3rd Blogiversary at 3rd House Journal!

[Grafton Common; November 13, 2004]

[Payson Park Reservoir, Belmont MA; November 17, 2007]

Three years ago in Grafton, a few days before I launched 3rd House Journal, we had a snowstorm. Yesterday in Belmont (same latitude, by the way, 45 miles away), the autumn leaves were still clinging to the trees. I passed golfers making the rounds on the local greens, which were indeed green. A biting wind made it feel chilly, but the temperature was in the 50s.

I moved to TypePad in November 2004 after a little over a year blogging on Radio (which I started on September 14, 2003). After only semi-successfully importing posts from Radio to TypePad and fiddling with the design and features, I posted an official welcome on November 18, 2004. Radio had too many technical difficulties. The final straw was when it suddenly turned all of my apostrophes and quotation marks in a year's worth of posts into question marks. I finally gave up and moved here.

[Thanksgiving '04 w/K in Grafton; Ingrid & me in October '07 in Belmont]

So much has changed in three years. I quit freelancing and took a full-time job, I left my condo in Grafton and moved to Belmont, and my parents moved from New Hampshire to Michigan where my brother lives. Looking back into my archives, I see that two days after I launched 3rd House Journal in 2004, I had to rush up to NH to deal with a crisis with my mom, who had to be hospitalized over the Thanksgiving week. I blogged about it as an outlet and a lifeline to the world outside. (Thanks to TypePad, which, unlike client-based Radio, is web-based so I could post from anywhere.) Now three years later, my mom passed away suddenly and I was in NH for her memorial service last weekend.

Many people and things have come and gone from my life in three years, but others remain. K and Ingrid moved to Belmont along with me. Most of my long-time friends are still in my life, and some I see much more given that I live closer to them or closer to the city, where we're more likely to gather. I've also met new friends over that time, including meeting in person many other bloggers, friends I would never have met but for this blog. Some of these folks launched the literary online magazine qarrtsiluni and recently published the poetry anthology, Brilliant Coroners from Phoenicia Publishing (which includes five of my poems; maybe some day soon I'll manage to write poetry again, sigh).

So the blog goes on. It's appropriate that at this time of year we look back in gratitude. I'm thankful to everyone who continues to read my blog, both those who leave comments and those who don't. 3rd House Journal isn't just an outlet for writing and personal thoughts; as the description line under the blog title reads, it's also a conversation. I keep blogging because of what I read on others' blogs as well as comments left here and there, which weave threads into my blog, and challenge and inspire me. Many thanks, and good blogging!

[Thanksgiving cake, Yum Bunnies Cakery, Belmont; 11/17/07; click for larger]

Comments

[Lucy]

Congratulations. I feel very privileged to be amongst your readers!

[Jean]

Happy anniversary, Leslee! The vivid vignettes and satisfying word-patterns and photos through which you convey the stuff of your life are never less than pleasurable and thought-provoking.

[loren]

Happy Anniversary, Leslee!

Here's wishing your site many more.

[Lorianne]

Wow, only three years? It seems longer...but then again, I started reading you in the Radio days, so it has been longer, in a sense. But however you count it, what a long, strange trip it's been.

Congrats, and many returns of the day. We'll have to raise a glass in celebration...

[Tall Girl]

Many congratulations and thanks. I always feel so at home at the 3rd House

[Leslee]

Thank you, Lucy! Glad to have found your blog in the past year, too.

Jean: Thank you! I hope I can live up to that!

Loren: Thanks, and many more to you, too.

Lorianne: It looks like I first met you at the Pumpkin Festival just before I moved over to TypePad. And I'd been reading you for a long time before that (making sure you weren't an axe murderer before meeting you, of course). And yes, it has been a long strange trip. How long have you been blogging??

TG: Thank you! That makes me very happy.

[leslee]

Lorianne: Ach, bummer, I clicked from my old post on the Pumpkin Fest to several of your old posts, but alas they've vanished into the ether. Which will leave some, uh, interesting unanswered questions about certain hunks you may have posted about!

[marja-leena]

Happy anniversary and many thanks for being a blogger and a good blog-friend. One day yet I hope we meet. Wishing you many more years of blogging. A toast to you!

[Julia]

Bon anniversaire
and thank you for the frequent trips down Memory Lane

[Lorianne]

Yes, those old links don't work since my old Movable Type blog died & I moved to Wordpress. All the posts still exist, but the links don't work.

I've been blogging at various places (first Blogspot, then my own domain, now Wordpress) since December 2003. We first met in-person in October 2004, at the first Pumpkin Festival after my separation. I don't know how long I'd been reading you before that, but yeah, long enough to know you weren't an axe-murderer.

Isn't it interesting how your own and/or others' blogs can be a personal time capsule into a previous self? The other day I re-read a post I'd written right before my ex and I separated, and it was like reading something written by another person. My life was so different then...I was so different then. I suspect you felt something similar going through your archives & summing up "what's happened over the past three years." It's funny, isn't it, how quickly things can change, but you don't necessarily notice how big the changes are until you look back.

[leslee]

Marja-Leena: Thank you! And I hope we do get to meet one day. I think I need a trip out there...

Julia: (Aha, Mouse has a name!) Merci beaucoup! et de rien.

Lorianne: Then you did start blogging just around the same time I did. It is interesting to look back and read who we were. I find it funny that a couple of people noted in previous comments about how consistent my writing here has been, though! I think from the outside it looks that way more than it feels from the inside.

[joanna]

Bon anniversaire! Feliz cumpleanos! Go Ingrid! Your blog has certainly made a difference in my writing and my life.

[Lorianne]

I think as long as you've been consistent recently, people forget any awkward bobbles in the beginning. Things tend to smooth out over time. This was a VERY valuable lesson an older, more experienced professor told me about teaching. You can screw up & feel like a complete fool in front of your students on any given day...but as long as you're "with it" on most days, years from now they won't remember your botches. They'll remember that most of the time, you cared & tried your best.

When I think back on my best teachers, I don't remember specific things they said/did. I just remembered them being there & doing their job. So I think the same holds true of blogging. If you're consistent about showing up & trying, we your readers won't remember your "bad hair days." We'll just remember you did your job.

[mark]

happy happy

[Dave]

Happy belated Blogday! I'm glad you've stuck around. 3rd House has been a steady presence in my blogging world, and remains a real class act.

[Dave]

Hmm, my comment seems to have disappeared. Oh well. Happy Blogday!

[leslee]

Joanna: Merci! Gracias! Woof! And mine your blog. :-)

Lorianne: Yes, good point. I was also thinking, though, that the internal changes that we feel aren't always visible to our blog readers, much less to friends.

Mark: Thanks thanks!

Dave: No it didn't! Thanks for both wishes, and I'm glad the first one stuck - likewise.

[Kat]

Happy anniversary! I have a terrible craving now for cake. I've only been blogging for a few months. I hope I make it to 3 years. Congrats again on your 3 year mark. Here's to many, many more years.

[leslee]

Thanks, Kat. And best wishes for your continued blogging. (It's an addiction, really, so maybe it's not something I should wish on you!)

[Sara]

I'm so sorry I missed your blogiversary. I really enjoy your musings and your photographs, and am so glad you decided to take this up and have managed to keep it up.

It's a big argument, whether or not blogging is an art form. I maintain that, as with so many other things, it really depends who's doing it. I find yours quite artful, in a seemingly effortless way.

Thanks for all the goodness! Here's to more goodness in the future!

[leslee]

Thanks, Sara! You've been a great supporter and I appreciate that. And I love your blog, too. It's the great unexpected thing about blogging, finding all these great blog-buddies.