Happy Birthday to … my blog! Seventeen years old today

Hello! Hi! Hey!

Today it’s my blog’s Sweet Seventeen. It’s quite hard to fathom that I’ve been blogging for 17 years, but I have and you best believe it! Because I can’t.

So much has happened over all these years, I am not even sure where I’d begin summing it up … but I’ll try.

Over the 17 years of this blog’s life …

My kids grew up, our shop opened and closed, I wrote 8 books, I won some awards, I got published in a bunch of places, I ran a bunch of community craft projects with y’all and invented a craft group with Kirsty and shared a studio with Victoria and Myf and Bec.

I met lots of brilliant and funny and creative people and we hung out and chatted and things. Sometimes in real life and sometimes across the internet. I did a bunch of freelance writing and editing, working alongside wonderful types. I wrote for Frankie for a whole chunk of fun years. I ran a bunch of fun courses online with some wonderful students who still I think of daily.

I ran classes with Gemma. I went to teach in Bali with Clare. I went on TV and the radio a bunch of times. I made a million things out of a zillion metres of yarn … and cooked a million things and learned so much about taking photos and writing and thinking.

I moved house five times.

Over the 17 years of this blog’s life … my 23 year ‘marriage*’ ended, the pandemic happened, I moved to Tassie and back, my Nan died, my ex died of MND, my dad died, my kids’ grandparents (minus one) died, my sister-in-law and nephew died, so many losses! Most of them were last year.

I nearly died of an asthma attack. I got sick with ME/CFS. I got covid. I learned about not doing too many things at once.

I became an aunty to a bunch of lovely children! I watched my friends having their babies and the ones that had babies let me watch them grow up. I watched my childless and childfree friends follow their passions and explore the world and find/snuggle down with their favourite people

I snuggled up with favourite PETS! — Lucky (RIP), Snoopy (RIP), Bean, Mike (RIP), Peach, Olive (RIP), Chippy and Bruno … love you guys!!)

I started my Creative Writing degree at Curtin University (and I’ll finish it in just a few weeks!) I made plans for my Honours year (next year!) I plotted a PhD.

I guess you could say that I have lived and felt a whole heap … and I have learned so much writing these imperfect, cheery and/or heartfelt missives to readers like you.

This jumble of sentences doesn’t even begin to sum it all up. I’m sure I’ve missed lots more important things in this rough and ready round up. And I’ve left some stuff out. For that I am sorry. And also not sorry.

Thank you for the first 17 years of this blog. Thank you for being the backbone of my life and giving me something to tether myself to as life swished and swept by.

Thank you for being there as I have dug in, dug deep, bloomed, gone to ground, and sometimes sprouted a little.

Thank you for being nearby while I’m beginning to re-root my life again.

You are truly my favourites. Thanks for helping ME grow up.

xx Pip

Here’s a little very old-school Meet Me at Mike’s present for you! Vintage Christmas Gift tags – in case you celebrate Christmas. Save and print and do with them what you will. And thank you.

Click to enlarge and save. 

* We never got married! We did, however, live together for 23 years.