reflections on blogging | five years and 500 posts. . .

it was 5 years ago today that i hit publish on my first blog post ~ and by some sweet stroke of serendipity, this is my 500th post.

when i started blogging aila was 18 months old. we were living in the city with a dog called hudson, a cat called patrick and a chook called lucy.

blogging helped me to find me. it let me hone in on my passions. it gave me an opportunity to think and talk about the simple things that made my heart sing.

for a long time i blogged without anyone in my 'real life' knowing.

blogging helped me find the beauty in the world around me. through the lens of my camera and my words, blogging shaped my thoughts and taught me about gratitude.

blogging helped me to find you. it connected me with people all around the world who cared about the same things i did. from chooks to sewing to op-shopping or homebirth. it felt wonderfully affirming to find that tribe.

blogging let me show off the things that i had made to people who cared {and saved my husband from having to pretend that he did}.

when we packed up our city lives and moved to the deep south, my blog came with me, and so did you.

blogging has enabled me to keep a record of the little details of my days that i would have otherwise forgotten.

blogging has given me somewhere to put my photos, so that they are not lost forever in the deep dark depths of my external hard drive.

there were times when i could have happily blogged every day of the week. there were times when i struggled to blog once a month.

most of my blog posts have been written from my bed with a sleeping baby by my side.

sometimes i wonder why i blog. sometimes it feels incredibly narcissistic. often when i'm writing a post i wonder who cares?

mostly though, blogging has been a positive influence in my life. it has become a part of me. i'm not sure it's healthy to feel so attached to something, but i am.

at times i've come very close to bidding farewell to my blog. but right now i feel like i'll be sticking around here for a bit longer.

it still amazes me that hundreds of people pop by each day to read my random musings. they choose to visit this little corner of the internet. a place where i dump pictures and words and discuss the mundane minutiae of my days.

most people that visit this space are from australia. but there are also visits from belgium, bulgaria, brazil, the united states and the united kingdom, canada, spain, new zealand, iran, france, germany, ireland, rwanda. . . all corners of the globe. {hello!}

wherever you are in the world, a big, warm, heartfelt thank you for taking the time to visit. to comment. to email. to link up. to connect in some small way. it really has made the whole experience that much richer.