If the blog was a person, today they would be an adult. Someone who can vote. Someone trusted to make big, important decisions and be responsible for their own selves. Upon reflection, that’s probably good since The Blog has been on its own more than I intended this year – so it’s good that you’ve all got some practice being a grown up.

Every year I write a big sappy thing about what the blog means to me, and this year is no exception – but let’s start here. When the blog began, I wrote to you from a spot in the dining room. We had one family computer, and I had this parenting philosophy (still do, though now I am outvoted I think) that the best way to manage kids and the internet was to let them at it- but in a family space. The kids could use the thing, but they had to understand that the rest of the family would be…around. They would be on the net and all around them the family swirled. They weren’t the only ones either. The first day that I wrote to you, I walked the kids to school, then came home and made myself a cup of coffee, and sat down with my laminated html cheat sheet, and had at it. This is a link to the very first post.

In those days Sam was 9, Meg 12 and Amanda almost 15. I used a digital camera, I went to spinning class at Parks and Recreation on Tuesdays, I’d written no books, I worked as a doula, Lactation Consultant and Childbirth Educator, and Hank was 4 – the age that Elliot is now, and I wrote every post to you from that dining room, amongst the noise and commotion of a young, busy, wild family.

I don’t have to tell you how much things have changed. Today, I write to you from here.

I almost always write to you from that space, the crazy little office I built for myself sixteen years ago- which reminds me, I should paint. That room is a little different now, in the beginning I had what felt like an expensive Ikea desk (we were so broke) and now I have my mum’s tiny desk.

Still, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, and after all these years, an adult human number of years here we are, me and you. Today I struggle to explain that almost everything I have (outside of the family I had when I started) is because of the blog, and Ken’s decision that I should have one. Everything changed the day he sat me in front of a computer – showed me this URL (it’s still the same) and told me that my people were… there. He wasn’t wrong, and today I’m so grateful to him for knowing me and my talents well enough to know that this was something that would resonate in my life like nothing else.

I just tried to write a paragraph about what these years have meant to me, and it ended in tears, and I deleted it. Here is what you need to know. Everyone I love and everyone who loves me, has been touched by The Blog. This last lonely, empty, wild year has been less lonely because I could walk through that little door to my tiny desk and know that you were there, whether I was able to do it, or not. I know that I haven’t always been there as much as would have been comforting to you, but these are strange times, and I want you to know that even though I haven’t always been the magic you wanted, you have always been the magic I needed.

I don’t know what I would have done without you, my sweet blog.

Don’t forget to vote.

Love,

Stephanie

PS. As is traditional, today is the day that I kick off fundraising for the Bike Rally. Hopefully that’s actually happening this year, though honestly I worry about sparking a new variant just thinking about it. In years past we have amused them mightily by donating a dollar for each year of blogging, a load of donations all the same amount (or a multiple) has always weirded the staff out over there, and I like that. I know that for many of us things are tight but honestly If you’re feeling it, we can keep the weird going with an $18 donation.