Ten Years After ...

A few images from my first post, Monday, August 8, 2005 documenting a weekend family camping trip


I began this blog on August 8th, 2005 determined to document my life's journey on a daily basis no matter how boring or how tedious it might become. The idea fascinated me. After all, I figured, how cool will it be for my kids, grandkids, & great grandkids to have a first person peak into my daily life many years removed from its initial writing. Of course, I included photos most days too.  Not only would it serve as a rudimentary memoir, it would also provide a means for those far and near, assuming they wanted, to stay in touch with my day to day affairs.

The idea, however, of keeping a daily blog wasn't new. Nope! Instead, I pretty much stole or borrowed it from my older brother Glenn who'd been "journaling" about his daily routine for many years prior. 

For me, daily blogging became a cathartic exercise and also provided a little comedy, as well as way to stay connected to the immediate past. Many times I've used it as a point of reference to validate an event, a date, weather, etc. Very handy! Another unexpected benefit was the mental aspect - the ability to recall each day's events with great detail, and sometimes four or five days removed. The secret was often recalling one single nugget of truth then the rest would begin to flow like a faucet.  Yikes! Of course some days my writing was better than others and with far greater detail. I guess it just depended on my mood at the time of writing.  

One glitch, which I hadn't counted on was blogspot, the blog hosting service of choice, changing formatting periodically, which over the years altered or removed the formatting from countless entries leaving me with what now look like long run-on paragraphs. Geesh! I'd gone to great pains to keep my paragraphs short so not to bore a reader.

And sandwiched somewhere in the middle for a period of two or three years, I would painstakingly edit each post  before publishing, but that became too cumbersome so I eventually decided to write and publish without benefit of a proofread or edit, which all but guaranteed grammatical errors. Meh!

It must've been about two years ago when writing my daily post began to feel more like work than pleasure. Simply put, it felt more like a job -something I had to do - rather something I wanted to do. However, despite the angst, I kept at it, making sure to fill all the gaps the best I could up through mid-August 2015, though the last several months were written and posted in large chunks rather than daily morsels.

So, today I am officially walking away from my daily blogging. It's time for something new. But just what that will be, who knows? We'll just have to see. Perhaps I will spend a little more time reading or with another passion of mine, photography.

And while one streak officially ends, another continues. I am thrilled to report that my running streak is still going strong, having just recently blown by 18.5 years of running every single day. See you on the running trail!

Jimmy