blogging about blogging

Wow. Seven years. Every year on the date when I first started blogging in earnest it gets a little more unreal.

And just this morning I thought about what teenager me back in the day who was just starting to keep a journal (and struggling mightily to write in it regularly) would have said if anybody could have told her that now, more than thirty years later she’d have a journal that is read by dozens of people, that can be accessed by anyone in the world, and also her own private radio show.

And that all of this would be done by computer, by a computer network that spans the globe, and the computer she does this on is small enough to carry around in her purse (and that she’ll have two more, even smaller ones, both smaller than the communicators in Star Trek).

I’m not quite sure she would have believed me. Or else she would have thought that flying cars, and household robots would be widespread as well.

And that most of her friends would live in her computer, and that she would spend most of her time there, and she never even had to write a program to make it work ever. (Teenager me went to computer group in school, which was open to students in 9th grade or up, when she was in 7th grade. Those were the days when computer group was led by two physics teachers, and after the first year a 12th grader took over because he knew more about programming than the teachers.)

All in all – it’s a marvel!

And having found people who usually are interested in what I have to say is rather thrilling. And being able to do all of this just for fun is even better.

So I hope you all still enjoy this as much as I do – here’s to the next seven years!

Last Saturday was the actual day but I was too busy to write something on the blog. This blog started out on blogger in 2006. Phew! Six years already!

I know I’ve been rather quiet here lately but that doesn’t mean I want to stop anytime soon. Even when I feel like nobody wants to read, I still can’t imagine not to write.

A lot of the discussion we used to have on our blogs has moved to twitter and Facebook but I still like to read and write in a format that’s just slightly longer. That can go a bit deeper, or show more pictures.

I often chuckle when I remember the time when I tried to make money from blogging. When I had ads on her and blogging started to feel like a chore. When I read blogs about how to do this successfully, from people to told me to keep a blog for each of my interests. A writing blog, a mommy blog, a knitting blog, a blog for the podcast, a blog for pictures, a blog for changing habits.

But I never wanted to do that. I’m one person, singular, with all the different things that I like and think about I still don’t have compartments in my head.

Last Saturday, my actual anniversary day, I spent the day showing my photos, reading stories, and singing songs at a pop-up gallery. An event that possibly never could have happened if it weren’t for the internet. Real people, meeting each other through the computer. (If you want to get an impression of the event you can read about it on Lia’s blog.)

I started out a little more than six years ago because I was feeling very lonely, sitting around at home with my son, and I hadn’t found friends in my hometown, even though I tried. And then, all of a sudden, there were all these people in my computer. And then it turned out that some of those computer people lived right next door.

I think that’s pretty amazing.

Thanks, my dear readers, for coming back here, even if I don’t have a regular posting schedule or anything. Thanks a lot, and here’s to the next six years or so.

Just about five minutes ago I thought, “Well, if it’s February I should see when I posted my first post. Because of the blog anniversary.” And see, my blog anniversary was February 11th.

So happy belated blog anniversary to creative.mother.thinking. I don’t think the blog will mind that I’m late, it’s quite used to me and my procrastinate ways by now.

Five years is a long time. Especially in blogland. My posts have gotten longer and farther between, I am no longer posting about my son as much as I did before, there is way more knitting on the blog, also the podcast – but then things change, that’s the nature of life.

To be frank I’m never quite sure when my blog anniversary is precisely. I deleted my very first post which I posted about a year before my now official first post. I posted in German disclosing both my son’s name and the town where I live. This blog also wasn’t named “creative.mother.thinking” then, it was “diapers and music”. And it didn’t have it’s own domain.

And when I think about it the most amazing thing is that there are people who have been reading and commenting here for years now. Almost five years. All my imaginary friends who only live in the computer. This is amazing.

Who would have thought that there are so many friendly people out there? I was sitting here, trying to make friends where I live and not succeeding. And then I found communities on the internet. Making it possible to say that I’m not that weird, there are others like me out there. And some of them don’t live that far away and the circle sometimes closes again.

So thank you all for reading, there would not be a blog without you,

Susanne

I know, it’s crazy, two posts in two days. But four years ago today I wrote my first post on this blog in English. there had been another first post, almost a year before but that wasn’t the real starting point.

I’ve read a few of my earliest posts this week, and I still like them. I also still struggle with the same things but then I’m slowly making my peace with the fact that I’m me, and that I’ll stay me for most of the rest of my life.

Nonetheless this blog has been a good thing to do, I have gotten to know all sorts of people I wouldn’t have met otherwise, and I’m very grateful for that.

When I started this blog I had no idea who was going to read it. And then there was a time when I started learning more about who’s reading here, and there was a steady stream of comments on my posts. In those days we all didn’t spend time on twitter and facebook and ravelry, and in those days I used to write a lot more comments too. So it’s a bit weird to have gone back to the days where every post just sits there, and then I check my stats, and then I still don’t really know. It’s okay because mostly I’m writing for me.

But for my fourth anniversary it would be really nice if you could just say Hi in the comments so that I know you’re there.

And for my German readers, it’s really alright to write comments in German.

This is my own personal de-lurking day.

when you forget that it is, and then a blogger friend announces the third anniversary of her blog, and you think, “Wait a minute, when she’s been blogging for three years I must have been too!”

So, my blog turned three. In February. Without me noticing. Seems like the honeymoon is over. Still, three years, that’s a lot of time. In blog years, anyway.

And then I went back to the beginning (I had to because I had to look up how long I’ve been blogging), and I found that in my third post I had written about temper tantrums, about conflict with my son, and how to cope. By changing just a few words I could have posted the same post last week. That surely makes me feel a bit strange, as if my life were an endless loop of repeated behavior.

But then I can’t take every post from three years ago and post it as new without changing much. I guess it all evens out.

You probably know this from your own experience, I constantly think about how much blogging and blog-reading I want to do, or I can do with all the other commitments in my life. About every other week I have the feeling that I don’t have anything to say that’s worth reading, and then I contemplate quitting.

But I won’t. Not now anyway.

My head is full of things I’d like to write about if I had a bit of space in my life. Some day I’ll get around to do it. Who knows, maybe some day I’ll even post some more music here.

And I would never had thought, back in 2006 when I started blogging for real that I’d still be doing it 295 posts later. That’s a lot of words. And the most amazing thing is that some of you have been reading all of them. Thanks.