Blog Note: Tenth Year Blog Anniversary

December 29^th, 2022, today, marks the tenth anniversary of this blog.  Goodness, does anyone even read the blog?  I have one devoted reader.  Thank you Jan.  Otherwise I don’t know who even comes here.  I do send out links to friends when I have a particular post I think might interest them, but otherwise I live in relative obscurity.  I used to imagine the blog as being a monastery away from the world.  Now I think it’s a hermitage, and I’m the only hermit!

As I said in my seventh year anniversary post, the blog has become more of a way of documenting what I read, my thoughts on what I read, and sending out an evangelizing message or two to bring back faith.  What bothers me is that when I do a search from my own blog, “Ashes from Burnt Roses,” it comes up empty in Yahoo and in Bing search engines.  It does come up in Google though, but I would expect that since I use Google Blogger.  I wonder if my posts even come up in a search of a subject.  If anyone knows what I’m doing wrong, let me know. 

The blogging world has certainly changed over the years.  I don’t know many who blog any more.  Podcasts, and now vlogging, are the new rage.  I’m probably not suited for either, especially not video.  And my reads would not adapt well to audio or video discussion. 

So you’ll have to bear with me.  I will continue to blog here.  I still put out over 100 posts per year.  That’s at least two per week.  My thousandth post was about a year and a half ago.  I still like my wall paper.  I would try something different, but changing it would change the wall paper for all the past blog posts, and that doesn’t seem right.  It would feel like Cancel Culture! 

So what has changed over the years?  Well, now I have almost a complete head of grey hair!  My son is now thirteen—a teenager!—and I wonder if that has anything to do with my grey hair. 

This started out as a secular blog, but now it’s almost completely a Catholic blog.  That’s because of the increased importance of faith in my life.  I still don’t opine on politics, though I have put out a political post or two in recent years.  Not much really, and it’s not because I don’t have political opinions.  Oh I definitely do.  I still want this blog to be a refuge from the ugliness of political battle.  I probably post less music lately.  Most pop music doesn’t suit my increased religiosity.  In the last year or so, I’ve gotten into the habit of providing a meditation the Sunday Gospel reading.  I’m not sure there is all that much that I’ve changed over the years.

Some highlights of the blog.  I always think the Matthew Mondays are a highlight.  I’m proud of my son.  Certainly the Dante links to my thoughts on the Divine Comedy are something I’m proud of.  My poetry and short story analyzes I hope are highlights. 

Ten years shows perseverance.  Is perseverance a virtue?  God bless, and we’ll see how long keep doing this.

Manny