Thinking About is 20!
20 years ago today I posted my inaugural post, about Thanksgiving and how I hated it growing up but now it’s my favorite holiday. I had some friends who had started blogs and were reading blogs and were talking about blogs, and I decided to join in. I wasn’t sure I had anything much to say, but Ted said that I liked talking about restaurants and meals, so maybe I could write about that. I did, for a bit, but then discovered that I actually had a lot to say. About politics, about books, about recipes, about culture. About parenthood, dogs, tv and movies. About grief and family, friendship and weird products. A whole lot of stupid randomness. There have been years when I posted every day, sometimes twice a day. There have been years when I barely posted.
Early on, I was only posting for myself and a small group of IRL friends. Then I made blog friends, and started to understand the medium a bit more. We got to know each other in a way that I hadn’t really known existed. I began to care about these people, their lives, their families. I wanted to know what they were doing, what they were eating, what their successes and failures looked like. I belonged to several book groups, and we did reading challenges, earned badges and awards. I was a ‘Top 100 Mom Blogger’ in 2007, though I never considered myself a mommy blogger.
I’ve mentioned before that my mom had a blog. She loved reading blogs, and was a part of that community, but didn’t have one of her own. We enjoyed talking about it, and I told her I would set her up with one if she wanted. So we did. She had her blog for about 2 years before she died, and OMG did she love that blog, that community, being able to tell her story. I loved it as well, because blogging is different than writing a letter, different than a phone call, different than a book. It is its own thing, and I really felt like I got to know her better in so many ways through that connection. Her blog is still out there. Occasionally I pop by and see her IRL and blog friend coming by to say hello and how much they miss her.
I’ve met a few bloggers IRL. First was Tracy, who was blogging from Los Angeles, about her acting career, her family, her burgeoning romance with her eSuitor. My friend Cherry and I went to her bridal shower, since Tracy has family in the Bay Area. Since then, I have met Gina, Nance, Simon, Kyria, Birchie, San, and Engie.
As time went by, my IRL friends quit blogging, and I kept on. Then, as more time went by, my blog friends quit blogging. It got to the point where I had 2 regular readers, Nance and Ally Bean. I still wrote, but not often. Engie started coming by, though due to blogger/ipad issues, I sometimes had trouble commenting on her blog. Then, in 2022, thanks to Engie, I found San and her NaBloPoMo community. This group has reinvigorated my love for this hobby. Learning about all of you, and telling you about myself, had been such a joy.
It’s weird, because 20 years is a long time, and it feels like a long time. But 10 years doesn’t feel like half of that time, it feels like much less. Like the distance between 20 and 10 feels like maybe 15 years, and the distance between 10 and now feels like 5. Maybe because my daily life 20 years ago looked a lot different than it does now, whereas 10 years ago it was more similar. 20 years ago, I lived in this house, with Ted and Maya (who was 9) and our dog Genevieve (who was 7). But Maya was in elementary school and involved in after school activities, and I worked in an office. My parents were both still alive, as were my Grandma and my Great Aunt. 10 years ago we had just gotten our dog Mulder (as a matter of fact, I introduced him 10 years ago today!), my mom had been gone for 7 years, and I had been working from home for 9 years. Maya was in college and working part time. The structure of my days was mostly my own, as it is now, so it feels a lot more similar to how I live now vs. 20 years ago.
I had thoughts about this post, about ways to commemorate this blogaversary. I considered finding my favorite post from each year, and linking to those. You know what? That’s a lot of work. I would have to read every post for each year, which would take a shit ton of time. (Some years more than others, obviously.) I could have asked guest bloggers to stop by, like Engie did to celebrate her 20th year of blogging last year, but I didn’t get around to that either. I could have done a clever list of 20 things, just quick so you wouldn’t have to click over and read other posts or anything. But I couldn’t think of a 20 thing list. So instead, let me just say, I’m glad you’re here, and that I think most of you know what I mean when I say what blogging has meant to me all these years. The picture at the top? Has nothing to do with anything. I just like it.
