18 Years

Today I am commemorating an anniversary that I usually remember a day late, if at all. On August 22, 2005, the first post appeared here at Miss Cellania. 

Eighteen years, can you believe it? I haven't done anything for eighteen years. I've spent less time raising kids, less time in school, less time living anywhere I've ever lived. I've never held a job that long; Neatorama is close, but I got that job because of this blog.

When I started this site, my kids were seven and eight years old. Now Princess goes by "Mama" and Gothgrrl goes by "Doctor." In the time I've been blogging here, I've gone through six computers, two houses, and a husband. And a whole lot of hair colors!

Blogging itself has gone through a lot of changes in that time. I came to it through an explosion of bloggers in 2005, and rode the wave of bloggers being paid for writing. Some of those folks got tired after a while and decided to spend their time doing something else. Some, like me, began to make money at it and turned it into a career. I did that by writing for other, more lucrative sites, which was good because today, people who depend on their own blogs for a living are stressed out and suffering. Social media came along, and while it got millions of people to engage on the internet for the first time, they didn't venture far from the social media sites. It's just easier to rely on a feed than to seek out websites. I am reminded of that every time I repost something from years ago. On the admin side, I can see a list of posts with how many hits it has. The reruns have hundreds, sometimes thousands of views, while new posts peak at a hundred or less. Strangely, I manage to make a couple hundred dollars a year from just that, while back in the day, I made almost nothing for this site. Looks like there's more internet money involved now overall, just spread among way more people. Still, I was never interested in monetization or SEO. It just seemed more trouble than it's worth. 

The decline of blogs means I've lost more jobs than I can count in the last few years, but I am lucky. I'm no longer supporting a family or paying a mortgage, and I'm reaching the age where I don't want to work anyway.

The reason I keep posting on Miss Cellania is because it's a hobby, and I enjoy it. I have no contract to deliver x number of posts a day, and I can take a break when I want to. But I never do, because I so often schedule posts ahead of time. My paycheck doesn't depend on the quality of posts, so I don't stress about it. Like any hobby, it would be easier to just not do it, but I enjoy posting here, and I love to hear from people who read it. I've made some really good friends by doing this. If no one came to read or comment, I'd probably let the site go. But the few readers I have left are well worth it.