Twenty Years of Eat the Blog

 

Twenty Years? Oh My!

I certainly never expected this blog to go two decades when I first sat down to type a few recipes back on 2 June 2004. Good thing I did, as search engines have become largely useless thanks to AI-at least I have a record of successful recipes. I have a record of some rather terrible ones as well but that's what I'll call the learning curve of doing things well. *coughs*.

I didn't set out to blog every moment of Dan's childhood, and for that we're both thankful. I've tried to be respectful of his privacy, and not post things likely to embarrass later on. There's a generation that have had their toilet training and worse documented online. 

My hope is that the homeschooling posts will be reassuring to parents wondering if they are up to the task. So much of what's online in the homeschooling community is downright intimidating. I wasn't the best teacher, nor was I the worst. What homeschooling provided was one-on-one instruction and the ability to tailor to curriculum as needed. That sort of flexibility isn't possible in a classroom of 30 students. If there's anything I'd encourage thinking about before deciding to homeschool, it is behaviour. If you are having behaviour/discipline issues with your child, homeschooling might not be the direction to go. Sometimes an outside authority figure is needed. Sometimes. You know your child, so use that knowledge and be honest with yourself. 

By 2013 the blog started to shift away from cooking and focus on my vintage clothing/thrifted fashion interests. Chuck some perfume posts in there too. I'm glad I did the perfume reviews because I was treated to the most virulent, hilarious, outraged comment on J Love perfume I'd received  in 20 years of blogging. I wouldn't have wanted to miss that. It wasn't even a negative review! People have strong opinions about perfume (and everything else) though it is telling that comment was left in 2024. It took twenty years of blogging before someone went full-on personal attack on a long-ago post, on a largely abandoned blog. I wonder if it has to do with the demise of Twitter and the uselessness of X as a forum, or if people are just getting angrier? 

Outraged comments aside, twenty years of blogging has brought so many lovely people into my life. I'm so lucky to know such wonderful people. We've been through a lot together, haven't we? Thank you for being here, and thank you for letting me be a part of your lives as well. 

I'm going to try to pop in here a bit more often, and visit your blogs as well. I have a new computer and phone and I'm sure (okay not that sure) there must be some way to get photographs up here without copying them from Tumblr, but otherwise I am still on Tumblr as @goodymcgoodface. I'm spending less time on Instagram as it seems all I do is block scammers and get bombarded with ads. I log out now when I'm not using it. That keeps the listening tobetter target ads down, and it forces me to be thoughtful about logging in to use social media rather than mindlessly scrolling. Why use something designed to make you feel bad about yourself? My mother is dead, I don't need Instagram taking her place.

I hope you're having a great summer/winter and again, thanks again for being here. My life is better for having such great people in it.