Ten Reasons I Enjoy Keeping a Blog

What do I enjoy most about keeping a blog?

1. I have heard from people through comments or by email whom I never would have heard from otherwise. These people are from around the world: South Carolina, Hawaii, Iraq, Western Washington, the Inland Empire, England, Montreal, all over.
   
2. People who write to me often add their stories to mine. I have so much enjoyed having had blanks filled in and hearing other stories that mine inspired. I've learned things about work in the mines and people around Kellogg and the history of the Valley that I would never have found out. What a pleasure.
3. My sisters caught the blog bug. It's been a unsurpassed pleasure not only to read my sisters' writing and see their photos daily, but we email each other now almost every day and are in closer contact than ever before. Could it be that the family that blogs together.........?
4. I get things straightened out. The best example of this was when I wrote about my experience playing American Legion baseball and remembered some things wrong and Johnny Bardelli wrote a corrective comment. It changed my memory and with a more accurate story, I remember the whole story with a sweeter memory. The truth does hav a way of setting a person free.
5. New acquaintances. Huckleberries Online, in particular, has opened up new virtual acquaintanceships that sometimes feel like friendships and has given me contact with people from the very place I hope to return to one day to live.
6. Picture taking. My blog has inspired me to try out new things with my camera, when I can find it. It's been fun to imagine blog posts that would be supported in serious as well as humorous ways by some pictures.
   
7. Renewed energy for writing. I had been trying for years to find a way to get myself to write almost every day, especially about things Kellogg related. My blog has been the ticket. I am going to see what the body of work I have collected looks like when October rolls around again and see if I want to do anything more with it.
   
8. I've discovered the joy of others' blogs. Every day I check to see what's happening in the blogs of the ones listed on my blogroll and I look at the ones mentioned in Huckleberries Online. I love reading how other people make their way in the world and read what they are thinking about.
9. Increased my computer competence. This blog has given me all kinds of reasons to increase my exploration of the virtual world and of the possibilities of working with a computer. I'm just getting started with podcasts and digital photos and editing photos and using public bookmarks and other things. I'm reading computer magazines! I buy computer books! I never saw this coming.
10. Renewed my love of sports in the Inland Empire. I love reading about the Zags and Cougs and Vandals and about high school sports in North Idaho through the Spokesman Review blogs. Likewise, InlandEmpireGirl is a Zags/Coug fanatic and so I get to feed off her enthusiasm. I love the Ducks here in Eugene, but my heart was with the Vandals, Zags, and in conflict with the Cougs long before I came to Oregon and those old loyalties remain the strongest.