Five Years

We started our blog five years ago yesterday.

Darren had been following blogs for some time already. I rolled my eyes at him and called him a geek. Then Amy started her blog, and I became a faithful reader. And secretly wanted to start my own, but virtuously decided to be responsible and not fritter away time online. Then Darren created this blog so he could comment on others' posts.

Absolved from the blame of *starting* the blog, I was free to start posting. It's not exactly that I took it and ran with it. More like broke the sound barrier with it.

This blog, and the community of blogs I follow, turned out to be much more than frittering time online (because of course there's none of that). It became indeed a way to "keep up." It's allowed my long-distance friendships to stay fresh. I've made some very good new friends via blogging. Best of all, it gives me an outlet for writing. (Darren posts to convey information. I post because I want to write and maybe some information gets in while I do it.) It was partly because of my blog that I found a place on a magazine as a freelancer.

So, when we began this blog in 2004:

* We'd been married for three and a half years
* We had two children
* Addie was 3, Stuart was 2
* In general, I found motherhood overwhelming and not so much fun
* I hadn't discovered Nancy Drew computer games
* I had not yet discovered that my fascination with names wasn't a universal interest, like breathing
* Darren and I had never had a fight
* Oh, wait, we still haven't
* Yeah, but we've discovered that not all conflicts involve outright arguing
* I was fairly obssessed with blogging.
* Ha! Not all things change.

Thanks to those friends and family who have come along for the entire ride. Thanks to those who joined us later. Here's to Keeping Up for another five years!

-- SJ