#1000

Here it is. My 1000th blog entry. Woot! :::pumping fist in the air as if I am the only person on the planet with a blog:::

I have definitely considered abandoning the blog more than once. "Why bother?" I think to myself. But, I keep writing and I'm pretty sure I do it mostly for myself. Writing is often therapeutic for me. I remember when my friend Kevin died. I couldn't sleep so I got up in the middle of the night and wrote about him. It turned out to be the turning point in the grief process. I also remember another sleepless night when I rolled out of bed and wrote about a friend who had hurt my feelings. To this day, I still wonder if it was her or me or if the friendship had simply run its course.  I still miss her. Catharsis doesn't always mean closure, I suspect, but writing really does help.

I wish I had started the blog before my daughter was born.  There was a lot of anxiety before and after her birth and writing about it might have helped. However, I am glad I started the blog when I did because now it's fun to go back and look at what I wrote when she was two and three and so forth. It's easy to forget the little things about days spent with a toddler, so it's nice to have those preserved somewhere. For example, I recently revisited a blog entry about potty training that still makes me laugh. There was the time she was thirsty and demanded a piece of water. Or the horrifying trips to the grocery store.

I have used my blog to chronicle my daughter's life, to work through some of my own baggage, to weigh in on current events, and to kvetch about whatever is stuck in my craw at any given moment.

In 1,000 entries, I:
  • Lost and gained about a gazillion pounds
  • Visited at least a dozen states, including family trips to Texas and DisneyWorld.
  • Lost my sweet, gentle Karl Lee
  • Adopted Fat Gretchen (bam-a-lam)
  • Told our daughter that she was adopted
  • Lost one job and got another one
  • Discovered yoga
  • Went vegan
  • Bought a minivan (I hope to ditch that bad boy soooon)
  • Fostered a gazillion dogs
  • Got to be a bridesmaid for the first time
  • Won $10,000 (for a charity of my choice) from filmmaker/activist Michael Moore. Needless to say, I chose the rescue as my charity.
  • Gained four new nephews and a few other relatives
  • Got more involved in my church
  • Had surgery to re-arrange the bones in my left foot
  • Got my first tattoo
  • Aged 7.5 years
  • Kept one unruly kid alive
The entries that were the most popular with my hundreds dozens three readers:

For some, I think the reason they got a lot of readers is a result of naughty (or sometimes completely innocuous) language I may have used. I wrote two entries about my husband and daughter attending an annual Daddy-Daughter dance, and I'm pretty sure they got so many hits was because someone Googled those terms in hopes of finding something thoroughly disgusting. Sick fucks, I tell ya. For others, I'm assuming that they were cross-posted somewhere. My blog entry about my sister's wedding got a ton of hits and I'm not really sure why. Same goes for the entry about my optometrist. I'm assuming that my blog comes up when people Google terms related to nausea+optometrist.

My early blog entries didn't get a lot of traction because they weren't being posted automatically to Facebook like they are now. I like to tell myself that the early entries are still awesome, though. I mean, it's not really possible to talk about potty training TOO much, is it?

An entry that was meaningful to me was this one:  http://alabastermom.blogspot.com/2007/07/miscarriages-frog-wish-granted.html. I think it was the first time I really let myself work through the feelings of loss and joy I was experiencing. I still love that little frog, too.

So there you have it. A little retrospective of my life, as told in 1,000 small chunks. Thanks for reading.

Comments

Sam said…
I have loved your blog for years! I still remember the first time I stumbled upon it and read through your archives for hours! Happy 1000th!
The Lovely One said…
:) Happy 1000! And I'm so glad your wish was granted!

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