All Because of a Blog....

Happy Birthday dear "Snippets from Springdale," today you celebrate your 1st birthday and what a year it has been.  I have been overwhelmed with the amount of sweet, sweet comments that you, my readers have freely given.  The number of followers that have decided to come along for the ride, that in itself is a shocker...why anybody would want to see what is going on in my life has amazed me. Blessed? definitely.   During this year I have met some astounding women, women I now call friends.  A few I have even had the pleasure of meeting in person and spending precious time with.  Yes, this has been a year full of surprises all because of a blog.  I have won a few photo challenges, a few photo prizes, been awarded the "Most Versatile Blogger Award" and The Liebster Award three times (awarded for those with less than 200 followers) and joined a collaborative blog, Focusing on Life, with special friends I met through our love of photography.  Now I am not braggin' not by a long stretch, just amazed at the year and the events along the way.  When you sit down to write that first blog post you just never know what will unfold.  I looked back on my first post and I had two pictures displayed, one of crab apples in bloom and another of lilacs...both long finished blooming with roses already in bloom this year.  Such a difference from last year, but one thing is definitely the same.  I was watching Dancing With The Stars last year, and I am doing the same this year.  Good entertainment never goes out of style.

The huge change that did occur this past year was my decision to place my husband in a Memory Care Facility.  He continued to slip further and further into the dead zone of Alzheimer's, sometimes becoming verbally abusive, sometimes running out the front door and into the neighborhood, refusing to come back home.  It became an over-whelming task and was beginning to take it's toil on me.  On August 1st my sweetie moved and I have been alone since, trying to put my arms around this "single" life I now lead.  Granted it has freed me up to re-unite with my friends and to resume activities that I no longer participated in, but I would give all that up if this hideous disease had not entered our lives.  I know God has his reasons, haven't figured those out yet, but I continue to have faith that my life is on the right track even without my husband by my side.  Life continues to be an astonishing journey and made even more so through this world of blogging.

I have shared my friends, my family, my travels, my thoughts, my complaints, my sadness and my joys.  My favorite foods, books, TV shows and movies.  My holidays and seasons, my lack of sleep and my bad habits, my passions and my annoyances.  And you have done the same with me.  Thank you, whoever you are that invented blogging, it is definitely a part of my life that I have never regretted joining.

So Happy Birthday dear Snippets may you have many more.

"It is our choices...that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities."  ~  J.K. Rowlings

Until next time......