Why Do I Blog?

A few weeks ago, Sherry answered the question, "Why Do I Blog?" and I thought that was a great topic for a post. So I'm answering it today. This blog started as a way to keep our friends up to date as Dave and I moved from Ontario to Alberta five years ago. (Here is the first blog post I ever wrote. It was scintillating!) Fortunately we started it in time to fully document our trip to Europe in July 2007. You can read those posts here.

Then we documented our trip halfway across Canada, our early time in Edmonton, and then we got engaged and this blog documented our wedding preparations. (August 2007-June 2008). I didn't do much documenting of my pregnancy with Sam but you can read early 2009 posts for that. Then Sam was born and blogging fell by the wayside for a bit. Mid-2009 I discovered that I could upload videos to share with my and Dave's parents and that covered most of 2009!

In 2010 I blogged about an Edmonton Zoo program which Sam and I did and was a gift from Dave's aunt and uncle. Every week they could read about what Sam did with their gift that day. In May 2010 we landscaped our landlord's backyard and that got a lot of blog attention from us, as did our trip to Vienna (which was fully written by Dave, by the way!)

Mid-September 2010 I tried to blog again but got pregnant with Rachel soon after, got extremely sick and forgot I had a blog. Then I discovered Kelly's Korner and read all her archives. I loved the fact that she had blogged a lot through her infertility journey, her pregnancy with Harper, and then her life with Harper. I wanted that for me so I made a resolution to blog every day. And in 2011 I almost did it!

I have dozens of half-started journals from throughout my life and I realized a few weeks ago that my blog is the longest running journal I've ever managed to keep. It is so much fun to go back and look at posts and remember what my life was like when I only had one child! Or when Rachel was really little. Or when we were in the midst of wedding planning. Or our various trips to Europe.

And now I blog to remember our lives, which is why some random pictures are interspersed throughout this post. And because I love it. And because my mom phones me when I haven't posted in a day or two (Hi Mom! The random pictures are also for you.). And because I have found some bloggy friends and I feel like we've made (unspoken) commitments to each other to share our lives. If I want to read about Erika, Sherry (who I linked to above), Kelly, Amy or Tiffany then I should be letting them read about me too. I really enjoy getting to know these women (and others) through their blogs and friendship is a two-way street.

So now I blog for myself, for my kids (to preserve their memories), for my mom, and for those of you who read my posts, comment on them, and allow me to do the same for you.

And that's why I blog.