It's odd to think all that's gone on in the past 12 months. When I started this blog, I had no idea what HTML was or how it worked. I was sitting around one day, bored. I was all caught up at work, married, and had no real major problems that I was aware of other than making bills and figuring out what to do next. I had about three lines in the second play I'd ever been in since around high school. I'd been playing around with the idea of blogging, but had no idea how to start. Typically, I just decided I wanted to do it and plunged right in, right-clicking away, copying and pasting code from other sites, and generally trying to figure out what the h*ll was going on. My first "is this thing on" post was on January 9th of 2004:
One small step into the blogoverse. . .
Not incredibly original, and I only had one other post for the entire month, but it was a start. I don't think I even told anyone I had a blog for a few months, I had no way of knowing if anyone ever read anything I wrote, it was just shouting into a black void and hoping for any response, even an echo.
Fast-forwarding is an exercise in contrast. My marriage ended in March when I found out I'd actually had quite a few more problems than I'd realized, culminating in a final divorce decree in October after the mandatory six-month waiting period. It was my decision, and I do not regret it one bit, but going from nine years of marriage to suddenly single has been, shall we say, an adventure?
It's been quite a year for family sagas as well. My mother has passed away from lung cancer, and my father has a terminal diagnosis from the same, though with prayer and a lot of hope we're believing he can beat this and be with us longer than the year the hospital powers-that-be have predicted. We've also lost my aunt Candy, but my grandmother did make it through her broken hip and is recuperating at home. With difficult financial challenges, trying to sell the family home, and the stress of so many losses, it's been a trying time at best.
On the more positive side, my sister managed to get married. Congratulations again, Karie! I've been elected to the board for Iowa City Community Theatre, who also awarded me "newcomer of the year." I am gearing up for the lead in Hedda Gabler, my eighth post-high-school play. I still live in the same place, only for the lack of finding a buyer (anybody want a three bedroom house in the country?), but with any luck I'll be moving to Iowa City this spring or summer.
I also blog regularly - actually, probably far too much. But I can count among the many friends I've made this year a number of people online who I've never actually seen (and won't any time soon unless we can figure out a way to end tech early on the 26th and go to the Blogger Bash). I'd link everyone again, but I'd end up with an entire paragraph of solid blue, and you all know how to find the sidebar. Also, as of last Friday, my sitemeter has counted over 10,000 visitors to this little corner of the blogosphere. Of course, the same 15 people probably make up half that, but I'll take what I can get. I've even joined two group blogs, the poker-oriented Are You Going to Let Him Push You Around Like That? and the Iowa PorkForest. Of course, I haven't even added AYGTLHPYALT (h*ll, it's even long as an acronym) to my blogrolls yet . . .
I'm going to join the rest of my friends in deciding that 2005 has got to be better. If it's true that what goes around comes around, I should be in for a fair number of good surprises this year. Now that I've got the hang of blogging, I'll share as things pop up. But for now, I must stop procrastinating and clean my house, and work on my lines. I'm due for poker tonight.
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