50 stories for 50 years

Hello 2016!

It's going to be a year to celebrate this year. By the end of this year.... I'll be 50. Yes, 2016 is the year I turn the big 5-0!

This year is one year I've been anticipating for a while now, not only for the 5-0 thing happening, but by the end of this year our family dynamics will, once again, change. You see, this year my daughter will finish high school, I will no longer have a school-aged child. She will be 18, and my other gorgeous girl will be 21 and almost finished her university studies. Both girls are planning exciting things once they have finished their studies. For the last 15 years we've been involved in school-parent activities, and by the end of this year, that will have finished.

I've been reflecting about my blog for a few months now.... I started this blog over 10 years ago, back in June 2005. At the time I'd just returned from a holiday in the US. I was working as a Creative Editor for Scrapbooking Memories magazine and used my blog to chat about my crafts, scrapbooking, cooking and my family.

Over the few years that followed, I started my business, Ribbons Galore, life got busy. My girls got older, and there came a time when I didn't want to share so much about them on my blog. I needed to respect their privacy as they moved through high school. My blogging slowed...

Then five years ago I was involved in a car accident, and that really stopped me for a while! A driver who didn’t stop at a stop sign hit me. She drove into the driver’s side of my car. I had no broken bones, thankfully, but I was left to rebuild my aching body over the next few years. The headaches, neck aches and short term memory loss was painful. I functioned, just enough, to keep my business running, but even that was hard. During that time I vowed if I were ever to get better (as in not having throbbing headaches which lasted for days, for example), I would grab opportunities as they came by (and sometimes ever run after them), to try new things, learn new skills, go to new places.

So I've been thinking of a way to "celebrate" 2016, turning 50 and how life changes as different stages start and finish. I'm going to attempt to write a little more on my little old blog.  Earlier this month we returned from a lovely family holiday in San Francisco, I might start with a few stories from that wonderful city.

That's the plan, anyway...

Wish me luck!

Cheers

Fiona x

Because I think a blog post should have a photo or two, here's a couple of photos of me with my gorgeous girls, at the start of my blogging days (June 2005) and now (December 2015).