60 Comments
AC
Congrats on your blogging longevity and your reminiscences. Although I keep on for some reason, the circle of blog friends has revolved a number of times. When I look back, which I seldom do, I cannot even recall some of those who appeared in my comments for awhile before vanishing. And a few have shuffled the mortal coil.
J
You’ve been blogging a long time, I know. I remember you being one of my mom’s blog friends back in the day.
AC
Wait! What? Who?
J
My mom was Joycelyn, and her blog was Maya’s Granny. The link is in my second blogroll, under ‘Family’. I thought you knew!
AC
Thanks. No, I was clueless.
J
What a happy coincidence then!
Suzanne
This was so lovely. I don’t think I realized that you were one of the originals! I am very glad you kept blogging and that Engie bridged the way to me finding your blog. I enjoy your posts immensely and I am delighted to know you. xxoo
J
Oh, thank you Suzanne! I really enjoy reading your blogs too!
Birchie
Happy Blogiversary! Next year your blog will be old enough to drink!
I’ve enjoyed all of the big splashy blog celebrations, but I also like this “hey I’ve been doing this for 20 years” tribute. The time that you didn’t spend linking to 20 years worth of best of posts can be spent on writing new blog posts!
I enjoyed blogging back in the days when no one was reading, but it’s so much better now in the Cool Bloggers Era.
J
Amen. Having a larger group has revitalized me for sure.
nance
Oh, Julie. We’ve been together for a long, long time. I’ve enjoyed it so much, and your work here always inspires me. I love reading what you’ve been Thinking About, and I always learn so much from you and your philosophy of Life.
I still hold out hope that we can get together In Real Life again sometime. How I’d love that!
J
I hope so too Nance, and thank you for sticking with me (and with blogging) for all of these many years!
Nicole MacPherson
Twenty years! Happy anniversary!
This was such a lovely way to celebrate your twentieth, by talking about the journey and the community that we share. It’s really special, isn’t it? I think of my OG blog friends, only Allison is still blogging. It’s so interesting how everything evolves. I know exactly what you mean by the 10 year thing. It really doesn’t feel like a long time at all but whoa, life was so different ten years ago!
I’m glad we found each other. xo
J
Me too Nicole!
PocoBrat
Happy, happy anniversary, Julie! I’m so glad I found you this year… I was intrigued by your comments and followed you back from Nicole’s/Lisa’s/Sarah’s/Jenny’s/Engie’s.
And now it feels like I’ve always known you… I do hope I get to meet you IRL in the new year. XOXO
I love how you and your mom blogged contemporaneously… that is unusual and so cool.
J
Thanks Maya, I’m so glad to have gotten to know YOU too!
Sam
Congrats! I just found your blog this month, so it was fun to hear a little about your journey with it.
J
Thank you Sam! This month has been so busy with work, I haven’t been reading and commenting as much as I want to. UGH.
Karen Meg
Julie, Happy 20th!! What a huge milestone! I’m so glad we’re still connected after all these years, I loved reading your Mom’s blog too. You’ve been a constant in my blogging world, as I’ve popped in and out… and in and out LOL. I am still crossing my fingers that we will meet IRL at some point !
J
I was so happy when you joined NaBloPoMo last year, and that you’ve been back at it more now! One of the OG crew! If we could get Chrissy and Heidi to blog again…and Cherry and Tracy and Dororthy and Liz…sigh.
Allison McCaskill
Happy blogiversary! I do agree about how the same time intervals can freel very different. Your mom had a blog! That is insanely cool, and how wonderful that you had that connection.
I was horribly snotty about blogs when they first started being a thing. Why would anyone want to know about your tiresome navel gazing, I thought. I eventually got over myself, thank goodness, because it has been one of the great joys of my life.
J
LOL, yes, me too! Snotty and ‘what in the world?’ About it.
DB Stewart
Although not new to blogging, I’m new to your thoughtful blog. I enjoy the conversations you generate in the blogosphere but also in my mind. Thank you and please continue.
