I just realized yesterday that I waltzed past my 20th Blogaversary with nary a mention! As of May 24 I have been writing this blog for 20 years. It blows my mind to think I've been going that long -- and pretty consistently, too, with the exception of about seven months in 2010-11, when I briefly quit because I was too busy writing for work. (So maybe technically my 20th Blogaversary is next year.)
When my friend and former colleague Kenneth (whose gay-culture blog is still linked in my sidebar) inspired me to try this platform out way back in 2006, I never imagined it would have such a long-lasting effect on my life. And yet here we both are, still blogging away, along with many of you.
Once I adopt an online platform, I tend to stick with it. Hence I'm still on Blogger and Flickr and Facebook -- all very mid-aughts -- and I never adapted to Twitter or BlueSky or Threads or Instagram, which came later. I've periodically experimented with Instagram but I just don't like it. I know my photos would get a lot more attention there but I just can't bring myself to use it.
Anyway, that's my first cosmos flower (above). Woo hoo! It's always gratifying to plant tiny seeds and see them grow and blossom. Frankly, I would have preferred some colored cosmos as opposed to white ones, but beggars can't be choosers. (I got those seeds free in the mail with a magazine subscription at work.) The zinnias and sunflowers are still plugging away and not yet ready to bloom.
As predicted, the squirrels have knocked a couple of figs off our tree. I cut this one open just to see what it looked like inside. Nowhere near ripe, as you can tell. But they're a nice size, and I'm hopeful I'll get at least one or two to taste.
This was yesterday's plant project. These begonias have been looking straggly and the leaves get crispy and dry, and eventually they fall off. I think it's because I put the plants in that terrible sawdust-and-wood-chip compost I bought last year, which dries out quickly. I bought better quality houseplant compost yesterday and repotted both of them (one in front and one behind on the windowsill), and I'm hoping that will give them a boost.
I cut off one lanky stem, and of course I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, so now it's rooting in two pieces on the kitchen windowsill. Like I need another begonia!
This was my treat yesterday evening. One of Dave's students gave him a tiny bottle of pink champagne at the end of the school year, and Dave can't drink it because alcohol affects his Crohn's disease. So it got passed along to lucky me!
Congratulations on passing your twentieth blogaversary. Like you, I am amazed at how I keep going and still find fresh things to blog about but of course, unlike you, I don't stick to tales of plants!
ReplyDeleteDon't you have a hobby, YP?! :)
DeleteCongratulations on your blog anniversary! Like you, I am not a fan of instagram. I don't really know why, but I just don't like it. I use it occasionally when I travel and take photos, but other than that, I don't.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny -- I've tried several times to use it more and it just doesn't work for me.
DeletePink champagne to celebrate the blogiversary!
ReplyDeleteCheers to many more.
Cheers!
DeleteHappy blogiversary! I. don't like IG partly because of the ownership, likewise FB, but also because it's clunky to navigate. I don't like the curated feel of it. Blogger I like, and weathered the changes it installed years ago which turned off some bloggers.
ReplyDeletePink champagne is just right!
Yeah, I do wonder about Meta and all the data tracking. Another reason I am not at ease on Instagram. (But is Google any different?)
DeleteCongratulations on 20 years. A friend who lives in Muswell Hill got me started bogging in 2005. It seems like just yesterday, but my blog will be old enough to drink this fall.
ReplyDeleteHa! Now THAT's a milestone!
DeleteTwo Decades , Well Done
ReplyDeleteCheers
Thank you!
DeleteWhat a pretty bottle, and happy blogiversary. I hate Instagram. There is no logic to it at all. Your choice, but by gosh you have a lot of indoor plants.
ReplyDeleteWe do probably have too many plants, but they seem to just proliferate! (Especially when I have such a tendency to adopt and rescue orphaned plants from others.)
DeleteCongratulations on your 20th blog anniversary!
ReplyDeleteThat is an odd looking plant with the large polka leaves.
You can add that pretty champagne bottle to your windowsill for clippings!
Aren't those begonia leaves unusual? The plants has white flowers, too, which are pretty when they bloom.
DeleteThe pink champagne seems like a good way to celebrate your 20th blogoversary - congratulations! Like you, I usually stick to things for a long time and don't easily start new stuff, which is why I am also still blogging here and nowhere else, in spite of issues with this platform such as not updating the reading list properly and others.
ReplyDeleteThe polka-dotted leaves look rather cool, and I hope you'll get at least some good figs off your tree and not lose them all to squirrels and birds.
Your mention of the blogoversary made me check when I started. My first post was in March 2009, and my blog had a very different character then:
https://librarianwithsecrets.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-friend.html
I went back and took a look at your first post, and as I wrote in the comments, I like the careful writing and surprise ending! My blog has changed a lot too. It was initially just meant to be mostly pictures, and then I gradually added more words. Now I won't shut up. LOL
DeleteWell. I just realized I had no idea how long I've been writing here. Nineteen years, it turns out. And the world has Hank to thank for that! Or curse.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! If writers are people who write, we are writers.
