Evolution of a blog

It's my one year anniversary with Blogger!!

July marked a year since I set up my Blogger account.
My profile has been viewed 1,450 times!! I find that amazing. My mom'll ask, "Who are all those people??" Who knows??

I started very simply with a blog called "Finding Myself in Graceville." Graceville is a little town in the Florida panhandle where I spent the four best years of my childhood, living on a farm while my dad attended seminary. When I named it, the title was more about trying to live a life that fully embraces God's grace.

Once I started blogging, I started visiting blogs and found that there's this whole blogging community out there!! I found Etsy at about the same time and also stumbled onto amazing blogs about home caring, decorating, thrift-store shopping, cooking, etc. I decided I didn't want my main blog to be about motherhood, plus I was a little uncomfortable having private family details and photos so...public. So! I made my "Finding Myself..." blog private and renamed it "This Day," from the Goethe quote, "Nothing is worth more than this day."

Then I created a brand new blog called "Roots & Wings" with the proudgrits address. Some of you may not know that GRITS stands for "Girl Raised In the South." Yes, it's an actual club! :)

I love the idea of roots and wings. I truly do have my roots in the South but it wasn't until I moved away to Arizona that I began to truly find myself, and find the courage to fly. I also found a graphic designer to design my blog header and I adore it.

After the first two were up and running, starting more was cake!

Now I have seven blogs:

1. "Roots & Wings" which is public and mostly about crafting, shopping and home caring. I love "meeting" fellow crafters and thrift-store shoppers and have learned a lot from their blogs! My hit counter is creeping up toward 1,000!!

Roots & Wings

2. "This Day" which is the only private one and is almost exclusively about my family. That's where I post family updates and pictures. I don't get many comments there so I never quite know who is still checking in.

3. "My Story, His Glory" is meant to chronicle my spiritual journey with the Lord. I wish I could write more there.

My Story, His Glory

4. "Polka Dot Tots" is for the moms' group I coordinate for our church. I mostly post event details and updates.

Polka Dot Tots

5. E.t.c. is for my "Encouragement Through Cards" ministry, where I give people an unsigned card to brighten their day and ask them to pass it on to someone else. I need to post about that soon to let you all know what I'm doing!! I'll get to it eventually!

E.t.c.

6. "Serendipity Tea Room" is where I write about tea. My tea parties, tea rooms, etc. It doesn't see much action but when I do go somewhere or buy something tea-related, that's where it goes!!

Serendipity Tea Room

7. "Leap of Faith" is about trying to have a second baby. It's really my electronic journal, and I haven't told anyone the address but I hope someday when I meet women who are going through similar circumstances, I can share it with them so they know someone else has been there.

PHEW!! Yeah, it's a lot but, hey, I love to write and it's kind of nice to compartmentalize my life a little, when it so often feels like everything just runs together! It's a fun hobby and I really have "met" some lovely and talented women in the blog world, plus I've been able to keep up with many of my old friends as well!

Happy anniversary to ME!