To Blog or Not to Blog...

I know that blogging seems to be waning in popularity these days. Instagram is taking over in popularity as it is quick to post a picture and caption where ever you are. Many bloggers that I used to follow have now stopped updating their blogs and are active on IG. 

I can totally understand the reasoning behind that. After all, writing a post takes a lot of time and effort. You will have noticed that my own blog posts have been less prolific than in previous years, although I do attribute that to things other than being pressed for time. But I have a few thoughts on blogging and it was brought on by the following.

This afternoon I was updating all my pins on Pinterest. I noticed that most of the URL's were all wrong which meant that no one would be able to find my blog. While I was there I decided to do a little housekeeping with my board that holds all of our nature studies that we have done over the years. This turned out to be a bit more labour-intensive than I had originally thought because I ended up having to go and pin everything straight from my blog in order to ensure that if one of the pins was clicked on, the reader would go straight to that specific post.

In doing all this, I began to realise something...I am blessed to have a treasure trove of recorded memories. As I was going through all the posts of our nature studies I realised what a wonderful education my children have had and how blessed all of us are for the times and things we have done and experienced together. As I scrolled through the posts vivid memories came flooding back. I remember little things that happened in those days. I remember joys, how I felt, what our walk was like, conversations we had. These posts, every one of them (nature-related or not) are memory markers, like pins in a map.

I remember for example, that the day we did our Sumac study, that the girls were not very interested and I ended up getting a little irritated at their attitudes 😏, yip! We certainly had 'those' days.

I have been blogging for 11 years, sadly I managed to lose the first 4 years of my posts when I changed my blog when we moved from SA to England. I hit 'delete' without realising that it was irretrievable. But on this blog, I have recorded many MANY happy things in our family, our homeschool, my thoughts, things that I would never have remembered if I had not blogged about them.

So I guess this is a little 'ponderous' post on the value of keeping this blog. I'm so very glad that I have recorded snippets of our lives here so that I can go back and be reminded. Last year my computer died a horrible death and all my photographs from 2015 and 2016 went with it (yes I know, I'm supposed to back them all up etc, but I didn't). I cannot get all those photographs back but I do have my blog where a good many of them were uploaded in posts and now exist on my google drive - and Flickr of course, I won't ever give that up.

We think that we will hold a moment in our minds forever, we hope to hold it forever, but life is busy and memories and moments get tucked away in the filing system of our minds, sometimes never to be retrieved. If you have ever considered keeping a blog, I want to encourage you to do so - even if it's just for you and kept on a private setting, because it really has turned out to be a blessing for me and I'm sure, in the future, you might find the same blessing of pouring over moments in your life that you had tucked away in the recesses of your mind.

Blessings and hugs to you all this lovely Saturday...