Shad tree blossoms along my street.

Blogging is a strange thing. I started this blog for friends and family to keep up with all we were doing after our move from Colorado to New Jersey six years ago. Most of those people still read even if they don’t comment.

Somehow I started reading other people’s blogs and picked up some of their readers along the way by commenting on their blogs and being listed in their blog rolls.

Many people found me through knitting and when I used to be a frequent visitor to the Knitters Review Forums. Gosh, I haven’t been back there in ages! But I haven’t really been knitting either. Not sure what happened. Maybe it’s the lack of classes offered at local knitting shops? Anyway, I am getting off track.

So many of the people I used to follow have now stopped blogging and I miss them. The thing today seems to be Facebook and I just can’t make myself use it. So I still blog.

I’ve lost some people along the way and that’s been a little hurtful.

Like neighbor Luke who is now a senior in high school and has better things to do than keep up with my blog which he once read from start to finish.

Like Becky. She emailed me out of the blue a couple of weeks ago and I’m still not sure exactly why. She didn’t mention my blog being private or wanting to be a member. When I said something to her about it she just casually said she didn’t have time and didn’t know if she was going to register or not. Hmmm… Okay. It was odd, I must admit.

Like Jane. I miss Jane. Not sure why she never registered.

Like Reya. Ditto Jane above. Both readers from the beginning but not any longer.

Shad blossom close-up.

Then just the other day I got a request from someone to become a member of the blog that I never knew was reading. I sent them the info for logging in and they immediately became a member.

I also have a reader in Chile (who actually sent me a few photos of the city where she lives), one in Budapest, and a handful in the U.K. To think that these people somehow care about my little life in New Jersey!

I have readers I have never met, yet they know me probably better than most people do. That’s a strange thought, isn’t it? That’s one of the reasons I went private, because I do put so much of what is me out there. What you read is me and not some person sitting in front of a computer making stuff up. I don’t try to be anybody else or adopt their style of blogging. I have my own unique style, or at least I like to think so, of which photography plays a big part.

My sister said something the other day to me about how she was sorry she didn’t comment but she just isn’t in to flowers. Sorry sis, but I am! And it’s okay if you aren’t particularly interested in what I happen to be blogging about on any given day. It’s interesting to me, so I blog about it. Or photograph it.

I express myself through photography. My camera is therapy. I may not be the best photographer in the world, but I make do. I even have three photos published now! Unfortunately I didn’t get paid for any of them but I did get credited.

The first was a mushroom photo that was published in a book called “100 Cool Mushrooms” by Micael Kuo and Andy Methven (page 72 if you ever come across it), and the other two were just recently used in a case study that was done by Vision Research (Rick’s company) on Hawk (hummingbird) Moths. In both cases I didn’t pursue getting photos published, it just happened.

I kind of got off track, sorry. I was just typing and thinking and that’s how all that information you probably didn’t want or need to know spilled out onto the page.

So, with that I’ll close for now. Thanks for reading—each and every one of you.