15 Jan 2009

3 years of The Voyage

I wrote my first post on January 16, 2006. I'm surprised and proud to have stuck to this blogging game for so long when I was never a diarist or much of a writer.

My aims for doing this have been to have a record of our lives and my children's development though I have tended to focus much more on Duncan recently and I rarely now write about our home-education pursuits, except for learning through living. I have changed my layout to display all my favourite blogs, not just those with a disability/autism/home-education/science theme. It's easier to keep up with new posts and hopefully, others reading here might sometimes have a look at something new.

Blogging has been a great way to connect with people and learn from them. I've met some in Real Life and some have become true, close online only friends.

Obviously, I want to keep increasing the numbers of people who read what I go to the bother of writing, and I have received more visitors with each passing year which must be good. OK they are still shitty numbers compared to the bigger blogs. I'm hardy going to change the world with this! Like most of us blogger types, I enjoy an occasional fix of comment crack which some good people have been kind enough to supply.

The biggest surprise and highlight of my year as a blogger was to win an award at the Irish Blogger Awards for Best Specialist Blog. Even had I not won, that was a fantastic experience and was the first time I got to meet some very friendly, funny, welcoming and supportive people and later, it was lovely to join some of these people in contributing a chapter to the Homepages book.

As always I have loved the energy, vision, honesty and power in the efforts of those in the disability/autism blogging communities (you know what section of this I mean) to tackle discrimination, delusion and to improve the lives of people like Duncan.

I hope that in some small way my words will seep out and possibly influence someone somewhere to think differently about autism.

14 comments:

jypsy said...

Happy Birthday.... or Anniversary.. or whatever the proper Irish celebration would be! (cheers?)

Sharon McDaid said...

Bloggy-birthday? Blogiversary?

I don't know but I'll celebrate anyway thanks.
cheers=sláinte!

Anonymous said...

happy blogday :)

Michelle Dawson said...

Happy Blogbirthday! You're older than I am (I don't turn three for months and months yet). Who would have thought...

J said...

Happy blogbirthday to one of my faves. I don't deal very much comment crack, but I've been known to hang around the neighborhood from time to time :)

The Biologista said...

Congrats on your Blogiversary and ever growing readership. You are opening eyes, so keep up the good work!

Sharon McDaid said...

@Jax, thanks.

@Michelle, I certainly wouldn't have thought it! We're almost through the testing toddler years...

@Steve, ha ha!
There are some shifty types around here at times.

@Biologista, thanks, my family rip the piss about it sometimes but hey, it's my thing and I can get ranty if I want to!

Manuel said...

happy blogaversary! keep it up!

Darragh said...

Happy blogoversary Sharon! :D

Anonymous said...

congrats on the three years, and those are some nice numbers.

I am making a few changes to my blog early next week so keep an eye on the feed :)

Anonymous said...

Congrats on making it this far cuz...you are doing brilliantly as I keep telling you and many others! Miche xx

abfh said...

I am sure your words have had more influence than you know. Congrats on the three years!

Sharon McDaid said...

Thanks to all you splendid people for dealing me sweet words.

kristina said...

Happy bloggiversary!

And don't worry, your words have truly reached far and true.