happy birthday BITNF

A big THANK YOU! for encouraging me with my writing and for following along on my adventures in simpler living, Sheri.

When I published my first post here on July 29, 2014, I could not have expected the site would still be going nine years later.  I mean, come on, what percentage of personal blogs last nine years?

The blog’s birthday is close to a significant anniversary for me.  In 2014, on the third anniversary of my mom’s passing, I took the day off from my busy job, read through an inexpensive blog-creation course, and set up this site because I knew she would have been excited and supportive of me making time for something creative again.

And when I set up the site, to make a commitment to myself (and to get a discount), I paid the hosting company up front for three years.  I renewed it for another three in 2017, a month after I’d moved back to Nova Scotia.  I renewed it again for three years in 2020 early in the first pandemic summer.  But this year when I got my renewal notice for another three years, I balked.  10 years for a personal blog seems long enough.  I renewed for just two more years—committing to write for one more and then having another year as some sort of buffer while I archive the posts and decide what’s next? A rebrand? A pivot?

For the first third on this blog’s timeline, I wrote from Seattle in the planning phase of simpler living and retirement.  The second third covered living in the tiny house full time, moving to the apartment, and dealing with anxiety in the early days of the pandemic.  In the last third, I added travel tangents.  Other than those longer travel posts, I maintained my discipline of editing the posts down to a welcoming 500-word read.  And when I start to sound like I’m offering advice, I remember to rein myself in and to just offer my personal experience.

I was so industrious the first year—I published 48 blog posts!  I remember it served as a therapeutic distraction from the stress of a chaotic workplace.  Leading up to the 10-year marker, I’m planning to revisit some of those early posts.  What didn’t work out?  What do I feel differently about?  What does hindsight offer?  How did I imagine myself in 10 years? 

Many of my friends and family who encouraged me at the beginning are still reading today (thank you!).  Some people I thought would be interested in the blog, weren’t.  Others surprised me by being fans.  Some readers who joined en route wowed me by going back and reading the posts from the beginning!

The site has been a simple offering.  I never used paid ads, tried to make $ from it, or grow the audience.  I never remodeled it because I still like the style today.  I was taken out to dinner to celebrate the blog’s first birthday.  I remember how excited and proud I was.  Today, I’ll treat myself and say Cheers! to nine years of BITNF.

Related links:

• simpler writing (post #10)
• why back is the new forward (post #1)

Note: On July 21st, I was driving home to the Annapolis Valley from a stay in the tiny house and planned to stop to visit my family in Halifax. A thunderstorm with heavy rain had me take an exit off the highway and stop in a parking lot to reevaluate. The forecast was for maintained heavy rain and thunderstorms. I decided to go directly home. I’m so glad I did. That night we had thunderstorms like I’ve never experienced before —continuous thunder and lightening for hours. The area where I live in the valley fared OK but sections of the province experienced “historic” flash flooding with fatalities. It’s been a heavy week. Less than two months ago, Nova Scotia had “historic” wildfires. More on these events in an upcoming post.