The End.

If you were hoping I was referring to the end of the blog, you'll be disappointed.

No, no, no, rather it's the end of NaBloPoMo, you silly goose. (I'm channeling my four-year-old granddaughter. Heh.)

The hardest part of this exercise was not, surprisingly, coming up with new material every day. I suppose living in the Middle of Nowhere, having little face-to-face contact with others and having lots of time on my hands contributes to the ease with which I can fill a blog post. I will readily admit that I'm better at quantity than quality.

It takes a certain bit of ego to just write about whatever pops into one's little head and assume it will be interesting/entertaining/informative/not-boring to both of you who eventually read it. Or, it takes no ego at all, if you think no one is going to read it. My older granddaughter was extremely surprised to learn that I've kept a journal for years when we played WhooNu last month. Whether it's for myself or published to the world matters little.

Since January of 2006, when I started writing at Shrinking Knitter, I've published nearly 1500 posts. It's hard to still call it a weight-loss blog. Six years later it's more of a weight-management effort, with the emphasis on effort. Some days are better than others. Heck, some years are better than others!

Especially that first year. I posted progress photos every week. I kept a physical journal along with the blog, which I still have and which I haven't looked at in months. I lost a bunch of weight that first winter, then leveled off when I started running.

When I switched from SK to this blog, I added running to my list of topics; it was originally called Knit. Run. Repeat. As food growing and cooking started taking over, my good friend Marilyn suggested splitting the "Repeat" into "Reap. Eat." and the current incarnation was reborn. I like it this way, although I sometimes feel like an impostor because the "Run" part is, um, not so much any more.

Anyway. The hardest part was writing while I was traveling, and I traveled a bit more this year than I have in Novembers past. I try to write every weekday anyway, so adding weekends wasn't too much of a stretch.

At any rate, it's done. My first NaBloPoMo is in the books. During this month some crazy stuff has happened, some of which I haven't shared because it's not relevant or it's too personal. Some of the most personal stuff, though, is right there for the whole world to find. Tomorrow will be most likely be more of the same, and I thank you kindly for joining me.