First Post, but Not the First Blog!

 Here I go again, people!!  If I'm counting correctly, this will be my sixth blog, and my third one on Blogger.  In January 2009, I published my very first post on my very first blog, Musings of a Catholic Mom. Mostly, the blog was about the joys and struggles of motherhood, marriage, and Catholicism.  Later I started another blog on the side, Cooking Nick's Books, a food blog inspired by Nicholas Sparks' novels.  (I had a lot of fun with that one, and don't be surprised to see the occasional book-inspired recipe here.)

(I used to make vegan food even before I went plant based!  My younest son Nick suffered from many food allergies when he was a child. He is still allergic to nuts.  Here are cakes I made for his first communion and a birthday, and a ratatouille I've been making for years. We sprinkled it with parmesan cheese at the time, but of course it's DELICIOUS without it.  I will share that recipe in a future post.)

In 2013 I migrated to WordPress, where I started another blog about family, faith, and food, called Eating Slowly, which I later changed to Eat, Pray, Work, Love.  December 2015 saw my next endeavor, Ramblings of a Runner Cacher, about my adventures in running and geocaching. Finally, in June of 2018, a little less than a year after Ray died, I started Running Bereaved as a place to share my journey as a widow, and how running helped get me through those dark times.

(We're making memories without him. He's still with us.)

I haven't posted on Running Bereaved in over a year, since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.  I suppose Instagram has been my blogging platform of late.  I mean, who reads blogs anymore?  Nowadays TikTok is all the rage, and Instagram is still pretty popular.  And anybody who is anybody has either a YouTube channel or a podcast or both.  But people still tell me how much they enjoy my blogs, so here I am again.  

Why didn't I just start posting again on Running Bereaved rather than starting yet another new blog? I think it's because bereavement no longer defines me and I'm moving FORWARD. 

What kinds of things will you see here?  Pretty much everything.  Food, running, geocaching, family stories, and boring things like moving house (which I'm looking forward to in the next several months  with both excitement and extreme dread).  

I'm still bereaved.  I miss Ray every day.  Since his death my perspective on life is vastly different.  I'm more cynical in some ways, but more hopeful in others.  I have learned to appreciate small blessings and different points of view. I don't take things for granted as much as I used to. I'm more tolerant of some traits in people, and less tolerant in others. I even see God differently.  Maybe you'll hear a little about that too.  

I hope you'll join me as I move forward and eat plants!

(Me and the Hiking Just For Fun group at Bear Church Rock, July 17, 2021!)