Friday Gratitude: My One Year Blog Anniversary

Darlings, I am here.

It hasn’t been an easy week. I have feel like I have a zillion instructors and twice that many classes. While I’m excited about Nursing Lab, where we learn all of our practical skills, I also have a separate Nursing Lecture, Clinical, which will begin taking place in the hospital in a few weeks, Dosage Calculations, and Microbiology, which also consists of a lecture and separate lab.

(Is this real life?)

My make-shift desk is stocked with heavy textbooks, nursing study guides, index cards, highlighters, calculator, notebooks, two planners (one school-specific, one for everything else), and a large dry erase monthly desk calendar. I am prepared. The first week of the semester is done. Let’s see how things go from here 🙂

On to more interesting topics!

Friday Gratitude: My One Year Blogging Anniversary!

Yup, you heard me right. One year ago, I created Sweet and Savoring. I didn’t have any kind of editorial calendar, or specific plan for where the blog was going to go. It was quite a long time before anyone other than my sister, mom, or friends left comments. I certainly never thought I would open up as much as I did about my depression.

Today, I’m grateful for this blog, for all the words I have written and the vulnerability I have practiced over the past year. Initially, Andy and I thought this would mostly be a place to feature all of my food photos. It’s turned into so much more than that, and I’m glad.

As little as three years ago, I would have laughed if you told me I would be blogging about what my depression feels like, or how my mental state over the winter affects Andy, or how anxiety can take over my whole being. These are the topics and posts that are the most personal, and the ones that get the most feedback. You’d be hard-pressed to hear me say this out loud, but I’m proud of myself for opening up and sharing some of my pain; struggles are infinitely more difficult if we keep them to ourselves, as I have learned countless times over the years.

I’m grateful for the wonderful blogging community I have found, and all of the inspiration and support I get from my fellow bloggers. My goodness, I never could have predicted this part of blogging! It’s simply amazing to me how much support is out there, and how all of our words reach each other across miles, generations, and lifestyles. Thank you to each of the (many) blogs that I follow, for sharing your story. Thank you to the fantastic food bloggers that I am constantly inspired by; I’ve cooked and baked more new dishes in the past year than ever before (still, it must be said, Andy does most of the cooking :)).

In addition, I’m grateful for you.  Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to each of my readers. You have held me up, offered validation and positive reinforcement, have responded wonderfully to my bare-bones honesty. I’m not at all sure how often I can continue to post now that I’m a full-time nursing student (this is the first post since Monday, you guys!), but I am glad to have this space to come back to when I can.

Unrelated to blogging, I’m also grateful for such a nice view as I gaze out my window right now: the wood pile, lying in wait for the cold weather to fuel the stove downstairs, the tall, leafy trees blowing ever so slightly in the morning breeze, and the birds of varying sizes and colors, each with their own distinctive squawk or tweet.

Also, I’ve been revisiting The Postal Service’s Give Up, as well as their other EPs, and my goodness, I wish they would create some more music! Love it. Brand New Colony, anyone? 🙂

Your turn, my friends! What are you grateful for today? What has been most meaningful for you as a blogger? Anything fun happening this holiday weekend?

 

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He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.     –Nietzsche