Twelve months ago this week, I dared to annoy and bore my friends and family by starting a blog and then making them read it.  It all began because I had always wanted to write and, quite frankly, I was not about to be outdone by my then-seven-year-old nephew who had started his own blog, Kids’ Movie Guide.  This is now my 44th post on this site, not counting the two travelogues I wrote for my photo blog Thursday Has A View which I created in March 2011.

It has been a long time since I read my earlier posts but when I look back at the titles of the earliest writings, there is no doubt they were all about how I could put a funny and positive spin on my work life which was pretty much making me miserable.  A friend of mine said she liked that my posts were always so positive.  The reality was that by writing, I was forcing myself to focus on the positives rather than the negative things that were motivating me to vent in public.

As the months went by, my personal life took on a sadder turn when my last living grandparent was unexpectedly taken to hospital overseas, passing away a month later.  This blog gave me an outlet to express my gratitude towards friends far and wide, in real life and in my “twitterverse”, who helped me through my grief.  I paid tribute to my grandmother and cried for the entire three hours it took me to write that post.

As I watched the British royal wedding on television, I wrote about the beautiful wedding celebrations of my school friend Mary to her long-time partner, Rodney, which I attended in early April 2011.   At the time of her wedding, Mary was undergoing treatment for cancer for the second time in as many years.  Little did I know that as I shed a tear or two over how moving the wedding ceremony was that I would be mourning her passing just two weeks later, leaving behind her new husband and two beautiful little girls.  Writing the tribute to Mary was no less painful than writing about the loss of my grandmother.

Just in case you thought I only write to make my readers cry, I would like to think I have also written some less serious posts, such as Confessions of a Procrastinator which sat in the “Draft” box for an awfully long time and was apparently popular with readers who were looking for excuses to put off doing what they needed to do; When Size Matters, which was one of my most-read posts for a long time, probably out of curiosity about the title; and of course, no blog of mine could be without some mention of my addiction to Twitter or a certain TV show called White Collar (Ten Things I Learnt From White Collar).  Oh, and I can’t forget my little attempt at my own movie review (definitely cannot be outdone by my nephew!) for Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

So, what will I write about next?  I’m not sure.  At the end of 2010, I wrote about how I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but I did take up the WordPress challenge to write a new post at least once a week.  I have managed to meet that challenge most weeks – I missed it on a handful of occasions but I usually made up for it by posting more than once the following week 🙂  I will have to wait and see what inspires me over the course of the next few days to decide what the next topic will be.  If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave me a comment!  I hope I have managed to entertain and amuse you over the last 12 months, and if I have made you cry at any time, I make no apologies! Hehe.  If you follow me on Twitter, thanks for your continued support and I hope I have entertained you in the Twitterverse as well 🙂

Thanks for taking the time to read and looking forward to more posts to come 🙂 xox