5 Years

Today, March 18th, is our Blogiversary.

Five years ago today I gave in to the urging of Dr Nicki and opened the web site she had written down for me and assigned the blog name she had chosen.

My first post, titled "Starting Point" had no pictures. I didn't know how to add pictures. It described my earliest memories of pet dogs. I don't know if anyone read it. No one left a comment.

My second post had pictures and it garnered one comment from Dr Nicki.  I didn't think I had enough to say to get me thru a week of posts but I made the decision, since no one was reading it anyway, to use my blog as my journal. I had tried keeping hand written journals several times in my life and after a few days or weeks at most, I lost interest. I expected the same results from a blog.

At that time in my life, in 2008, I was very unhappy and very lonely. We had left family and friends on the East Coast and moved to a place where we knew no one and had almost nothing in common with the people in the area. Rob was gone all week, traveling on business, and I was here alone with my dogs. I longed for human contact with people who had some common interests. I surfed the internet most nights till the wee hours looking for some way to communicate with others. One night I found a group of bloggers who all had an interest in dogs. I requested to join the group and was accepted. Suddenly people were reading my blog and commenting.

Blogging changed my life. I was using skills that I hadn't used in a very long time. I was writing and planning future posts. I was using my camera to document everyday events that would have likely gone unnoticed without the blog. I was meeting people who shared their lives and interests. I was building a blogging family who I cared about. We shared our daily lives, our successes and disappointments, our dreams and our fears. We celebrated each others milestones and mourned each others losses.

Back in 2008 I never expected to be blogging five years later or to be approaching my 1000th post which I'll be writing next month. There have been times when I faced writers block for one reason or another, but my blog has become an important part of my day and I look forward to many more posts.

Thank you to each of you who have stopped by our little blog if only to look at the pictures. Thank you to everyone who has stopped to read our thoughts. A huge thank you to those of you who have left comments. There are no words to express my thanks to those of you who have become our friends and our blogging family. You are so very dear to us and have made my life so much better.