bountifulplate

When I first started writing this blog over three years ago, I would have been overjoyed if just one or two people read it. Wow, I am totally blown away that at last count, I had over 28,000 page views!  I continue to be grateful for every single person that takes a few minutes to read my blog posts.  A close friend of mine, Julie, recently nominated me for the "One Lovely Blog Award." This blog award is for "those newer or up-and-coming" bloggers. The goal is to help give recognition and to help the new blogger reach more viewers. It also recognizes blogs that are considered to be "lovely" by the fellow blogger who chose them. This award acknowledges bloggers who share their story or thoughts in a beautiful manner with the viewers and followers. To "accept" the award, I have to do the following: Thank and link back to the person who nominated you for the award. List the rules and display the One Lovely Blog Award logo to your pos...

Nobody makes it through their lives without losing at least one person they were close to.  Throughout my own lifetime I have lost many.  2011 was an especially hard year starting in January with the passing of my mother-in-law and then in March with the passing of my first cousin.  It seemed like just about every month, either I knew someone personally that had passed or knew of someone that had passed.  Back in July of 2011, when I started this blog, I wanted a way to get some of my feelings out about what I was going through.  I would have been happy if one person read my blog and got some kind of comfort from the words that I had wrote.  When I was a teen, I did have one of those diaries with the little lock on it.  For a little while I wrote in it, but it felt more like a chore, something I had to do.  My blog on the other hand, is something I look forward to doing.  I have found an enormous amount of comfort in writing down what I have ...