Blogging

It's odd this blogging thing. When it started I was in Asia, I was single, I was teaching, I was pretty carefree. Someone on the Knitty boards sent me to Brainylady because she was in Taipei and I was moving there. I thought blogging would be great and so I started. It was a travel blog of sorts with lots of teaching stuff and some ranting about living abroad. Occasionally there was knitting, not so much knitting but some. I started to meet some other bloggers and got involved with some swaps... it was fun since I was overseas and lonely and candy deprived. I discovered that bloggers came and went and that was just the way that it was. I met some people live and in person early on, I have met many more since and others I still only know virtually (that's enough links for me!). Not to mention all the local knitting pals who also blog.

It's hard to explain to people who don't blog what it is like to develop friendships virtually and then have them move into live and person friendships. Early on in the blog thing I found/met MamaCate, she had a friend blogging on her account, that friend lived in Ottawa, that friend wanted to go to Rhinebeck in the fall of 2005 and so did I. I called her, offered her and her daughter a ride and the rest is history. That friend has become one of the nearest and dearest that I have, she and her partner have bought a farm minutes away from ours and I am over the moon excited at the thought of them being that near by.

In a world where so many people live so far away from there families, building friendships that are like family has become very important. It is amazing to me that blogging has led to those relationships in my life. I have struggled lately with the whole blogging thing and talked about it a bit here but I have worked out for myself where the boundaries need to be for me and my family and decided that I am going to stick with it. After all it has led to great friendships and if that is the only reason I do then that is reason enough for me.