I thought it appropriate that on my first blogiversary (which passed without fanfare...or a post) I would return to the roots and original intent of my blog...and see if I could even remember what it was...I think it had something to do with reviewing books given my clever choice of "Di's Book Blog" for the title. The "etc." came after when I realized that I couldn't limit my writing to reviewing books...I just had to share the humor, heartache and hellaciousness of my daily life.
I honestly can't remember what inspired me to start a blog...but I do know that Tracy Thompson's Maternally Challenged was a huge part of that inspiration. On August 14, 2006, in my blog-o-virginal naivete, I raved about Kathleen Gilles Seidel's A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity. Her incisive capturing of the land-mine-filled world of female adolescence and the mirror world that exists among the mothers of those females still slays me to this day...and is a book I recommend whenever the conversation turns to the "mean girl" reality of middle/high school.
In the year since the birth of my blog, I have reviewed 50 books. For many, that would be a huge year of book-reading. But for me, having read 100 books one year when I was working full-time and my kids were small and much more needy, it's rather mediocre. That's about a book a week (you won't believe this, but I did that on a calculator before I remembered that there are 52 weeks in a year and it was fairly obvious what the average number per week was). It could have been more...but damn that Karen and her Sudoku-pushing...she shouldn't be allowed within 50 yards of any location where obsessive, puzzle-minded middle aged women might congregate.
HOWEVER, (and glass-half-full kinda gal that I am, you know there had to be a "however") I have found that writing this blog has made me more selective in my reading. I tend to be more judicious about what books I finish and what books I toss aside as a waste of time. I figure that if I don't want to waste my time finishing a book, you certainly don't want to waste your time reading a review of it.
In this blog-o-licious year, I have corresponded with at least a half dozen authors whose books I reviewed and even became e-friends with a couple. I corresponded with and subsequently met Kitty Dukakis after reviewing her book Shock and sharing our experiences with depression and ECT (electroconvulsive therapy).
During this year I have shared my experiences traveling to new places...Scotland, Ireland, Savannah, Long Island and Hollywood. I have made new friends, introduced them to you and made them a part of the "etc." world that is so much more important than the book-reading world. I've shared my birthday celebration, the milestone of my 15th wedding anniversary (the 16th is this Thursday), a sudden death and a friend's hole-in-one. I have been Googled...yes, Googled! L'il ole me...Googled!
Blogging has proven to be a cathartic experience for me. It has helped me sort out things just by writing about them. It has introduced me to new perspectives from my readers' comments. There are some things I don't blog about because they are too personal, too painful or they would hurt someone who might read my blog. But even my process of deciding whether or not to blog about something has helped me to understand why some things roll off of me and make me see the tragicomic nature of a situation and some things pierce me to the core and continue to rise up and cause me pain despite the passage of time.
I have had my grammar corrected via comment by my daughter. I have had my mother and sister tell me that they read my blog to find out what's going on in my life when I'm too busy to have a phone conversation of more than three minutes. I have even gotten my husband to read my blog on occasion. I feel like Ali, Karen, Nicholas, Haley-O and Tracy are true friends, despite the fact that if I ran into them, I wouldn't recognize them unless they happened to have the very expression on their faces that they are wearing in their blog photos. For a while there, I thought I would only recognize Karen if somehow the world was all in black & white! And if Haley-O ever has that baby, I won't recognize her without her well-documented belly!
So to all my readers, commenters and lurkers...thanks for a great year...I've been having fun with it and it makes me feel great when I find out that you have enjoyed it too!
Love, Di
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