Happy Birthday!

My calendar popped up today with a reminder that it is Beatrix Potter's birthday--only, according to Wikipedia at least, it isn't.* Curiouser and curiouser. My calendar is already confused by the time difference between Oxford and home--things pop up 5 hours later than they should, although they appear correctly in the grid when I look at it. Ah, well.

So if it's not Beatrix Potter's birthday, what am I celebrating? My blog birthday! Yes, six years ago today I wrote my first blog entry. I'm not sure anyone read it--I'm not sure I wanted anyone to read it--but there it was, anyway, my little toe dipped into the waters. For quite a while I struggled with an identity for the blog, and then after a while I just decided not to worry and to post what I felt like. Which, lately, hasn't been much (I know the few readers I have already know this!); as lots of others have said, twitter and facebook and, for that matter, real life seem to be taking precedence lately. But six years is worth remarking--Nick was not quite six when I started writing, Mariah was 13, we had a French student living with us for a few weeks, and we still had yet to come to Oxford for the first time. Now Nick's in middle school, Mariah's headed to college in the fall, and Oxford feels almost like home.

*My calendar also said that the 6th was my blog birthday, when a glance at that first entry makes it clear that it is the 7th. I marked the third anniversary on the wrong day, and the fourth on the right one, and the fifth on the wrong one again. Somehow this all seems a metaphor for something.