Today marks five years that I’ve been blogging in this space. Five years. Wow. I’m amazed by that. It’s hard to express in words how much this space means to me. It’s the connections that have been made through writing here that have been such a huge blessing in my life, more than I could ever say. On February 25, 2009, I wrote my first post. I started writing here before I was pregnant with Bracken. It’s hard to even imagine life before he was with us. I’m sure many of you parents know what I mean. Some of you have been reading for that long. Some of you followed the journey through my pregnancy and saw that post announcing his entrance into the world. Some of you have watched him grow from a baby to a toddler. And now he’s three. Three. Through it all, I was dedicated to this space, even when there hardly seemed a spare moment to write. Even when the camera broke and I didn’t have pictures to share here, or the computer died. You’d probably laugh if you knew how many blog posts were written with one hand, while I was breastfeeding. I’ll always remember cradling his tiny self in one arm as he fell asleep on me and typing with my one free hand. (You other moms who have done this know how much longer it takes to type things that way!)  No matter how chaotic things seemed at times, showing up here to write was something that brought me peace and clarity. I could take a small step back from my life for a moment and see it in a different way. Writing just helps me process things. Do you know how much your kind words have cheered me up on hard days? I don’t think you do. Every time you leave me a comment, it’s like a gift. In the beginning, I only wrote a post here and there. I think my only readers were Jeff and my mom. Over the years, I started writing more regularly. I started getting comments from people I’d never met, from different places around the world. I felt a wonderful community here and I’ve felt blessed as it’s grown. And boy, have I written a lot. As of today: 1,544 posts. Say what? I know. I’m surprised too. (29 of those are drafts that have never been published, but there are 1,515 published posts!) At one point I started offering space in the sidebar for sponsors and they were all trades. Eventually it got rather confusing to keep track of it all and I started charging a very small monthly fee for ad space. That marked the beginning of making a bit of money from this space. The modest amount I make from this space means so much to our family, but I’d blog no matter what. I write here because I love it. And I thank each and every one of you for visiting and taking the time to read what I have to say. I’m honored to have you here.