Blog Post #1000!

Wow, time flies!!! I can't believe this is my 1000th Along The Crooked Path blog post. I've known this was coming up for the past several weeks and have been desperately trying to decide what I wanted to post for my 1000th entry. There's sort of a lot of pressure here, I mean, you only post your 1000th post once!

All I could come up with was to take a quick peek back to post #1 and see how far we've come. Then I realized that post #1 didn't have a photo with it. So here's the photo from post #2, from March of 2007:

It's only been 4 years (well, OK, closer to 5 at this point....) but WOW, have we changed! Well, not The Map Man so much -- he's still just as handsome and tolerant as ever. Maybe a little less hair (and a little less color to what's there). But still, you'd recognize him anywhere.

Me too, I guess. I actually think I'm heavier at this point (which is VERY disturbing...really need to do something about that). My hair got longer. Then shorter (right now it's very VERY short). I assume I'm wearing a different pair of glasses now, but can't tell for sure from that photo.

J stopped keeping his hands in his mouth years ago. In fact, J's undergone the largest transition since that time. We were still dealing with Autism on a daily basis back then. Now we go days at a time without even thinking of that term. I know for sure he wasn't potty trained yet back then. I think he had weaned (but probably only recently). Wouldn't he be thrilled to read this....

Zoo Boy has grown a whole bunch, but he's still basically the same funky little dude now as he was back then. And I say that in the most loving way possible -- he's a unique entity. He just recently expressed an interest in becoming an Author (which both surprised me and made total sense to me at the same time), and outlined his story idea for his first book to me just the other day. It's a great story line, he's already got fascinating characters developed and an interesting plot. I offered to be his scribe if he wanted to start writing it, and he's giving that some consideration. "But would anybody want to read a book written by a kid?" he wondered out loud. I think he'd be surprised at just how many would. My guess is that, even without having put down a single word yet, he'll be published before I of the many-pages-needing-editing will.

I'm on my third computer since starting this blog (will be on my 4th as soon as finances allow me to replace this borrowed dinosaur -- it's QUITE limiting not to be able to view or edit video). To our farm we've added a horse, lost a horse, added turkeys, lost several wonderful dogs, gained several more including a Lab and a Big White Dog, both of which I wouldn't have ever thought we'd have. We've changed hay suppliers several times. We've changed grain dealers twice. We survived a major financial upheaval. J has plunged our family head-first into the world of dance, causing a major shift in both my work schedule and time for pursuing my own hobbies. We've gotten involved with an incredible group of fellow homeschooling families who have become good friends and valued fellow travelers on our journey.

I guess we've just sort of matured into our lives. And it's good. It's all good.

Ok, your turn. Valued reader, why do you read this blog (all 1000 posts of it!)? What are your favorite types of posts? Whatever the reason, I want to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to become a little part of our lives, and I hope you're still reading when I hit my 2000th post!