This Texas Life

It has been a year since I started blogging by accident.

A year ago this time we just came home from a great trip to Alaska. I suggested to Justin to use Blogger for his photo journals. To help him, I checked out the blogger in details and tried to post my first blog - a very brief summary with a link to our online photo Album. It was easy and the post looked great.

From then on, I just keep blogging about our life at Texas - adventures into great wilderness or a stroll at our community park, thoughts and reflections on life, remembrance of loved ones, anniversaries and sketches of interesting episodes of daily life .... I am very pleased that many of my friends/readers enjoyed reading the weekly blogs.

Writing blogs on our Alaska trip and a couple of earlier trips to Big Bend, Grand Teton, helped me to relive those grand adventures, and to enjoy the trips again. The 9 blogs on our Alaska trip, in particular, impressed many. A few friends asked about the links to the posts months after the postings as they were planing for their Alaska trips. On the other hand, exploring nature in our community is equally interesting as highlighted in "See who my neighbours are" and "Spring time stories". We have "Bright colors around us" in the Fall. We have white "Snow in North Texas" as well.

Even at middle age, I am still doing something for the first time which is exciting to me, such as being summoned to "jury duty", or attending a home owner association's board meeting as a "board director". The usual routines, such as "drive to work", work "in the yard" or in "my office' , or simply "a relaxing day" at home can have small ripples in them and prompt me to write. Occasionally troubles also can lead to a satisfying experience as in "fixing Kenmore".

Dramatic events, adversaries do make us think deeper, ponder more about life. 'A very special Christmas' gave us an uplift of spirituality and a feel of being touched by angels. It drew many comments and praises of the Lord from our religious friends. The passing of a friend led to 'a pause in life', a pondering of friendship, love and life, which brought tears to many and touched many more.

Deep thoughts or trivial observations, heavy subjects or light topics, emotional outpour or matter of fact descriptions, the blog give me a channel to express, to record, to summarize, to share, and to formalize, thus to reflect at a higher level.

As a matter of fact, I enjoy reading my own blogs!