Thanks For The Memories!

On Friday, June 29, 2007 I wrote my first blog post. It's been ten years. TEN YEARS of blogging! I've written 1692 blog posts. A lot has changed in that time. When I first started, I was a stay-at-home mom to 6 young kids who liked to paint the TV with yogurt, color the dog with markers, smear diaper cream on the carpet, give each other impromptu haircuts, and make messes of epic proportions. I was married and lived in a nice town on the outskirts of Chicago. I blogged almost every day and had nearly 10,000 daily readers. My kids were the following ages:

Austin - 12
Savannah - 11
Jackson - 8
Lexington - 6
Clayton - 3
Brooklyn - 1


Now my kids are:

Austin - 22 and expecting his first child in October
Savannah - 21 and in her third year of college
Jackson - 19 working and trying to find a good direction
Lexington - 16 and driving, a junior in high school
Clayton - 13 and in 8th grade
Brooklyn - 11 and in 6th grade

Here are pictures of the kids from when I first started blogging, right before we moved to Florida in 2011, and now.

Little did I know, when I first started blogging, that the silliness I shared online would garner me interviews on TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines, would open opportunities to work with companies on sponsored posts and product giveaways, and would award me a 2 book deal with Simon & Schuster.



But most importantly, little did I know that the every-day, mundane stuff of life that I shared online would inspire others. That has been the greatest gift to come of this little venture.

And of course, now I have an online journal of the past ten years. I wrote about birthdays and holidays, vacations and camping trips, broken bones, stitches, and surgeries. I wrote about the nice things my kids have done, and I wrote about the naughty things too. I've chronicled the messes. Oh dear Lord, the messes. (But here's a pro tip for you moms of young kids. Don't worry about the messes. Embrace the messes. I would give anything to go back in time and have to deal with spilled milk, crayon on the walls, and names scratched into the side of my van as opposed to peer pressure, drugs, sex, driving lessons, part time jobs, and geometry homework!) I've written about my attempts at home maintenance, being a single mom, and trying to date. I've written about hard times like losing my house and struggling financially, and mental health hospitalizations and addiction issues. I've written about happy times. And I've written about funny things like, well, most of the things I've written about have been funny if you look at them through the right lenses (they don't need to be ISO certified either.)

Thanks to you, my readers, for an amazing 10 years! And here's to 10 more!