Well, what do you know? WordPress.com prepared a 2012 annual report for my blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,700 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 10 years to get that many views.
Silly statistic, isn’t it? But don’t let that stop you:
This Friday, my husband and I are going to town to spend a few days caring for our two little grandchildren. Allowing L and J’s hardworking parents to go off on a private weekend and enjoy some time by themselves has become a little tradition for us, a tradition we happily and gratefully accept.
We look forward to taking them on a couple of outings, one of which will be to buy a Christmas present for a needy child and putting it under the Happy Tree at the mall. Some visits with family, a Santa Claus Parade, and the obligatory games and bedtime stories will ensure lots of fun-filled moments for the children and grandparents alike.
This weekend couldn’t come at a better time for me. Spending time with my sweet little ones is just the diversion I need right now, a breath of fresh air that will help me regroup, regain focus, and get back to my normal life. There’s this novel I started writing last month that I had no other choice but to put aside due to my recent loss, but it is back on the agenda this week, I am pleased to say.
Here are just a few photos I selected from fun times we had with L and J, over the past year.
Four more sleeps, kids! Your Nanny and Poppy can’t wait. 🙂
“If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ~ Toni Morrison
I have recently begun a new adventure, dear readers and fellow bloggers.
No longer can I ignore the voice inside me that is clamouring to be heard, so I have started to write a novel. I am a little nervous, but mostly I am excited to be on this new journey I have destined for myself.
When I told a friend a little while ago about my plan to write a book, she said, “Gee, I’m the one with the English degree. I should write a book!” Well, I don’t have a degree, but I’ve always had a passion for stories, fictional or otherwise, and a desire to tell some stories of my own.
Heck, I wrote a teen novel when I was still in school, at the grand old age of fifteen. So diplomas and degrees or lack thereof won’t hinder me now either.
It has been a rewarding experience keeping this blog that I started back in December. The original purpose of Jennifer’s Journal had been to get into the habit of creating and writing something on a regular basis, in order to better prepare me for the demands of writing a novel. But now that I have taken on this ambitious new project, I will have less of that precious commodity of time to devote to blogging.
But abandoning my blog seems unthinkable to me.. Have you ever nurtured a child? Cared for a pet? Or even tended a garden? And then, stopped? No, I will keep my blog, adding thoughts, inspirations, and a photograph or two, as often and as regularly as I can. I would also like to keep you updated on my novel’s progress.
Life is going to get busier, that’s all.
I leave you with another favourite quote of mine:
“Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” ~ Gloria Steinem
How about you? Have you ever written a book, or do you see yourself writing one someday? Do you have advice for someone taking on a creative project?
I am happy to introduce a guest blogger on Jennifer’s Journal this week. Please welcome Vivian K. Perry, a very dear friend of mine who also happens to be, um, feline.
Greetings, humans! I am thrilled to be given this opportunity today on WordPress to share some photos, and a few things about myself.
To be honest, I think Jennifer is allowing me to host today to make up for shrieking at me last week, when I brought a mouse in the house. It was a gift, after all, so instead of screaming bloody (mousey) murder, shouldn’t she have been grateful to receive a trophy of my hunting prowess? Especially since I brought it home to her, and dropped it in the hallway – STILL ALIVE? You try to do something nice, but you are only misunderstood…
Actually, I enjoy a lovely life here with Jennifer, her husband, and my sister and womb-mate, Maisie.
Up until two summers ago, we all lived in the city. It was okay, but my sister and I were not allowed outside by ourselves because of all the traffic in our neighbourhood, and the danger to us that it entailed. So when we moved to the country, imagine our delight to be free to explore the great outdoors!
We can now come and go as we please, chase birds, butterflies and rodents, and savour the lifestyle we had only dreamed about in our former life.
Just last month, Maisie and I celebrated our fifth birthday. Here is what we looked like when we were adopted from the SPCA:
Even though we are sisters, Maisie and I are different in many ways. (Some people don’t know that kittens from the same litter can have different fathers; did you? I think that is what happened with us.) Maisie is smaller, and very much on the quiet side…
…while I am larger, quite vocal and in-your-face.
I am truly a Social Animal who adores human relationships and have been known to be exceedingly dog-like. I’ll follow you, talk to you, keep you company, sleep with you, and never, ever let you get lonely.
In fact, the other day, I went next door to visit our neighbour Ben. I simply walked in, meowed at everyone, ventured upstairs, and enjoyed a nap on his bed. No invitation necessary!