The bottle holding the champagne is gorgeous! It will look lovely with more begonia rootings in it!
It's crazy how time flies! I can't imagine NOT blogging at this point. It's how I offload so many of my memories and experiences. (Which I used to do in my paper journals.)
DeleteCongratulations on your longevity with blogging about your life!
ReplyDeleteI hope you're keeping that champagne bottle ... it looks like cut glass or crystal!
You may need the begonia cuttings if the replanted ones don't thrive!
After so much enthusiasm for it here, I'd feel guilty recycling it!
DeleteWhen I live on at the house, I had a fig tree and I got quite a few figs from it. The squirrels and birds got most of them. I remember making a chicken dish with figs in it with some of them. That's a cute little champagne bottle.
ReplyDeleteI had a fig tree behind my house in Morocco and I used to cook with those figs, too!
DeleteA nice drop of chilled pink champagne on a warm June evening is very acceptable. Freixnet bottles are very attractive.
ReplyDeleteI can't get on with Instagram, and never post anything on Twitter.
Twitter is just way too toxic. I can't even bring myself to read it.
DeleteHappy Blogaversary, 20 years is some achievement. I am two years behind you, but I have been through many different blogs in that time. My first one was a shop blog, documenting funny shop tales and revamps of the second shop. That pink champagne was perfect to celebrate with. :-)
ReplyDeleteMy blog could easily have been multiple blogs, given how it has changed over the years. I just stuck with the same one and let it evolve.
DeleteCongratulations on your long blog career! I'll be 22 years in (or 23?) in early September. It's become a part of my life and a community that I value. I haven't bonded with Instagram although I have it. I'm primarily a Facebook person, just for ease of use. I've never bonded to Blueksky, Twitter (X), Tik Tok or Threads. I did have to change platforms when Typepad went out of business but have adjusted OK to Wordpress. I still miss my sidebar, my lists and my blogroll, but have no idea how to make and manage them on WP.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same about blogging -- it's such a routine in my life that I can't imagine living without it. I suppose if the internet ever goes dark (god forbid!) I'll go back to paper journals. Somehow I have to write everything down. It's just the way I'm made.
DeleteThank you for always writing interesting posts and including great photos and videos. I enjoy reading daily and you have a nice following of dedicated readers.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on 20 years of blogging!
Your fig tree is showing great promise. That is a sizeable fig.
I love begonias and the spotted leaf is most unusual (to me).
Lord, I hope they're interesting, though sometimes I doubt it! Thank you for reading and enjoying my posts! If I could mail you this begonia cutting I would!
Deletean attractive bottle and an elegant glassful...worthy of the blog celebration
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to make a routine Wednesday evening into a little party. :)
DeleteHappy blogoversary!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Debby!
DeleteHappy 20th! I celebrated my 20th (over three platforms) last fall. Unlike the majority here, I love Instagram. It suits my purposes. I've never done FB and rarely visit Twitte/X. I do have a YouTube account, but don't know how to do much there. I had a blog post recently full of TINY clips because I don't know how to edit them together to make one! I could have used help from you or my son-in-law. He actually has several monetized YouTube channels.
ReplyDeleteI use iMovie to splice together video clips, and it's very easy. Yes, have your son-in-law show you how! I still have Facebook but I don't go there much, which is a shame, because that's how I've stayed in touch with many of my old friends. I'm just so suspicious of Meta and their data harvesting and algorithms.
DeleteNot to sound paranoid or anything, I've finally come to the conclusion that nothing is totally "safe". I choose my battles and go from there. To each their own.
DeleteSo very kind of you to drink the champagne for Dave. When I was in my 20s and single, I got on a kick of rooting every begonia leaf I clipped or that broke. I had a ball and g
ReplyDeletegave away a lot of begonias.
ReplyDeleteBegonias ARE amazing, rooting from single leaves. I don't know many other plants that can do that -- Sanseverias and jade plants come to mind.
DeleteCongratulations on 20 years of blogging! You have things to say and say them in an interesting way. Here's to many more years of blogging.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I'm glad you're enjoying my blog, Keith, just as I am enjoying yours!
Delete20 Years! I have 16 and gave up daily blogging long ago when I ran out of ideas. You do well with the begonias, I could never grow any but my mum took cuttings and had an entire back porch full a year later.
ReplyDeleteYeah, begonia cuttings will take over that way! I always seem to have something to write about, though probably not very interesting some days. :)
DeleteI believe yours is an Angel-Wing begonia.
DeleteHow was the Frexinet? I remember drinking that before but not the rose. Well done with the figs. Now, you can just nab a few ripes ones.
ReplyDelete