October 06th, 2025

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Nine?  What the heck?  Nine what?

It could a simple math problem:  3X3=9

A person can be dressed to the nines

It takes roughly 9 months to grow a new human being

In Numerology, 9 is a "master number" signifying completeness, wisdom and humanitarianism

Boston Red Sox Ted Williams proudly wore the Number 9

Speaking of baseball there are 9 innings in baseball, I think, and 9 players on each team

Dante wrote of the Nine Circles of Hell in his Divine Comedy

There are nine squares in a game of tic-tac-toe!!

But it's none of those things.

As of this past Saturday, October 4th, this Blog has been in existence for 9 years!  Wow!  Who could possibly have seen that coming?  

Definitely not me.  I had no end game in mind when I started. It was kind of an experiment.  I had never done anything like this before and it was more than a little intimidating initially.  Honestly, it took awhile before I settled into a comfy headspace and got the hang of it.  And at no point did I think, yeah, I'll still be doing this 9 years from now.  It was always a day by day, feeling my way through the darkness kind of thing.

Before I began I read up on Blogs and how to write them (of course I did) and it was interesting but, over the years,  I've probably broken every single "rule"  that I read. Not on purpose, I mean it isn't as if I read how to do it and then said, "well I'm going to do the exact opposite!" in an intentionally rebellious sort of way. It was more me saying to myself, as I went along, I'll give the rules a try.  Then, sometimes they didn't feel right to me. And one thing I've learned over the years is to follow my gut, listen to my instincts.  It may not ever make me rich but it will always help me to stay true to myself and that's far more important.

One of the big rules that I broke over and again was to write consistently.  By that they meant, establish the days and times the post will be published each week, every week, and stick to it.  I suppose it helps to keep readership up and honestly it makes sense. If this Blog were published at 10 am every Wednesday for example then readers might get in the habit of looking for my posts each week, year 'round,  on Wednesday mid-morning.  

Instead you have me writing whenever I have time and the mood strikes me.  I don't know about you but my weeks are not always consistent.  Sometimes I might have an early dental appointment or I pick up an extra shift at the museum and it's a morning shift or my hiking day with Joy moves from it's usual Thursday to a different day or the kittyboys need extra playtime and pets!  Then the writing happens later, if at all that day.

It's not that the blog isn't important to me, quite the opposite. It's that there are a lot of things in my life that are important and I'm constantly re-prioritizing things, not just through the week but throughout every day.   This isn't a 9-5 job, it's my creative outlet, a hobby, perhaps?  Hobby sounds too frivolous and as if I don't take it at all seriously which is not correct.  I do take it seriously, I do want to produce a good blogpost each time, but on a timeline that works for me.  Hmmm I'm not sure how to categorize this.  It happens, just, it happens whenever it happens, I guess.

I've also taken breaks from writing for vacations, visitors, medical issues and computer problems!  Sometimes those breaks were a mere few days or a couple of weeks but other times it's been bigger as in multiple months! Sometimes those breaks were doozies. Yikes! I was a little concerned after this last enormous gap (which was NOT my fault at all!) that no one would come back to read me .  I was prepared to say, well I guess this is it, the end of an era, it's over and done and great while it lasted.  :(   I was tickled beyond description to find that at least some of you came back.  YAAYAYAAAYAY!

You people, you wonderful, amazing and very forgiving folks, have stuck with me through it all and I cannot thank you enough.  This is like the worlds greatest partnership and I hope you all know how much I appreciate every single one of you

So Happy 9th Blogiversary to all of us!  Long May We Wave!