It's a Big Day in Blogland

PODCAST TUESDAY!!! We're celebrating our big day in blogland on the podcast as well as in the post below! Enjoy!

 Click here to listen.

Well, you would think with a day this momentous, that I would be having a MUCH bigger party than this meager offering. But alas, the occasion crept up on me, and I refuse to feel too guilty about a tiny party.

So what's the occasion, you might ask?

Today marks ten years since my first blog post went live on this little blogaroo. A whole decade in blogland! WOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

For those of you who don't know the story, ten years ago, I was petrified of blogging. I read blogs. But no way was I about to do it. I had watched way too many crime shows of people who were cyber-stalked and I refused to submit my life to the world wide web for its consideration and my own potential endangerment.

In those days, to pacify my mother {who, to be fair, worked long past the age she probably wanted to just to put me through college}, I wrote an email column once a week and sent it off to those who wanted to receive it. Also to be fair, my subscribers were mostly her friends. It was a good exercise for me to write something weekly, knowing it would be read by someone other than God.

One of my co-workers, Jim, also subscribed, and one day he suggested I should start a blog. He told me it was basically the same as what I did, but it would allow me to reach more people. {Clearly he didn't watch the crime shows like I did.} I waved him off, and a short time later, he walked into my office, put a piece of paper on my desk, and said, "This is your blog address and password. Go blog."

And then I met you.

Through the tentative offering of my first post {which was a copy/paste effort from that most recent email and has the most unimaginative title...} my presence here began, and the ten years that have followed have provided the most beautiful and unexpected friendships and opportunities.

Without question, my blog hasn't "taken off" like some do, with thousands of followers and companies knocking on my door to partner with me. I'm not even sure I have a particular niche like so many bloggers do, but all of that is okay. This outlet, like any ministry of mine, is the Lord's to use like He wants to, and He can bring as many or few people as He wants to each day. I'll trust Him to make sure they're the right ones. The ones who need to read the message found here on any given day.

But to celebrate, I will tell you that in the last ten years...

* My picture offering has improved. I had 48 posts published before I finally caved in and {gasp!} posted a photo. And it was mediocre at best:

{That's a lake, in case you can't tell. It really is an unfortunate photo.}

* It was a whole different hair and weight decade for me. {And the season of my first ever plane ride in my entire life.}

* I've made some great new friends specifically through blogging. I'm not sure if she still reads anymore, but SkyePuppy was the first friend I met because of the blog and then got together with in real life. {If you still read, Skye, HI!!!!} In those early blogging days, my little team of consistent readers and commenters was made up of Phats {no longer a blogger, but still my real life friend and has been since story hour!}, Malott, Delta, and Christina. I still treasure each of them and the encouragement they gave me as I waded into these scary internet waters.

* My most-read post of all time was this one that I wrote in 2013 about an organization still very dear to my heart: Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. The organization exists to provide a hospital photo session to parents who lose a child. After my nephew's stillbirth in 1988, I am still grateful for the hospital staff who encouraged us {as a family} to take pictures of Kirk, because now, they're all we have to remember him by! I always want to encourage other families who may be in the same situation to capture memories while they can.

* My most-read recipe of all time is the Cheesy Tortellini recipe, which is a little embarrassing, since my photography and staging were...um...lacking. But the recipe is indeed delicious!

 * I've posted a lot of room tours and makeover posts, and while some of the newer ones may end up proving to be more well-read in the long run, this one remains the most-read. Maybe it's because I named it "My Coffee (Butler's) Kitchen" and people thought I actually had a butler's kitchen. Well I did...but it was my ONLY kitchen!

* In 2011, I started blogging every day, and I've continued to do it since then. And though blogging experts will tell you not to reinvent yourself excessively and to repost old material upon occasion, all my 3200-some posts from the last ten years have been original. No repeats.

* I mentioned I don't have a niche, and it's true! I'll blog about our daily life, lessons I'm learning from the Lord, projects {ohhhhhhhhhhhhh the projects} we're taking on around here, recipes, capsule wardrobes, and little mini-series story posts. I like to switch it up. Keeps it interesting.

* If you're new and haven't seen it, check out the list of posts about our love story. One of my favorite seasons on this blog. I think I scared all of you when that story began on here, because it had been happening in real life longer than I'd been talking about it on the blog. I think Ryan proposed about 4 days after I started telling you he even existed, and that freaked EVERYBODY out. I think you all thought I was marrying some random stranger I just met four days earlier!

* Incidentally, here's the post I wrote that introduced Ryan to you. Do you remember this one?

* If you have listened to the podcast, you know that I had NO recollection of the blog post Ryan declared his favorite. But I unearthed it, and here it is!

* You've walked all the roads with me. The desert, the beautiful relationship, the wedding, all our trips and monthiversaries, our projects and big move, my years in radio and my transition to being what I am now: wife, writer, and speaker. How grateful I am for this decade with you and all it has brought! Thanks for finding me along the way...wherever you did...and coming back all the time to check in on life in Shafferland!

* I'm excited to see what the next decade holds. I've been working on some new things for my own journey in writing and speaking, but I have no plans to let go of the old blogaroo. I have every intention of keeping it going just as it is, a space for stories of everything under the sun and a chance to interact with you for ten more years and counting!

* JUST FOR FUN: I'm not one to ask for comments, but today I think it would be fun to hear from you so I'm not all alone at my party! I'd love to hear how you came to find this corner of the world wide web and either what you've liked best about your time spent here or what you'd like to read more about in the time to come!

Thanks for celebrating with me! HAPPY TEN YEAR BLOGIVERSARY TO ALL OF US!!!