Happy Belated Anniversary to Me!!!

I would like to change direction from my last two posts about my sister and her final moments. I have two more parts to write about that, but I need to take a deep breath and celebrate (??? ~ I suppose that depends on who you are and your perspective) and mention another, small but meaningful part of what I do with some of my time. Wouldn't you know that in the middle of all of this chaos that is my life, I failed to acknowledge my Blogging Anniversary.

This is only my 98th post, but I have been blogging now for over one year. My first blog on Blogger.com was on April 18, 2007. Of course, I started blogging almost a year before that on Myspace, but since I canceled my old Myspace profile and then re-upped a week or so later, those blogs are only memories to me because I copied them.

Anyway, so officially, this blog is a year old.

I initially started this blog to chronicle my progress, or lack thereof, as I walked/ran my way through the Couch-2-5K program I found on Coolrunning.com (see the sidebar with a very old date). Keeping up with that program has been the bane of my existence, but I never give up the desire or the hope that one day I will actually complete it and actually run a real 5K.

What has evolved, though, is more of a personal diary, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes stupid and, apparently, sometimes alienating. This blog has become a real creative outlet for me and, to be honest, I have found it to be deeply rewarding. What I didn't expect was that anyone besides me (and Tom) would want to read it, let alone want to read it regularly. But, what has amazed me is the number of people outside of my family who seem to actually be interested in what I have to write. I've had visitors from all over the United States and the world, some new and most returning. It boggles my mind.

What interests me is how people find my blog. I have a great traffic monitor that gives the usual visit counts but also provides all kinds of details about my readers: date and time of their visit, their city and state, their ISP, the referring URL (if any), etc. For example, a person in Alabama googled "use people love things" and Oila!! I was 6th on the list of links:



Another person from the UK googled "I hope life isn't a big joke" and my blog was the second link on the list. And, they both stayed and read more than one page of my blog. I could go on and on, but I won't bore you with all the little details.

I am so grateful to all of you who have accompanied me, and tolerated my rantings and ravings, throughout this year long journey. I very much appreciate your comments and emails. Thank you for allowing me to touch so many of you.

Rest assured, even if no one is reading, I will continue to write because, ultimately, I do this exercise for me.