J
Thank you DB!
ernie
Happy blogaversary, Julie! Twenty years is a long time. I appreciated your ‘math’ at how some stretches of time fly by or feel like they are not as lengthy as other stretches based on what’s happening in life in those years.
I laughed at all the ways you thought about how to commemorate this day. Truly, I think you nailed it – I enjoyed learning the background and how you got your start. How fun that your mom was into blogging too. I do get what you mean about the blogging community. I so enjoy the many friends I’ve made through blogging. I’ve met a few and I so enjoy connecting outside of the blog too.
Thanks for sharing the look back. I’m so glad to have found your blog . . . maybe last year, no I think before that – during NaBloPoMo would be my guess. I think it was the year you did an alphabet theme of posts. I always laugh at how you named the squirrel in your yard George H. Bush, or something along those lines?
J
Oh, my alphabet theme! I think that was 2023? Not sure.
The squirrel is George W. Bush, because he’s an asshole. He doesn’t rise to the assholery of our current Moron.
Michelle G.
J, congratulations on 20 years of blogging! This commemoration post touched my heart. I love that your mom had a blog. I love that you kept on going through the years, letting your blog evolve and change. I’m so happy that you plan to keep going, and I can get to know you better!
J
Thank you Michelle!
Tierney
Happy blogiversary! 20 years- amazing! I really liked reading about how your writing (and readership) ebbed and flowed over the years. I’m glad I’m here to read your work!
J
Thank you Tierney!
Lisa’s Yarns
Happy 20 years! I enjoyed reading your back story. And I’m glad we found each over the last 3 years or so! I have been blogging for 17 years and the only friend that is still blogging is Kyria! So many of my blog friends have gone beyond the blog. Most of the time my blog friends know more about what is going on than other groups of friends in their life. Because it would be weird to text my friends a weekend recap but it’s normal for you guys to read about our weekend happenings. I love learning all the little details from others lives and knowing when their pet is ill or they are struggling with something. I guess it could be summed up as the quotidian aspects of our life. And I am here for all the little details!!
J
You’re so right about blog friends knowing more than IRL friends. I once put a ‘if we were having coffee together’ post together in a text and sent it to several friends. They loved it, but we only did it the one time.
NGS
Yes!! Welcome to the 20 years club! It is crazy to think that I was a single lady in my 20s living in Minneapolis when I started this blog and now I’m married and live in a small town. I love having a record of the ups and downs of my life.
Here’s to 20 more years!
J
Yes, your life has changed more than mine I think! I was living in this same place with these same people at least.
Melissa
20 years? – Wow, congratulations. Although I realised that I first posted on my other blog in 2007, so I’m not far off that! It’s so interesting that you had IRL friends that blogged first. You’veo utlasted them all.
J
Yes, and I wish they still blogged so that we would have that connection still! You’re right behind me, 2 more years and you’ll be at 20!
Martha
Happy blogaversary, Julie! I have to add congratulations for being in the top 100 mom Bloggers back in 07 – that was at a time when blogging was really the in thing, that’s something to be very proud of. Here’s to your next 20 – cheers!
J
LOL, I don’t know how I got that top 100 thing, it was weird! I felt like someone just said, ‘oh, here’s a blog, give it to her!’
coco
Happy bloganniversary! 20 years is a long time and it’s great to be able to go back to that period of life right? I am approaching that soon, in few years to 20.
most of people i met during early days of blogging community no longer blogs as they got married and had kids. I am glad to find new blog friends and similarly to you, I got interested tot their lives. I hope to visit many during our stay in this side of the world.
J
Thanks Coco! Yes, interesting how the blogging community ebbs and flows, isn’t it?
Elisabeth
What a wonderful milestone. I love to hear these stories of the evolution of people’s blogging adventures. It has experienced a wonderful resurgence lately and I am here for it (literally).
