This post was penned, if you can call it such, as there was never a pen involved and yet it sounds so much better than typed or clicked or tapped out. Well. Tapped out isn't so bad. Anyway, this post was put on paper....um, no, but you get it, I came up with it last weekend. I thought I'd come back to edit it and maybe add a photo within a reasonable amount of time, but I literally forgot I wrote it until I read Carole's post and WHAM! I remembered...that I forgot about the post that I wrote about forgetting my blogiversary. And it was a big on. The big ONE-OH!
I get an 'A' in forgetting. It's really good to know your strengths.
I've missed my blogiversary.
Usually it is March or so when I figure it out, but this year I read this post by Stephanie and went to check to see when my 10 year mark would be (we started blogging in the same year), thinking that it was coming up! I'm not going to miss it this time! only to find out that Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! I'd already missed it. Why change a tradition, right?
This would be the space where I reflect on my blogging life and how it has added loving, lovable, loved, and valued friends to my life, introduced me to a community of people with similar passions to mine (after a lifetime of feeling somewhat alone in my house knitting like what others saw as a crazy lady), introduced me to new things like spinning and a much wider creative network. I'd talk about the friends I've made, the traveling I've done, the things I've learned not only about the craft, but about people in general-mostly good, but not always. I might mention how this internet thing has opened up the availability of great designers, yarn dyers, fibers, and ways to shop for everything. I'd have to follow that up with the amount of money I might have saved if it never had happened, but really. It's all enriching, right?
Then there is the idea that I have been able to help others through this venue. I've been a knitter for 43 years, a blogger for 10. It is only in the 10 that I have felt that the knowledge and advanced skill I have for the craft is real. Before that I was a knitter to my friends and family, but it was just knitting to most of them. This community has opened my horizons and I now teach and share with others what experience has taught me over the years. The self confidence gained and the solidifying of my detail driven perfectionist tendencies are a by-product of the connections made, virtual and real.
And here I could talk about how the internet has changed and grown in ten years and the time wasted spent poring over blogs, online shopping sites, ravelry (ravelry! probably the greatest resource that internet has given knitters) and NOT actually knitting. That's right. Or sewing, quilting, needlepointing, spinning....... too long a list, really. So while the blogging/internet thing has certainly contributed to my fiber life, it has stolen a lot of productivity time as well. I'm still working on how to find a balance, but let's be honest. I get an 'A' in distractibility.
I believe that it is good for my brain to spin the negatives in a positive way.
Anyway, those posts have been written by me and others many times and you've likely read them and I'm not sure I have anything unique to add to them, so next time you read a post like that know that yep, that's what I mean. I thank all of you for sharing your lives with me and caring enough to hang around for the sometimes informative, sometimes fun, sometimes crazy that happens around here, even if it has gotten sparse (I love that word).
So at ten years my brain feels a little mushy, but I blame it totally on the 'knit-for-hire' that I'm working on. Women's sweater, fingering weight, garter stitch, size three needles. (I just repeated that last sentence in my head, but screaming at the top of my mind's ear's lungs.) Twelve rows to the inch. (Again with the screaming.) Today I get an 'A' for just plugging away, thank the heavens for other technology such as audiobooks (The Goldfinch, 32 hours of it should get me through a few inches or so), all the different ways you can stream and watch movies and 50 bajillion seasons of almost any old television show, and music-millions of songs at the click of a button.
And it's grey. So much grey.
Five. I'm also giving myself an 'A' in stick to-itiveness. Usually I'll have another, more pleasing to me, project in the works, and Lord knows I have so many little baby things that I'd rather be knitting, but this time it is all garter stitch all the time. I am determined to finish this thing and get it out of my house asap. Report card for today: Straight As!!!
Happy Blogiversary, Terry! So glad to have met you and so many other wonderful knitters and friends via this platform.
Lots of gray garter stitch mojo to you because, well, because there are BABY THINGS TO KNIT!!
:)
Posted by: Vicki | January 31, 2014 at 02:09 PM
Happy blogiversary to you! Joining Vicki in sending garter stitch mojo, because BABY THINGS!! (I think it is next to impossible to type those words with lowercase letters.)
Posted by: Ruth | January 31, 2014 at 02:52 PM
If it wasn't for blogs, I never would have met you. And that certainly would have been my loss.
Posted by: claudia | January 31, 2014 at 03:32 PM
You always get straight As in my book! I started blogging in March. You were my first commenter (I believe). The connections we make are well worth the time wasted looking at the screen.
Posted by: margene | January 31, 2014 at 03:53 PM
I missed mine too but only by a day. I'm glad you're here and yeah, all that other stuff, too. So do you like The Goldfinch? I loved The Little Friend and I've been excited to read this but I've heard a couple of people mention that they didn't really like it and that's a bummer.
Posted by: Carole | January 31, 2014 at 05:36 PM
happy blogiversary girlfriend. Ive enjoyed our musings
Posted by: bloglesssharon | January 31, 2014 at 06:14 PM
Happy Blogiversary Terry! So glad for the blogs, you and that I can call you friend. It has been a fun ride. Fingers crossed the grey blob is done in no time so the baby knitting can begin in earnest!
Posted by: Manise | February 01, 2014 at 07:32 AM
Happy day, my friend!
Posted by: Cara | February 01, 2014 at 07:44 AM
Happy Blogiversary! I will hit my tenth year in June. I have so many thoughts that I will save until then, but I am so happy that I met you in this crazy world we call blogging. :)
Posted by: Kim | February 01, 2014 at 10:08 PM
I do love this post. Happy blogiversary. I am glad you did this so I could find you. Yours was one of the first I followed. Is.
Posted by: Laurie | February 02, 2014 at 08:17 AM
Happy Blogiversary! Hope the grey thing is moving along so you can start on the baby knits.
Posted by: M'ellen | February 04, 2014 at 10:35 AM