Where has the time gone?

Today is my 5 year blog anniversary. It started out as a requirement for a social media workshop I was taking for work but the next thing I new it just found its voice. Or I did. Not sure which.

When I started Nessa was a 9 week old puppy. She had only been with us for two weeks. In fact, my first post was titled: Introducing the dogs.

Now, she is a 5 year old love of my life. A messy, fluffy, big, personal space hogging love of my life.

Tripper was 2 1/2 years old. He is no longer with us. His death last year was horrific. We become so attached to our dogs. I miss his sweet smile. i miss him trying to herd us all the time. I miss his corpulent short little body.

I've tortured you all by blogging about my art hobby turned quasi career.
I went from drawing with soft pastels:

This is like number two of five lighthouse drawings. I was on a Degas dancers type of thing. I kept wondering when it would get weird only to just stop doing lighthouses. I have done one since. I guess I needed to get them out of my system. Odd really!

To commissioned painting of people:

 
Now, I troll all of your facebook accounts for photos to paint. Hey, I asked permission. 
 
I've blogged about food, historic places, people and things. I've blogged about crafting stuff and decorating. I've blogged a bit about my family, my friends and my work. I've bored you with my travels and my moves. I've resisted doing reviews or monetizing my blog, though I get asked to all the time. The only real review I've done is for a book about the storage of real food written by Prince Charles. I was asked to do so by the Meatless Monday group of which I'm a proud member. I just don't feel real comfortable about going that route. For me it feels like work. It also feels like I'm obligated to someone else for my blog. Maybe, I'm just territorial but I just can't seem to pull that trigger.

My goofy travel game has even spawned a new website/game.
I even bought the domain name. Something that I have been thinking of doing for several years but was way too lazy to do. Bless Blogger/Google for making it easy. Of course, they are take up to 3 days to actually put the whole thing in place. How crazy am I that I wait 5 years to get a domain name but I can't wait 3 days for it to be set up. I think I need a life.


It seems that my blog is one big Random Tuesday Thoughts.


Or maybe I'm just a bit ADD. I'm going with random.

What I want to say is; thank you for sticking with me. 

Thank you for being my blog friends. I feel like I really know all of you personally.

And, for those I've met in person, thank you for becoming my real life friend. 

For those that I have yet to met in person, your time will come...(cue ominous music). I want to meet all of you if I am able (including you, Catherine in Australia and Vince in Ireland) and turn you into real life friends. 

Love,
M