WordPress just notified me that today is my blog anniversary and not just any anniversary but my 10th. Since 17 October marked a decade since my kids and I emigrated to the US, I knew that my blogging anniversary must have been coming up but had no idea it was today.
I initially embarked on blogging as a way of sharing my new experiences in navigating life in a new country with family and friends. While I still share new experiences here, my subject matter has evolved and become more expansive within the span of these ten years. Everything was unfamiliar back then – I didn’t even know how to use a garbage disposal or how to post a letter without walking a mile to a mail box – and there were lots of frustrating bureaucratic hiccups to overcome that generated rants. Nowadays everyday life is mostly settled and humdrum – no complaints from me about that!
Since I started blogging, I have bought a house, become a US citizen (in 2018), raised two of my sons to (technical, legal) adulthood, adopted three cats, lived through a tornado and a global pandemic, and visited an additional 16 states for a total of 40, and created a new travel bucket list involving presidential graves.
What I got out of blogging has also involved since that early period. While it started as a way to process and record my experiences, which helped decompress some of the overwhelm, I learned that I just enjoyed the excuse to write every so often and that I enjoyed the interaction with others in the blogging community, whether on my own blog or theirs.
Now, however, on this ten year anniversary, I have decided to somewhat mothball this blog. I never remotely expected to be blogging for this long – my initial objective was merely the first year of living in the US – so it feels like the right time for it to go into semi-retirement. I anticipate blowing off the cobwebs and writing a post whenever I do something that truly qualifies as a new experience, which probably means travel, but otherwise this blog will go dormant.
I am not quitting blogging altogether, however, as I will still be sharing my art on my other blog dedicated to my creative doodlings and I will remain an active reader of all of the blogs I follow.
So thank you for reading along for anywhere up to a decade. Thanks for engaging through likes and comments. Thanks for community and friendship. It has all been very much appreciated.
A Pict in PA 
This blog is how I met you originally around the time you began!! And I’m so grateful we met!!! Thank you for being yourself!!
Thank you! I am so glad we became friends through our blogs.
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Not at all sure I knew there were two blogs. Congrats on 10 years but I do understand your stepping back on one. Goodness…I haven’t even kept up the one I have .Even reposting has gotten lost in time.
Do keep up with the travel post. Those of us who are stay at homers love reading about your travels.
Thank you. We have no real travel plans for now, just ideas to mull over, but I think it would be fun to return to blog about new explorations when they happen.
Congratulations on 10 years, but sorry to hear you are partially leaving us. I hope you do, as you suggest, pop in occasionally with updates. It always feels weird when someone you know online disappears.
Can’t believe TWO of your sons are now legally adult. I must have been following you longer than I thought!
Thanks, Anabel. I found I was posting less and less frequently as my life was generating less and less blog fodder. Ten years felt like the right time to change things up. However, when new and interesting things do happen – and I am mainly thinking about travel but there may be other things too – I will then return to blog about them. That is why I am thinking of this blog becoming dormant but not extinct.
I post less frequently too, which has created a huge backlog, but I still enjoy it when I do. I maybe need to make a change in the other direction and put aside more time to do it.
Time management was part of the factor for me too. My life has just become too busy and over-scheduled and it made some fun things feel like chores as a result. Time at my art table is my priority for free time. My summers are always more flexible and that is also when we tend to travel so that is when I expect to be sporadically blogging here.
Sure have enjoyed reading your blog – ten years is a good record ! I will be ready to read anything you post when the mood takes you – and I may encounter you on some of the blogs we both follow Good luck !
Thanks, Mary. As I was just replying above, my summers tend to be more flexible in terms of available free time and are also when I tend to travel so I expect that is when I will return to blogging.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/dead-president-graves-usa?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=14c373f621-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_10_25_Resend&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c5e0924aab-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&mc_cid=14c373f621&mc_eid=f5974efbc1
you probably know this but in case it’s new to you…
Yes! I have visited most of the Virginia presidential graves. I am missing Jefferson and Madison. It started as an accidental bucket list simply because I love historic cemeteries and presidents happened to be buried there but then I decided I could make “collecting” them a motive to visit certain places. I am hoping to get to Teddy Roosevelt’s grave soon since it is not too far away.
Happy Anniversary Laura. 10 years is a long time. I have been having some similar thoughts.
I believe yours was one of the first blogs I started following so you must have been blogging for even longer. I have so little free time right now that I am choosing to prioritize other activities for the time being – and at least during the teaching year – and ten years felt like the right time to change things up. It helps that I am not saying never and am not deleting my blog or anything drastic. I am just letting it go dormant for a bit.
That sounds fair. Blogs do take a bit of time. I find that. I’ve been blogging for almost 14 years now. I’m trying to decide how I want it to go. I might start doing it when I feel like it.
I think that seems like the most sensible approach. I found I had so little to write about once the pandemic happened that my blogging became very infrequent and it has never really recovered. I am not doing enough that is new.
I’ve kind of done the same thing with my Confused blog. Like yours it’s outlived not just one but two different original purposes. Though immensely important at the time I’m living quite a different life now. And I don’t feel such a need to chronicle it in the same way. So I totally understand what you’re doing. I congratulate you on reaching this point in your life journey and I’m happy to have met you here, that was a stroke of luck for me. Here’s to art and the next 10 years.
Thanks, Claudia. I am so happy we met through blogging and have become real life friends too. I am obviously going to continue blogging about my art and that feels manageable to me right now. Perhaps I will reboot this blog to become something else in future, maybe with more of a travel focus – however sporadic – but for now I am content to let this blog go dormant since, as you say, it has outlived its original purpose.
I did not erase or shut down the blog, I didn’t even make an announcement of stopping it, it has just come to a halt. Or maybe a hiatus. I do not know if it might be important to me at some future date to write about more personal pursuits, but…right now, I feel sort of like I can choose my activities more than any other time in my life, and writing about them is not one of those activities now.