Happy Birthday! Anniversary? My blog is one year old today… what do I call this? I am not sure, but I am pretty excited. When I first started blogging, almost two years ago, I did not have a blog of my own. I mostly got my stuff published on Yahoo! Shine, and had a sprinkling of other articles all over the internets. Then one day I got inspired, and decided I wanted my own blog. I was also 9 months pregnant and potentially delusional.

Either way, with some help from an awesome web guy, you know who you are, I launched this little place. So, if you ever got super bored and looked through my archive, there are like a bagillion (read seventy something) posts all on this day last year. Because I wanted a home for all my random stuff strewn all over the place.

I had no idea what I was getting into, but I was excited. I still have no clue what I am doing, and I am still very excited. So I guess not much has changed on that front. But somewhere in the hundreds of posts, and interactions I found my voice. I heard a lot of people say that, but I never knew what they meant, because you see, little newbie naïve me thought I had a voice back then. I could not imagine what finding one was like. I figured it was like finding a puppy except you don’t have to ask anyone if you can keep it because you are the boss. To be honest I had a voice (and a puppy), but it was not well tuned (the voice, not the puppy). It was a fledgling voice (very much like the puppy). In a way I still very much resemble myself a year ago (which is a good thing since a year really isn’t that long). But my voice has gotten stronger (and the puppy has grown). Either that or I have just gotten louder. Very possible.

One thing I have obviously not yet honed: my analogy skills. Because puppies and blogs are nothing alike. You have to look after a blog each day. Walk it on social media road to socialize it with other blogs and show it off to everyone.  You have to feed it new posts to keep it alive. When you first got it you named it. You show it to anyone who even mentions the word Blog. Wait a minute… okay, so maybe blogs and dogs are similar. Maybe. The verdict is still out. Except for the corn dog in the picture for this post. I am totally plotting against that one.

In other news, happy birthday/anniversary little blog!

And I saved the best part for last. A big THANK YOU to all of you who supported this blog, read all my posts, informative and silly alike. Thank you for checking in to see what is new. Thank you for the comments and emails. While my posts were food for the blog and kept it going, you guys were the water. And I am going to stop now before this analogy gets any worse.

Cheers! And hopefully this coming year will be even better!