The Givens Grove

A Year in Retrospect

As the one year anniversary of The Givens Grove blog approached, I had some tough questions for myself.  How do I feel about continuing the blog?  Do I like it?  Does it stress me out?  Is it pointless?

Ugh…..tough questions.

Before I answer these questions you must first know some things about me, Jessica.  Before this blog, creative writing was my worst nightmare.  I hated….I mean hated my college writing classes.  The brainstorming, the outlines….the word quotas.  OY.  Most people don’t know these things about me but I am a horrible speller, English is my worst subject and I am the slowest reader you will ever meet.  When my mother-in-law suggested to me many years ago that I should start a blog because all of our misadventures on the farm were too good not to share, my first thought was sheer panic.  There is no way I could do that.  It would take weeks just to crank out a simple post.  Yeah….not for this girl.

So what changed?  Well, after 3 years I began to believe my mother-in-law.  I felt that after that amount of time I had knowledge I could share.  “How To’s” and “How Not To’s”, and plenty of new adventures coming down the pipe that I would actually have something interesting to write about.  On May 25, 2016… I did it.  I made the plunge.  I wrote my first blog.

And guess what?

The words just flowed.  No brainstorming, no outlines, no quotas.  I was shocked at how much I enjoyed it.

The girl who hates English….enjoyed blogging.

But after a year how did I really feel about it?  I thought I knew, but I wasn’t quite sure.  So I did what I always do when presented with tough questions in my life.  I asked Chad.

Chad is calm.  Chad is rational.  Chad sees the whole picture.  Chad is pretty much awesome.

I thought when presenting all these questions to Chad he would want to think about it for a time.  However, I was totally shocked when he answered me right away.  His answer was simple, “I think the blog is good for you”.  Honestly, I thought he would be a little more critical or expound on his thoughts a little more.  But I totally agreed with him.  The blog is like therapy and in no way has stressed me out.  Maybe if I put quotas on myself like a blog a week, then maybe life would get a little hairy, but for now that is not a requirement.

My last question to him was “Is it pointless?”  My worst fear is to put meaningless “help” out there.  Again, his answer was simple.  “Does it matter if it’s something you enjoy?”  Well….when you put it like that….let’s rock this baby another year!

Here’s to another year at The Givens Grove.  Maybe something you read will be helpful, or lifts your spirit and if nothing else maybe you can laugh with me!

Much Love Friends!

 

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