A Belated Happy 3rd Birthday to My Blog

My blog's 3rd birthday came and went without any fanfare on March 7.  A few months ahead of time, I thought I'd write a special post that day to celebrate this milestone; but I completely forgot to do it.  I'm three years older than I was when I started, and three years closer to senility, I guess.

My blog didn't have the most auspicious beginning.  I had no idea at first how to add pictures to the text.  I didn't really know what an embedded link was, so I certainly didn't know how to add one.  But I was eager and excited and willing to learn.

Here is my first ever post:

Monday, March 7, 2011

Ready, set, go!

On a whim, after talking on the phone last night with my daughter-in-law (who's far more computer-savvy than I can ever hope to be, and has been blogging for some time), I decided to start this blog! (Gulp!) I hinted about it to my husband, and he was (as always) very encouraging and supportive; but not one of my five sons has any idea yet. I am, as they are quick to point out, a total "n00b" when it comes to computers. So I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into here. But after becoming a follower of both my daughter-in-law's blog and Ree Drummond's "Pioneer Woman" blog, I thought it might be fun to give it a shot.

Well, I've just spent the last five minutes shutting down my computer and starting it up again, because the first time I was working on the above paragraph, I hit some key that froze everything and I couldn't get the little arrow to go where I wanted it to go. This may be a sign that perhaps I'm not cut out for life in the blogosphere--but I'm stubborn and I'm going to stick with it, at least for a while.

I was thinking that it's too bad that I didn't have the opportunity to do this while I was raising my five boys, because there was at least one good story every day back then. The first four were born between 1983 and l988--there were times when we had three in diapers at once--and then the fifth came along in 1993. My four oldest are now in their twenties and my baby is going off to college in the fall. But I am about to become a grandmother--of twins!--so that should provide some good material!

After another five minutes spent trying to figure out how to edit out a mistake from what I'd just written (as an English major, typos that look like grammatical errors make me crazy!), now I think I'm good to go.

Wish me luck!

I was so thrilled that I'd successfully posted to my blog, I immediately followed that one up with this one:

Monday, March 7, 2011

I'm a blogger! I blog!

I am so excited! It worked! I just checked out my blog and the first post is there, the profile picture's there. It's like magic. I'm a blogger! I blog! (For those of you who haven't seen the movie "What About Bob?", that's a reference to Bill Murray shouting, "I'm a sailor! I sail!" Very funny--you should check it out if you've never seen it.)

I just tried to find an image of that scene from the movie on the web that I could add in here, thinking it would be a nice touch; but I can't figure out how to manage that...yet. There's so much to learn!

Since pushing the "publish" button that first day (twice!), here are some of the things that have happened in our family and in my life:

1. My baby did indeed go off to college, and he's about to finish up his junior year at Notre Dame.

2. I have three granddaughters (the not-yet-born twins mentioned above, who will be 3 this summer, and their 1-year-old sister).

3. My book Finding Grace was published in 2012 (which, although it hasn't made me a millionaire or anything, fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine.)

4. My oldest boy turned 30--wow, moms, let me warn you: you will be amazed by how fast that happens to your kids.

5. Two more sons have gotten married, so I have three daughters-in-law now.

6. I hardly ever read "Pioneer Woman" anymore, because in the three years I've been playing in the Catholic blogging sandbox, I've discovered so many incredibly interesting new blogs (and blogging friends) to follow.

7. I have learned how to add pictures, embed links, and link up to others' blogs; and I've learned how to spruce mine up with cool little sidebar doo-dads.  (They're cool, right?)

8. I've also learned that "noob" is spelled with two zero's in the middle, not two oh's--so I am no longer the n00b I was when "String of Pearls" was a start-up blog.  (Thanks, dear sons, for keeping me hip and fresh.)

9. I have published 959 posts, counting this one.  (Which begs the question, "What in the world have I been talking about?"  I mean, that's a lot of posts.)

There's lots of other stuff that's happened, but those are some of the highlights.

And before I go, here's something I would have been thrilled to add to that second post way back when:

And to REALLY show you just how far I've come, I'll up the ante and add a video clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrbY4hsNh64

Happy 3rd birthday to this little old blog of mine!  Here's to three more years (maybe?).