A year!

I've been blogging for a year, exactly.

And I'm amazed at that. Who'd have thought there be something to say for that long? (I realize that is stretching it a bit - I haven't had much to say at some points, and at others, what I've said hasn't been particularly worth saying.) In any case, it's been a year. This is the 370th posting in that time - so I managed to average about one a day, in spite of some lapses. I read something yesterday from a news correspondent who was saying he's giving it up (blogging) after five years! Of course he was blogging about world news. I'm just blogging about 'Cathy' news. Actually, I am blogging about 'Planning.' Or, being without a plan, as the case may be. Maybe world news would have been easier.

Mark and I were talking the other night about my 'planning' habit. I am one of the great planners in this world - and he has appreciated the irony of my blog title. I can't help it. Plans just pop into my head right and left. That I found myself without a 'big' plan for my life in the midst of moving and setting up shop in new places, was odd, to say the least. That I have failed to develop that 'big' plan in all this time though... well, that seems OK to me. The smaller ones are more fun.

Right now, of course, I am either carrying out details of a long-ago-developed 'moving' plan - 'closing' paperwork details, change of address paperwork, insurance arrangements, giving notice at the apartment and storage facility - or developing a new plan for redecorating our new house - paint samples, appliance comparisons, room-by-room breakdown of what needs to be done with a cost analysis and priority assignment. I'm also starting to think, now that we are getting out of our 'temporary' status here, that we might begin to plan a vacation. Am I getting too far ahead for the 'little' plans?

(I used to be married to a recovering alcoholic who was a devotee of the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is basically to take life 'one day at a time.' Codswallop, in my opinion. You have to be able to plan, prepare, anticipate... just to enjoy laying out the future for yourself, just the way you want it.)

Anyway, the question now is what to do with the blog? If I don't post every day, I lose people - and I've found that I really like the 'comments' part of blogging. In fact, that is basically why I've continued to write. (Although I wonder if my last hiatus resulted in losing Ryan??? Where are you Ryan? Carolyn? Lauren?) But finding something to post every day is difficult, obviously. I'd like it to be interactive - more like a conversation - but every time I ask for comments I don't get them, so it doesn't look like that would work. I know there are some people who read the blog but never comment (my mother, for example? Ahem.) And it is, of course, MY thing, not anyone else's. Anyway, I'm going to put some thought into it and see what comes of it.

I do want to thank you, who have read and commented and shared pictures and laughed with me. You've made it a lot more interesting and fun for me!

Not a bad way to spend a year.