welcome back...to me

I haven't really been away, just haven't been blogging - obviously!

Looking back on 2012, I feel like it was quite a year. I had a lot of difficulties and felt like I dealt with a LOT of depression. I also had a lot of health problems, starting the year off with pleurisy and ending it with a blood clot, severe anemia, and a giant fibroid!

There were also a lot of amazing things: getting bees, our chickens hatching and raising their own chicks, going to Kenya for two weeks, lots of creative sewing projects.

It's all been a bit overwhelming I guess. When I first started blogging years ago I found that I was so obsessed with it I thought of every event, every interesting (or un-interesting) thing that happened through the lens of the blog. How will I write about this? How will I describe it? What writing style? What pictures should I take? I was planning what to write in my blog as I was doing each activity; as we picked apples, drove cross-country, canned something interesting, picked out chicks at the farm store, etc.

But I find I don't think that way anymore. Did I stop thinking that way so I stopped blogging so much? Or did I stop blogging so much which made me stop thinking that way? Not sure which way it was.

Last month one of my favorite bloggers threw in the towel: she quit blogging. I thought her reasons for quitting were excellent. I've run into other great blogs over the years where the author had quit after several years - but there were all those wonderful posts. It makes me wonder if I should quit. In one sense, I wonder how much more there is to say. Every winter it is cold, more or less, and I post pictures of snow and chickens in the snow. Then comes spring and a few seed starts and the miracle of plants popping out of the ground against all odds. Then the dazzling summer with an abundance of gardening and green, and maybe a few baby chicks. Then the fall, with whatever that entails, and starting all over again. Throw in a few sewing projects, cooking projects, and the occasional house project, and that's me!

Hmm, I hope I don't make it sound too boring. The truth is, I may not have anything brand new or earth-shattering to share, but I've realized this blog isn't just for you all, it's for me too. Every now and then I scroll back through the years looking at pictures and updates and remind myself where we've come from. I'm sharing information, hopefully helpful, and getting some writing practice, and I'm getting to keep a sort of pictorial journal of our life here. I've been journaling for way too long to give up on this! So I'll keep going, but I'm probably not going to be anywhere near as prolific as I was a few years ago.

It is a relief to think of my blog in this way. I'm the kind of person that assigns myself work, like this, then I beat myself up and feel guilty for not doing it as often as I think I should. Gotta learn to relax a little!

Happy new year to you all, and here's hoping for a more healthful and wonderful 2013!