I started this post thinking it might be my last. At least, my last here. I’ve been posting monthly for the past two years over on Substack at Meredith Davis: Author with a Kidlit Crush (formerly known as Face Out) recommending themed picture book lists and some middle grades. You can find an archive of themed book recs on the “reviews” tab of this website. I wasn’t sure I had anything to say in this space anymore.

But then I started looking back at this blog, all the way back to 2007. That’s when I first started writing for friends and family in the digital space, chronicling our family’s nine and a half month trip around the world here.

Some of you have been with me since that beginning! In 2011, I started blogging on this website with this post as we began the process to adopt. I continued telling stories here. The journey that led us to Rebeka started here. There was so much to say about our time with Rebeka! (She’s coming to visit this summer! Stay tuned for more Rebeka stories and pictures and updates!)

There were lots of musings about writing and eventually the celebration of book contracts. There were posts about foster babies, marriage proposals, and then came picture book reviews that started here in 2021. And then there was the thrill of becoming a grandparent. Grandbaby number two is due in September (stay tuned for those stories and pictures).

Looking back, I realized I’m not done here. No way. This will be the place where I continue blogging about the stories in real life, the little and big ones.  We don’t know what’s waiting around the river bend, but I’m certain there will be stories to share. A little housekeeping: on the subscribe button in the menu, you now have choices. You can subscribe to this blog for all kinds of real life stories. Subscribe to my substack for children’s book reviews, and/or subscribe to the Bible Poetry Project to receive my poems. I’m writing one for every chapter of the Bible (a whole other story I haven’t shared here!)

Thanks for being on the other end of this blog. Some of you have been following these stories for many, many years, and I am grateful we’re connected in that way. I’d love to hear your stories, too, whether it’s in a comment here or, even better, over a meal around a table.

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