About Blogging ...

Although I have been blogging for over two-and-a-half years (since August 20, 2006), I didn't install a hit counter until just a year ago. I was quite happy to see that over the past year, this blog has received 5,800 hits, not including me as I blocked myself so I would really know how many readers I have. Over the past year, this blog has averaged almost 16 people per day. The "page reads" are a little higher at 8,200 since March 4, 2008.

I love blogging. I have so little time for writing with all of the rush and busy-ness of my life as a wife, the mother of four young people ranging from age 9 to almost 17, homeschooling said four young people, tutoring four more on a weekly basis, teaching two co-op writing classes with a total of 15 students, working for Brave Writer where I facilitate three classes per year and am finishing up this year's monthly Boomerang subscription for a very busy Julie, volunteering with the art council in my small town, and facilitating the monthly writing group, part of the art council. Oh, and meeting with a monthly genealogy group, too, besides being actively involved in two churches.

So blogging answers a deep need for me, providing an opportunity to go beyond simple journaling and write about what matters to me: Anglican theology, writing, saints, literature, prayer, poetry, Scripture, gardening, music, U2, education, photography, the arts, etc. I look forward to blogging all day and find in the expression of my thoughts a stress-release, an unburdening of the soul, an artistic expression, a healing of body, mind, heart. And the icing on the cake is having people alongside me on my journey who read what I write and even comment upon it on occasion. One cannot ask for better than that!

I'm definitely not a Jen at Conversion Diary or an Internet Monk by any means, but I am quite happy to have some solid readers who read my blog regularly. I know some of you from "real life" and others from online and the blogosphere, but some of you I don't know at all. But to all of you, I have just one little message, right from my heart of hearts:

THANK YOU.

You guys are the best! (Excuse the Californication of "guys," but that's truly how we talk out here.) Thank you for reading and for commenting, for following my journeys in writing and in faith, and especially when they intersect. I appreciate you "guys" very much and am grateful that there are people out there who enjoy reading what I write, that may be encouraged by my journey or might think about life in a slightly different way because of something I wrote. So, once again...

THANK YOU.