I can’t quite remember how I came across your blog, but I suspect it was Engie or San. Those two are incredible networkers for this blogging community. However it was, I am oh-so-thankful. <3
J
Thanks Elisabeth! I’m so happpy to have found this group, and love reading your blog as well!
StephLove
Happy blogaversary. I will hit the 20-year mark in a little over a year. Back then I had a baby and a kindergartener. Now I have a college student and mid-20s boomerang kid. I used to imagine it would be hard to find material when the kids grew up, but it hasn’t been that difficult, so I don’t see an end in sight.
J
There are years when I don’t feel like I have much to say, or like I’ve said it all so many times already, why bother. Then there are times when any stupid thought that goes through my head is blog fodder. Those are the better times for blogging, I think.
Margaret
Happy Blogversary! I’ve been at it for 21 years, I think? Like you, my life has changed over that time; I’ve seen blogger friends come and go, gained connections, lost them and learned a lot about other writers AND myself. Writing is such great therapy and focuses my thoughts better than anything else. Walking is good too!
J
Thanks Margaret! Yes, both blogging and writing! And wow, 21 years! Excellent.
Lisa
A nice long time! I started in 2012, but lost all the posts earlier this year, so no blogaversaries for me! My mother was before the blogging era, but she used an old computer we gave her. It was my kid’s first, the Hot Wheels one they used to advertise on TV! My brother called it a toy, but it was a real computer, online and everything. We had dial up, and she shared it (not in our house, she had her own) and she would kick us off when she signed on. We had to ask her not to go online before noon! A lot of changes since then.
J
LOL, dial up and kicking each other off by logging on. The internet world has changed a lot since then, right? I remember those days.
ccr in MA
Happy twenty years!
J
Thank you!
Jenny
Happy Blogiversary! San has really done such a service for our blogging community- I’ve met almost all my best blogging friends through NaBloPoMo!
J
Thanks Jenny, yes, me too!
Diane
I loved reading your reminiscing about your blog; it’s always so interesting to hear how people started their blogs.
“Stupid randomness” – I love this description. Not that the things you blog about are “stupid” – they are not! – but just that I think sometimes it’s ridiculous how much random stuff is taking up real estate in everyone’s heads and how wonderful it is for us readers that you chose to put some of that stuff out into the world so that we realize that we ourselves also have similar stupid random things in our heads too. It makes us feel not so alone in a way, you know?
Twenty years is indeed such a long time. Does it seem like time shrinks as we get older? I felt like my twenties took forever, and now my forties are almost over in a blink.
J
I love this sense of community, too. It never occurred to me that I would care about the things I care about, but you’re right, it makes me feel connected when I read of other folks daily lives.
Time does seem to be speeding up, yes.
Stephany
Happy 20 years, J! That’s such a great milestone – so many bloggers are celebrating these milestones recently. I loved your lookback on how you started your blog and kept it going over the past two decades. This was fun for me to read as a somewhat new reader (well, in the past few years, but not an OG!)
I love that your mom had a blog and you can read her posts, still! That’s so special.
J
I keep meaning to print up my mom’s blog, in case something happens to it, but I don’t do it. Argh.
San
20 YEARS! Julie, I am so thankful you stuck it out – even through some meager years and when everyone around you stopped blogging. I had the same experience; most of the people who blogged when I started (22 years now) don’t have a blog anymore, and I sometimes wonder what happened to them and where they are now.
Even more impressive that you kept it going all these years, and that blogging in some ways has experienced a renaissance. I love our (cool bloggers) community so much, and I care so much about every single one of you. We’re a special tribe! I am also so thankful to have met you (and a few others) in person.
J
I agree San, we are a special tribe!
Tobia | craftaliciousme
Happy Bloganniversary.
20 years is such a long long time.
I am glad you stumpbled upon the NabloPoMo community in 2022 and into my blogosphere. Your blog is one of my favorites and I am so happy we are part of each others life (at least blog life).
I am hoping you will keep blogging for many years to come.
J
Oh, thank you Tobia! I feel the same way about you and your blog. <3