Gracias, Danke, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Asante, Thank You – my 200th blog post

My 200th post – I’ve been a bit bloggy, huh?  🙂  According to the records here somewhere this journey began sometime around the end of August 2011 (plus or minus a week or two).  At first I was afraid, I was terrified…ummm, whoops!  Sorry that’s a song.  But at first I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to keep posting and that no one would be interested in my thoughts or my photos.  Well I got shown!  Since those first steps I have “met” and gotten to know some pretty amazing people.  Some were just strangers in the night (I’m on a song roll here, folks!) and some I feel rather close to.  At least as close as this medium allows us to be.

I’ve made a “if I’m in your neck of the woods” date with two other bloggers and I’ve invited another to come over to my side of the fence to take some photos of my neck of the woods (yeah! you know who you are).  I’ve gotten to know some of you past your words; things about your personal lives and of course you have learned much about me and my crazy life and the mysterious bacon stealing DH.  It is such a heart warming thing how we can live all over the world yet still have many things in common.  So many of us are or have been caregivers to loved ones, we’ve all had/have our health issues and injuries, we all love to eat (oh boy do we!), and some of us are pretty darn spiffy cooks!  Food and cooking are truly universal no matter what your language or accent may be.  We each get to see the others part of the world; parts we may or may not ever get to see in real life.  We’ve shared moments of our lives where things were at their highest and lowest.  There are those of us who miss loved ones terribly because they are no longer with us and some of us have had the blessing of welcoming new life into our lives.

We are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, husbands, wives, grandfather’s and all hail the almighty Nana’s!  A title I wear proudly.  Some of you are still raising children and there are we who have seen the nest emptied – and sometimes miss it.  Many of you have fur and feather babies to take care of and tell us about their antics.  Some of you have more non-human babies than others (yes, I’m talking about you  hehe)  And I am especially thankful to you who have helped me along with photography tips.  Seriously, I really really appreciate you guys out there.  I am amazed at the “eyes” of some of you photographers and sometimes I am so very envious – but not in a bad way.  I vacillate on how I feel about that last bit.  Sometimes it inspires me to try harder or do better and other times I just feel like putting my camera away and throwing up my hands.  Please keep encouraging me and I, if I can, will reciprocate.  Sometimes we all need a little pat on the back; we all need somebody to lean on at times (song again – I’m almost done with them).

The humor that is out there is pretty darn good too!  I’ve read and laughed at sweet cute humor all the way up (or down depending on your point of view) to ribald humor.  There have been a few times when I was almost in tears from laughing.  There are very good writers and poets out there amongst you as well.  I believe I can spin a tale but make it rhyme? Don’t think so.  Thanks to those of you of my generation who have shared with me as I with you tales from our childhood; back in those days of yore when we did things that now would be considered terribly hazardous to our health.  You think so? We’re still here aren’t we? So there!

It is so cool that WordPress has put in that stats thingie because I could never get the map to load onto my page.  I’m like a little kid when I go look at it to see where viewers have come from.  From “meeting” one blogger on here I somehow linked from her site to another and found a person from Scotland now living in England who has the same last name as my birth name.  My sister who does genealogy was all hyped up about the information he gave me….it’s a small world after all (song again, I can’t help myself – whoops! another song). Thank you also to you out there who have given me home remedies for when I had the punies,  helped me identify plants, etc. from the photos I have taken and posted, and helped me set up my online store – I hope I didn’t drive you ’round the bend too much with my questions.  Currently I am awaiting an email from Devon, England with the identity of some butterflies.  But that is DH’s uncle not a blogger.

So thank you for letting me be myself (song again), thank you for reading my blog and giving me the opportunity to read yours, and we are the world (song again, promise it’s the last).  Here’s to the next 100 posts or more.  Darn! I’m trying to slip in one last song as a finale but lucky for you I can’t think of another one although one Bob Marley song is wafting past my brain at the moment.