The Penultimate

Let’s cross the bridge to the past. (Somewhere in Pennsylvania, sometime in September of 2006.)

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.

~ Ivy Baker Priest

Back in September of 2006, in anticipation of a temporary move to West Chester, Pennsylvania, I started a little blog called Life in the Bogs.  It was not meant to be anything more than an online newsletter for family and friends so they could keep up with M and I as we went on our sabbatical adventures.  This was not my first experience with blogging.  I’ve been doing it in some form since 1999.  But Life in the Bogs was the first blog I created under my own name (rather than a pseudonym).

One of the first in the Sunday Signage series

Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it’s been…

~ The Grateful Dead

Life in the Bogs was a rarely visited blog for a long time.  Bountiful Healing, a blog I created shortly after Life in the Bogs, was my main blog for a few years.  Bountiful Healing was where I started my days with an attitude adjustment in the form of a quote.  I was in a great deal of pain in those days and in need of healing.  Art, particularly photography, played a crucial role in that healing.  (You can read a little about it, if interested, here.)

Spatterdock leaf on the pond. (September 2006)

While I explored healing and art at Bountiful Healing, Life in the Bogs remained the blog for the everyday, the ordinary, and our travel and adventures.  It wasn’t until I took on the Get Outdoors Challenge that things picked up around here.

A magic tree in the forest. (Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. September 2006.)

Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

A mushroom city. (2006)

I thought about going back to pick out a few favorite posts, but there are so many posts (this is #1,855) that I’d be here for years going through them.  A few highlights:

• My first participation in NaBloPoMo (when it was a once-a-year event) in November of 2006.  I received some of my first blog comments as a result of that participation.  (My comment count as of this writing is 28,965.  Maybe I should stick around until it gets to an even 29,000?)
• The love and support I received in 2009 during my mother’s battle with cancer and her death.  Complete strangers offered words of comfort that pierced through the grief.  I hesitate to call it a “battle.”  Mom had small-cell lung cancer, an aggressive cancer that almost always wins.
• Learning to Draw.  I had to include this one because it’s something I’d like to take up again (and plan to take up again this year — it’s on my list of small changes/challenges).
• Going to the Philadelphia Mummers Parade.  What great fun that was!
• Travels.  Lots of travels.  A couple of visits to San Diego (where I met fellow blogger, Christina, for a couple of tours of Torrey Pines), some trips to Colorado, winter visits to Florida, and the big trip to the Canadian Maritimes last year.

Mirror, mirror. (Philadelphia Mummers Parade. 2007)

As you may have guessed from the title, this is my next to last post here at Life in the Bogs.  The new blog, Breezes at Dawn, is ready and my first official post (Welcome) as part of my move went up this morning.  Head on over.  I’ll meet you there.

Somewhere near Boulder, Colorado. 2008

Thank you so much for visiting me here at Life in the Bogs today.  I’ll have one more goodbye post tomorrow, simply because I want to share a few more images from the past six years.  I won’t be posting at Breezes at Dawn again until I’ve officially said goodbye here.  I know how hard it is to keep up when someone is posting to one blog, once a day.  No need to make it even more challenging for you (or for me!).

On a hike near I-80 in Pennsylvania, a route M and I travel often. 2006.

Have a delightful day, evening, night… wherever and whenever you are on the spectrum of time.  I hope to see you soon at the new place.  🙂

Rowboat at sunset. 2008

Amidst the worldly comings and goings, observe how endings become beginnings.

~ Lao Tzu

Summer bonfire. 2006.  (Do you see the face?)

Why do you go away?  So that you can come back.  So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors.  And the people there see you differently, too.  Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

~ Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

An autumn hike. 2006.

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