Nine years later.

Today is the day. Nine years of blogging later, and a whole lot has changed since then. As one would expect life to change in close to a decade. I am one of the most resistant-to-change-persons that I know of, but looking back on some of the blogposts and the stories and photos that I shared makes me grateful for change though too.
Nine years ago blogging was not all that popular. I had found a few blogs online that I liked to read as often as they were updated- mainly crafting, inspiration type blogs. With an occasional stop over to Dooce's blog, because honestly I liked her sarcasm and funny stories about her Avon-selling mom. But one day I decided to hit "create blog" and Nitty.Gritty. was born.
I knew I was going to write and post pictures about my family. That was a natural thing for me to do after keeping a journal for many years, and then after our loss of Teagan and Wyndham's ongoing healing and special needs I had come to write frequent emails and updates which I would send to family and friends. I figured blogging would be an easy way for those people to pop in and see what was going on in our lives and find out what needs we might have that they could add to their prayer list.
But not long after I started sharing pictures and stories I started receiving emails and comments from people I had never met. It was a neat thing to be connecting to people in cyberworld, and at times your stories and emails had me in tears at my laptop. There felt like something bigger going on. Something bigger than a blog.
I have never regretted sharing so much of our lives- the ups and downs and everything in between. In fact as I re-read some of the posts last week, I found myself so thankful that I had these things written down. I never would have remembered even half of the stuff posted on here! But the details are important and one day I am sure my kids will enjoy looking back and reading first-hand accounts of some of their childhood antics. I feel bad that in this season of my life I don't write or keep record of our day-to-day stories in more detail- although I am thankful for Facebook to post where I post way too many photos and snippets of our lives. It is a cool record of everything under the sun- including what we eat for dinner. Which basically documents how many times we eat waffles in a week. =)
When Nitty.Gritty. was started, I had two fewer kids. I wasn't on any design teams, nor did I own any 12x12 paper or Thickers. {My craft friends know what that means!} =) I didn't have any kids in theater productions or on swim or debate teams. I basically had more time in my life to write.
I appreciate that some people have stopped in here daily for years, and I wish I could have a cup of coffee and zucchini bread with each of you! You have made me want to be a better writer. One day that might happen yet!