Bloggy Birthdays

N at justmakingitupasigo is much better the last few days. She is sitting up and feeding herself, albeit very slowly, and, says her husband, is very much herself. He told her about all of the messages the blogging world sent and she is touched and pleased. I hope it won't be too long before she can get on line herself and rejoin us. She's not out of the woods yet, but the trees are thinning.

Today is the first anniversary of my very first post -- Them's My Sentiments is one year old today. I had planned on writing a thoughtful post about everything I have learned about the mommyblogging world, about your generosity to newbies, your warmth, your caring for one another, about the sheer fun it is to swim in this sea. I made notes; I started off several times. However, it is now late at night and the anniversary post is still not written. Maybe tomorrow after I shovel a foot and a half of snow off the decks. Again. I don't know how deep this fall actually is, as the wind is now sculpting it into impossible drifts and the power has flickered several times. But I have shoveled the front porch off twice today, it has disappeared again, and the piles around the porch are higher than my head. Again, after JG took them down with the snowblower. Twice.

The man is muttering about figuring out how he can get onto the tractor tomorrow and clear snow -- this two weeks after a complete knee replacement surgery. If he tries, I am going to hide the keys. Or hide all his coats. Or maybe both. I think he is kidding. I hope. We have a good neighbour who will come and dig us out sometime tomorrow, and even if the power goes, I have two wood stoves, a generator, plenty of food cooked and lots of good friends close by. One of them barreled through the drifts this evening to find out if we were all right. My real neighbours are as wonderful as my on line community.

So, before a tree falls on the hydro lines, what I want to do is to say thank you. Thank you to the people who welcomed a newbie in, gave her instructions on how to do the basics and encouraged her fledgling attempts with warmth and praise. Thanks also to the hard working folk who do the award thing every month, who devise the Monday Missions and Hump Day Hmms that allow me to exercise my rusty writing and make me think. Thanks to those of you who urged me on to confront the rude sales clerk and followed the story. Thanks to those of you whose humour and grace brighten my days, whose gorgeous photographs and art work are things I look forward to seeing and appreciating, to the BlogRhet group and to those of you who turn up to read what I write. Love you!

Thanks also to my daughters, who let me write about them and about my granddaughter. I'm so glad you're cool about this.

Here's me -- in all my wrinkly glory. But it isn't the photo that's me; it's what I write that tells you who I am.