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5-year blog anniversary! Thank you everyone.

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June is my 5th year blog anniversary! Blogging has been a delightful constant in my life, and I’m ever so grateful to share a piece of my life with you all. ❤️

It took me years before I finally mustered the nerve to start a blog. But thanks to my dear friend P. in nyc, who for years knew I wanted to write reflectively, held my hand through the whole WP sign-up process and helped me come up with the blog name.

Throughout the years, many close friends motivated me to stay the course when I felt like giving up, especially D. And C. Thanks dear friends, in my every day community and in the blogging world: special shot out to Linda Schaub!

When I first started the blogging journey in June 13, 2017, that was the waiting period for Ellis’ third staged heart surgery called Fontan for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. What a time of intense challenges with surgery getting postponed and battling low weight gain. And here we are all together 5 years later!

June 14th, 2022 Ellis had her 4th heart surgery and is home now recovering back into her spunky fun self. Although we knew about this valve issue since birth, we didn’t think it needed repair until way later, like eons away. Denial. Thankfully, the repair was successful and her heart function is doing its thing well. 

I began my blog intending to keep a written record of our experience but I didn’t realize that that starting point would lead to new writing interests, personal discoveries, insights, and new relationships. God blessed me with an itch for writing and passion for sharing my faith with others, albeit feeling unqualified and timid. I hope to continue sharing the special moments where God moves in my life and to build boldness in my faith.  

I wish I could be more eloquent in expressing my gratitude for your support, encouragement, and humor through the ups and downs of life, but I hope you know I appreciate each and every one of you.  Blogging keeps me connected and sane and happy. What’s not to love!!

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% oh how I react to it.

-Charles Swindoll

First pic in my blog, June 2017

Thank you all again and happy Wednesday!! – Esther

Categories: Raising kids Random Thoughts writing

Tagged as:

singlikewildflowers

Welcome to my blog! My name is Esther and I'm so happy you are here. I'm an avid nature photographer and a daydreaming thinker. My posts revolve around photos of nature's beauty, homeschooling adventures with my 2 kids, sporadic reflections on my child's heart condition, Bible reading reflections, gardening feats, and other mish mash things. Hopefully you'll leave encouraged, pensive, or smiling at the simple things of life. Thank you for stopping by and hope you'll find some interesting posts to read!

12 replies ›

  1. Congratulations! I was nervous in the beginning, too. In fact, my first WordPress post was titled “Dazed and Confused,” which suggests my state of mind. How far we’ve come — and how far you have yet to go!

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    1. That’s a great title for a first post! It’s so confusing in the beginning; figuring out how to post, writing the post, finding your voice, posting and having like 1 person read for the first week or longer. It was pretty discouraging , but I’m glad to have kept on. Makes life more interesting and rewarding and edifying. Love your last line…very eloquently stated! Thanks again Linda. 🙂

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  4. Here I am, dawdling along, late to the party, er … post and find you gave a shout out to me and my blog. Thank you for that Esther – I appreciate it. We all need someone to give us an “Atta Girl” sometimes, even if that encouragement or hand-holding comes from 3,000 miles away! Congratulations for being at your fifth anniversary of blogging! I will hit the big 10-year anniversary next February. I think I’ve told you that I started my blog and the only one who knew about it was my next-door neighbor/good friend Marge who suggested I start a blog about walking. I remember you telling us (or maybe me) about P in NYC who helped you come up with the name for your blog. I never told anyone else about the blog for about six months … apprehensive out sharing it. I like the hearts displayed in this header image, but I like the picture of the kids from 2017 even better. 🙂

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    1. Np! I knew you’d get to it when you had the time. You definitely encourage and keep me going. Thanks again so much!!
      You’ve been at this twice as long as me…lots of experience under your belt. Marge was like my P. We all need people like that.
      Weren’t the kids so much smaller in that first pic?! They were small rascals back then…Elliot is easygoing now, but he was a very sensitive child. Tears over everything and didn’t like anything associated with loud sounds and easy to upset. Night and day compared to now.

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      1. I am always late here it seems … the fireworks going off into the early morning (and will be all this weekend) and getting just a few hours of sleep. Last night I had to go to bed, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Tonight we had a storm so shut down the computer until it passed. So back to five days behind again. Thank you for saying those nice comments Esther … we should all be here on this earth to lift each other up, but that does not happen. I am sorry that Elliot had a difficult childhood. I am glad he is better now. You have had your hands full for sure. I sent a card to the kids for 4th of July … only one bear card … what to do? Hope things are down to a dull roar now as opposed as the last few weeks.

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      2. Oh no, you must be dealing with the nonstop fireworks by now?? Your neighbors start early and keep going. Wonder why they enjoy it so much. It must cost them a fortune!
        Stay safe and a few more days, your hearing will recover, as well as restful sleep. Your other neighbors must dread the constant thundering of sounds too. Yikes…

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      3. There are people pleading on our Facebook site for the Residents of Lincoln Park not to shoot off fireworks but they do it anyway – they say it scares their pets, traumatizes war vets who may already suffer from PTSD. Yes, it is expensive to do it – I see the boxes of fireworks at the grocery store, some as much as $150.00. They are shooting off large ones now.

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