Six Year Blog-iversary

I've been blogging about books for over six years.  I can still picture the day I started.  I had stayed late at school to grade papers, enter scores and work on lesson plans.  My youngest daughter was in high school and often stayed after to socialize.  When she was ready to go she would come to my room and get me, most of the time having to busy herself while I finished up my projects.  On this day I asked her to show me some of the new things she was learning in her computer class.  That's when she talked me into starting a blog.

Two daughters had blogs as well as several nieces and I thought it would be fun to read what they were writing  but I had no idea what I could possibly blog about. Katie was the one to suggest a book blog.  I felt pretty safe with that idea because I didn't think anyone would ever read my blog.  Plus it would be a great way to record all those wonderful passages that cramped my hand when I recorded them in longhand.

So that evening, in my classroom, Katie walked me through the steps to setting up a blog on Blogger.  It was hard thinking up an address and even harder to come up with a, what did she call it back then, a tag?  In hindsight, I wish I would have made my address the same as my blog title, but I didn't really understand what I was doing.  I have been pleased with my tag - booklogged.  It seemed to fit and grew more comfortable with the passage of time.

My earliest entries were about my favorite books in sci/fi, Nobel Prize winners, and 3 books I would like to reread.  I wrote a post about several books I didn't like and two posts about favorite authors.  Reading over these posts reminds me that I had not yet been introduced to the works of Louise Penny, Andrea Barrett, David Baldacci, Jacqueline Winspear, Lisa Scottoline, Laurie King and so many other authors that I now love.  And the glorious books suggested by fellow bloggers - Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society, The Book Thief, Anne Perry's WWI series, The History of Love, and all those reading challenges and fun memes. I've had so much fun over the years writing TBR lists and making spreadsheets to keep track of the reading challenges.

 I like that Blogger provides an archive so I can look back and reread my impressions about books.  As I look at some of the book titles I draw a blank as to what they were about but my little short snippet about it usually brings it back to mind.  Last year I only made 14 entries even though I know I read more books than that, though probably not many.  My mother died of cancer in Oct 2010 and I lost interest in reading for several months, almost a year.  I feel like some of that old yearning is coming back so I hope I will read more and record each book I read.  I have never been good at keeping a daily journal but I find that my book journal provides some record of my life.  As I read the entries I can sometimes remember other pertinent things that were happening in addition to the book I was reading.

One thing I would like to do is to print my blog.  I'm just not sure if I should print it all or edit it first.  Have any of you saved your blog in a more concrete way than on the internet?  What have learned from doing so?  Do you have any suggestions or advice?

The best part of this blogging experience has been making friends with other readers and sharing our love for the printed word.  I have loved discussing books with you.