BLOG CHANGES: STILL AT IT 10 YEARS ON

About ten years ago, unbeknownst to me, my hubby set me up with a generic template from Blogger. He called me over one day and said "Here, you now have a blog. Start typing."  At first it was all about the stories. I just wanted to capture all those adventures and misadventures -- stories of a big-city-suburbanite and her faithful companion (mostly just along for the ride) trying to live "the good life" -- and get them down in print and out into the world. Stories like this one. Photographs played little-to-no part in those early posts. I dubbed the blog Seasonality, after both my "Big Idea" and my four-season-garden-design business, then decided to tack on "A Beginner's Guide To Living The Good Life", in honor of what I hoped to accomplish here at our new home in the Texas Hill Country.

Experiencing Our First Hill Country Wind Storm

Falling in Love With Our Little Outdoor Theater

 Our First Small Town 4th of July Parade

Later, when I moved up here full-time, and things finally progressed from the fiasco stage to the getting-things-done stage, I switched the subtitle to "A Common Sense Approach To Living The Good Life", and photographs became just as important as the stories.

My Knitting Tea Cozies Phase

My First Mushroom-Picking Adventure

Ready for Planting

Making Bird Baths With The Muses

At some point, I took a side trip and created a second blog, Miss Becky Goes Abroad, so that I could also capture all the stories about our time living in Indonesia and Bahrain -- while I could still remember them! I had a vision in my head of just how I wanted this blog to look -- something like an antique scrapbook you would find in an attic -- and I knew no template would satisfy me. Instead,  I contacted Michelle Baird at Shabby Creations, and she helped bring it to life for me.

Adventure Boy Lures Me To Indonesia

Later, when the kids graduated from college and moved off, and hubby went through a series of truly scary health crises and finally retired and joined me up here full-time, I switched the title yet again to its current moniker -- Seasonality: Embracing Change. No longer satisfied with the blog's generic template look, I again contacted Michelle, and she used my suggestions to design a whole new look -- one that better reflected my personal journey. Since I was less into writing then, and more into art and photography, the blog became more and more about images, with only an occasional story.

So. Where is the blog headed next? Well, that remains to be seen. I have no idea when, where or even if we will move. One thing is certain, however, and that is my primary intent from this point on. Which is why, come March, when it's time to change the banner photos above from winter to spring, this blog will be getting one last title adjustment to...

SEASONALITY: Embracing The Moments

Many, many thanks to all of you who have joined me on this journey!

TRIBES CHANGE TOO

On A Panel With Fellow Bloggers at a SCN Conference

I discovered my first real "tribe" thanks to author Susan Wittig Albert and an organization she founded called Story Circle Network. Their goal is to encourage women to share their stories -- get them out into the world, one way or another -- because they believe every woman has a story to tell.

When we first bought this house it was a weekend place, and we were still living and working in Houston. I knew absolutely nothing about blogs or the internet at the time, but was getting more and more obsessed with writing about our Hill Country adventures in an ever-increasing pile of notebooks. When I moved here full-time, I attended my first Story Circle conference over in Austin, and connected with an amazing group of women who, just like me, were determined to tell their stories. While there, I met a fellow writer who just happened to live here in Wimberley, and she was kind enough to introduce me to that wonderful tribe of creative women that I now refer to as my "Muses".

When Hubby decided I'd be better off writing and sharing those stories via a blog ("A what?"), and  when I then joined one of Story Circle Network's on-line writing groups, I discovered the joy of making connections with like-minded people via the internet, and soon had another "tribe" to inspire and encourage me. I discovered that the internet was also a great way to reconnect with old friends whom I had lost touch with. When one of my high school friends discovered that I was now living in Wimberley, she hooked me up with her best friend from high school, whom I hadn't really known at the time. High School Debbie then introduced me to the world of on-line art classes, which led me down an entirely different creative path, and introduced me to yet another tribe of creative souls.

High School Sarah and High School Debbie

My First Art Studio -- The Kitchenudio

Debbie and I at a Donna Downey Workshop

Then, of course, there was Lucky Star Art Camp -- The Ultimate Tribe!

Our Fearless Leader

And, with every new tribe I became a part of, and was influenced by, I came closer and closer to being the person I am now -- the one I was always meant to be.

Of course, the more I changed, the more this blog changed.