other amusing stories. these are not facebook statuses that need to be short & witty. this blog's not going anywhere, so i can slow down & tell a story the way it's meant to be told. i think i may extract portions of my older posts that i wrote back when i had hardly any readers. some of them are pretty good & it's a shame to let them disappear into history, so if you guys don't object, i may rewrite them & present them a second time around.

another thing i didn't realize is how much i'd come to enjoy reading the blogs of others'. i didn't know that i'd get drawn into the lives of so many people by reading their posts regularly, as if each one is a chapter in a book. or an episode of a tv show, but one where you can interact with the characters through comments. i can spend hours a day just reading through and commenting on people's posts. i love commenting, especially on someone's blog who doesn't yet have a lot of followers or commenters. some of them are truly gems & i wonder why they don't get more traffic. i want to encourage them and let them know that they're doing well & they're appreciated. they have value, even in the mind of this humble stranger.

thanks to all of you guys who stop by. you are appreciated & i like you, even if you just lurk in the shadows in the middle of the night. if you want to come out into the light of day & introduce yourselves, i'd love to meet you. you've seen my place & i'd love an invitation to yours too. we could sit & chat, maybe exchange boob stories or laugh about that time when you called that bearded lady "sir." you tell me one of yours & i'll tell you mine and we'll laugh and cry together. and maybe on occasion, we'll do both at the same time.