One year down already

I started blogging just over one year ago- Thursday, March 30. The first year anniversary date has passed and l was unaware - not to mind. Anyway l never thought l’d be here for as long. I’ve gone through a few different blog designs and changes and it makes me smile when l think of the time spent changing html around and being creative early on. Not to mention the heartache at loosing a good post or comment to Mr. Invisible! Arghh!! Now l always try to backup just in case.

I hung out to the end as an ‘old blogger’ – a bit like my personality- ‘never surrender, never retreat’. When logging in l used to perceive the words as a choice between ‘old codger’* or ‘new bugger’- l’d rather be a bit eccentric so stuck out with old - that was until finally they gave me no choice!

My reason for setting up a blog space was because my two older children had their own sites – on Bebo and My Space. They seemed to be very up-to-date with this new online service and l saw how much they enjoyed keeping in touch with friends, etc. l thought it would be a good thing also to keep in touch with the kids and family further afield. It was fun to learn something new- a creative outlet- still is!

Strangely enough, l intended to blog about my interior design projects and love of architecture but family life and other projects took centre stage. Perhaps this year l will cover some of the things that l initially planned.

Most of all, I delight in the fact l have made so many great new friendships - a few rare jewels! Mostly l have learned how normal l am though it all- that there are other women just like me out there interested in similar things, with similar personalities who love to share and care. Even although we are miles apart it is nice to sit down and have a peek at what they are up too- just by the click of a few buttons!

Below is an older post that went unread - in my case it took a good few of these before someone left a comment. Perhaps now and then l might bring one out and dust it off- seems a shame to let them just fade away.

Here is one below.

Bests all :)

WeBLOGging* I read somewhere yesterday that 2006 is the ‘Year of the Blog’. Personally l’m not surprised by this as most of my family are online and quite active in the ‘blogosphere’. Irony is that now we seem to know more about each other than ever before! Personally l think blogging has many good points as well as also being a creative outlet for tinkering around with graphics. Who would have imagined 20 years ago you could sit in your own room and share thoughts and events with people from almost any part of the globe. Of all the IT innovations the ‘blog’ has virtues. People are actually sitting down and being creative with language – something l thought was a dying art with texting as its death knell. People have become diarists – recording their lives and feelings unashamedly. They read the writings of others – contribute to others work and learn of other peoples experiences. Gardens, holidays, birthdays, poetry – you name it and it gets blogged up – and if it is sometimes a bit self-indulgent – so what – the feel good factor is worth it. It’s a really good place – a public refuge - to moan and shout about work, relationships, failures, frustrations and the downright dross aspects of life. Somehow there is a feeling of satisfaction from airing your life in public – a sense of belonging to something more than our own four walls. Good therapy even if we are fast becoming nosy parkers on an industrial scale. Me - I’m off to iron the new lace curtains I’ve had made for my screen.

*Definitions of Weblogging on the Web:

• A weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally in reverse chronological order). Although most early weblogs were manually updated, tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made them accessible to a much larger population, and the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of "blogging".

wikipedia: Weblogging