Many people think that a cat is a cat is a cat. But I’m here today to dispel that assumption. I am not aloof. I don’t scratch, bite or hiss at people. I can be very friendly with just about anyone.
And even though I do catch mice, and perhaps meow a little too loudly, I am as loyal and loving as any dog.
Just ask Jennifer.
* This blog post was since selected for publication in BBooks – Blog Books, an online magazine!
“Be careful what you wish for, Jennifer…”
I have always adored animals, and was enjoying getting closer to nature since my husband and I moved back to rural Newfoundland, but THIS IS A LITTLE TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT.
Yes, the big visitor showed up in our little town just yesterday, one of four recent reports of polar bears being on the island of Newfoundland so far this spring (read further and view actual pictures from yesterday from the linked article below). The Ursus Maritimus doesn’t often make its way this far south. It is when it is hungrily hunting seals, which are found on icepans this time of year, that it may end up in some of our backyards. Yikes!!
“Don’t worry,” says my husband. “Nobody has ever been attacked by a polar bear in Newtown before.”
Gee, thanks, Honey. I don’t know why I was worrying. We are, after all, only talking about the LARGEST LIVING LAND PREDATOR IN THE WORLD.
Silly RCMP, too, for warning us to be on the lookout. Oh well, as the old joke goes, I won’t have to outrun the bear, I’ll just have to outrun the husband…
So here I am, on a frigid January evening. Outside, a bitter wind chill of minus 10 degrees Celsius (that’s 14+ degrees for you Fahrenheit folks), is blowing directly off the North Atlantic just a few yards from our door. My husband Paul is gone playing floor hockey at the high school gym, so I’m alone, trying desperately to chill out. Not figuratively, mind you, but literally. I turned down the thermostats so there is no heat on in my house, simply because my body feels like a furnace turned up on cremate.
This is a new and fresh hell for yours truly, only making itself known within the last couple of weeks. Somehow, I had let myself believe I’d be lucky enough to escape the discomfort of “tropical moments” at this time of my life. How I used to chuckle when one of my friends or coworkers complained of a hot flash. Ha! The joke is now on me. And for the uninitiated, it doesn’t feel like a source of external heat that hits you. It’s more like internal spontaneous combustion, where you think you just might suddenly burst into flames.
Stripped down to a tank top and appropriately, sweat pants, eating blueberries out of the freezer (still frozen), I’m trying to hold it together. I made the mistake earlier of googling other menopause symptoms, and started ticking off other lovely ailments I’ve been experiencing. Brain fog? Check. Anxiety? Check. Night sweats? Check. Mood swings? Okay, that one is just me, can’t blame that on The Change.
The website also warned that the whole process could take anywhere from two to eight years before it is done. That’s just terrific. Think I’ll go out and stick my head in a snow bank.
And now Paul is home. “It’s freezing here!” he says. He looks at my red face. “Is it alright if I turn up the heat?”
“If you must,” I bark, fanning myself with a throw cushion.
Then I realize something. In our house, PMS always stood for Paul Must Suffer. Well, the PMS might be coming to an end for me, but it won’t be ending for him any time soon. Will he survive? Will I?
Check back in two to eight years.
Hello, and welcome to my Journal! This is my first foray into the world of blogging, so being a total newbie at this, I am not even sure where my words will take us. The one thing I can tell you, Dear Reader, is that Jennifer’s Journal will be a sharing of my thoughts in the forms of prose, poetry and musings. As well, I plan to include selections of photography that I think you will like.
New Year’s Eve 2011 is upon us, and 2012 beckons with promise. I should be getting gussied up for the Ball at the Barbour site here in Newtown in a few hours, the first one in several years for us. I should be primping and preening, painting my nails, curling my locks and donning a frock to ring in the new year in style with the local revelers. Instead, I’ve happened upon The (wonderful) Wizard of Oz, a movie that has hijacked my attention for the hundredth time.
And once again, I ask myself, What is it about the Scarecrow (always my favorite), that makes my silly heart melt? Is it the way he falls about in his straw-filled pants, like he hasn’t a bone in his body, or is it the way he talks so kindly to Dorothy, making me wish I was her? Yes, I smile at the Tin Man, and I laugh at the Cowardly Lion, but it is the Scarecrow that makes me PVR the rest of the movie before I am reluctantly pulled away.
And I know it is the last day of the year, but I didn’t want to wait for January One, which would have been the expected start date of a blog. I had to ask that very important question today.
Perhaps, Dorothy has the answer?
Jennifer's Journal 