August marked the ten year anniversary of blog.
Ten years.
That’s a little less than a third of my life. Ten years ago, I was single (but dating and living with my now husband). I was living in New York City. I was working at Goldman Sachs. I was a programmer. I worked pretty much nonstop. I was trying to write novels. I had a bird. Since then, so much has happened. I went part time in my job and volunteered in several places. I then quit it got married and did Teach For America. Then we took a 3-month trip where we went to the Caymans and drove across the US. We moved to San Diego. I got a job programming. We had our first son. I started scrapbooking. I started a photography company. I learned to drive. We moved up to the San Francisco Bay Area. I got another job. We bought a house. We had another kid. I changed my job to work from home. My son started school.
During this time, my blog went through many changes. In the beginning I wrote about nothing. Then I wrote longer pieces. Some months I wrote a lot. Other months nothing. For a while, it was a photoblog. And then it became all about my kids. My art. Kids. I went back and forth over the years about whether it should have a focus. Whether I was alienating some of my “readers” by writing about me too much. Or not enough. Putting too much about scrapbooking. Or not enough. Too many photos. You get my point. In the end, I gave up worrying about it.
The greatest thing about my blog is that it’s a testament to the last ten years of my life. So many of my feelings, my thoughts, my ordinary life is in there. I love going back five years and reading about an ordinary day. I love seeing what my life was like then. What I worried about, what I was grateful for. I love having records of my past-self. And I love that as I changed, the blog changed. It holds so many stages of my life. So many of my milestones. When I was a little girl, I wrote diaries for years. But then at 18, I suddenly stopped. And this blog has been a form of diary for me since my mid-twenties. And I am deeply grateful for it.
The reason I stopped worrying about my traffic, my content, my focus is that this blog is primarily for me. I love the visitors, the kind, insightful, encouraging comments. But it’s my way of tracking my life, my thoughts, my emotions. Most importantly my ordinariness. I’ve learned over the years that what seems very ordinary now is absolutely not so years from now. The “ordinary” part of life changes the most with time. I might live in this house ten years from now but the day-to-day life here will be significantly different. And by capturing these moments, I get to cherish them forever. This is the same reason I scrapbook. But blogging is simpler, faster, and easier to backup digitally.
If any of you are struggling with what to put on your blog, what to write about, I hope you find a way to talk about the ordinariness of your life. I promise you it’s anything but ordinary.
J’ai découvert ton blog il y a peu et je ne me lasse pas de venir le voir chaque jour
J’adore te lire, j’aimerais en faire autant sur mon blog car c’est vraiment bien de pouvoir écrire comme ça nos journées, nos petits et grands bonheurs
Merci donc de nous faire partager tout cela
Bisous de France
Marinette
je vous remercie tellement 🙂 🙂
Oh Karen, I love your ordinary days! I’ve been reading your blog for a while now, since I took my first BPS class with you and liked your style and your stories so much.
My mom has been sick (this is WEEK 4)and it’s been such a drain. I haven’t been able to do the normal things I crave–basic things like seeing my husband and going to work every day, and sleeping and eating like a regular person! It’s getting better (Thank God!) but I really look forward to reading about your “ordinary” days, especially now when mine are so not ordinary. It’s a lovely reminder that the regular world is still there, still clicking along, and my little corner of it is waiting for me. It’s funny, you get into ruts with work, housework, etc., but when you are thrown back out, you can’t wait to get back in. People forget how very special and wonderful ordinary is.
Anyways, thank you for your blog. I get that it is for you, but it’s soothing for me too.
Have a great, blessed ordinary day!
bless you, Pat. I am so so sorry about your mom, I hope she recovers soon and well 🙁 I knowwhat you mean though, it’s amazing how much of our “ordinary” life we take for granted and don’t realize until it disappears. I am trying to hug mine close and be grateful for it. thank you for coming and being here. it’s one of the things that keeps me going! I’ll be thinking of you and your mom.
This is exactly the inspiration I needed to get back to writing posts. It has been nearly two months because I felt it was boring and that noone would be interested in my life.
So I have been thinking about this too. I have decided ordinary is good. the ‘sameness’ of each day means I am not dealing with traumas or ridiculous highs. One of the difficulties I have (and I think it is true of most Brits) is it is difficult to emote, to verbalise the differences in the ordinariness. But equally I want to try and capture that.
mmmm dont think I wrote that well
i think you did!! and i hope you do capture it. it’s so special i think. i really do!
Ten year anniversary? Oh my! That’s quite an achievement!
I’ve spent quite some time reading through some of your old(er) entries and it was great: seeing pictures of David as a newborn (and marvelling how much he already looked like his present self!), admiring your opening pictures (the pictures of Yosemite brought back some happy memories), learning a bit more about your life journey, smiling every time you cursed/used a swearword (something you don’t do much these days!!) and especially noticing how much more happy?/at peace?/serene? you seem these days compared to several years ago.
What a treasure to be able to go back through all those entries of your “ordinary” life!
You’re inspiring me to be better at updating my little blog. This will be my main project this month… I may even get aroud to posting pictures of the LOs I made back in June for LOAD 😉
yey for writing on your blog again!! i see you started 🙂 i can’t wait to see those layouts!!
Happy anniversary! It’s hard to believe that I came by everyday, sometimes twice a day for the last ten years. Unbelievable how time flies! I’ve watched this page evolve, change, and two things remain constant: your talent and the tulips! Here’s to many more years.
love you so much. i owe you an email my friend. i am so glad you’ve been my friend all this time 🙂
Happy Anniversary!
Thank you for this post. You have inspired me. I have been lost in the ‘need’ to find a focus for my blog. But I have decided that I dont need one. If you are intersted in reading my first post in two months — about my gratitude for this post — you can find it here:
http://outsidemywindowandinsidemyheart.blogspot.com/2010/08/gratitude.html
I am so glad it inspired you and thank you so much for all the kind words you said about me, you’re so so nice!!! i hope you do continue to write and don’t worry about anything. that’s what i tell myself 🙂
seni okuyali 10 sene oldumu bilmiyorum ama herhalde 4 senedir her gun okudugum en keyifli gazetemsin bu kadar acik sozlu bir gazete hic bir yerde raslamadim ve bana bu keyifi veren sana tesekkur ediyorum
canim annem!! ben sana tesekkur ediyorum. seni cok seviyorum!
karenika bende sana itiraf ediyorum ,
son 10 senedir olmasa da birkac senedir sabahlari gozumu actigimda kahvaltim ve cayimin yaninda sen ve senin hayatinda olanlar var. cok cok mutluyum cunku aramizdaki bu kadar kilometreye ragmen herseyini an be an takip ediyorum , keske bende bir baslasamda aynisini yapabilsem , sende benim yasadiklarimi an be an takip ederdin …
bu sene ben de 40 yasima basarken belki yeni bir baslangic yaparim kim bilir ???
en cok aklimda olan proje senin “gratitude” projen …
valla abla bence harika fikir. ben cok cok sevinirim! ben de her gun seni okurum!!