Happy New Year!

When my children were young, I always made sure I was home by three o'clock when I could hear the school bus grinding to a stop a couple of blocks away. Old habits die hard and I still tend to be at home at 3 o'clock, but now I am writing my blip, something I have done without missing a day for three and a half years.

At first, I marveled at how many things I could see and how differently I  experienced them when I looked at them through "Bilpfoto eyes". I had often tried keeping a diary or a journal, but it never lasted for long. The thing that originally kept my interest in continuing was the daily  photograph…looking for it, thinking about it and writing about it.The photograph was the glue that tied my journals together. Writing about it was the way I began to follow other journals and establish friendships with people from all over.

A few months after I began the Blipfoto journey we moved, after 45 years in the same house to a new town. It was emotional, exhilarating and exhausting. The three o'clock hour became my time to sit and write and sort out my thoughts…a time to document events that seemed both trivial and monumental. My Blipfoto friends commented, sympathized and supported me.

Going through an attic full of old papers, books and bits of family history made me realize how many family stories I remember, and how many questions I will never know the answers to. I came across some letters written before telephones, and was fascinated by the most mundane details in these notes from another century. It is the mundane details that history is made of, and it began to be important to me to leave some sort of record for my children. They may not be interested now, but some day,  they might be.

I owe my enhanced appreciation for the world around me, the close friendships I have made with many people I have never met but who are willing to share some part of their lives, and the record I leave behind are all priceless gifts I have gained from Blipfoto. I find it hard to imagine all this vanishing overnight.

If you have participated in Blipfoto, if you feel that it is a valuable part of your life, please pledge whatever you can to allow us as a group to take over this site. I don't want to spend another New Year wondering how much longer it will be able to keep going. I have made a pledge  at https://www.blipfuture.com/invest. I am prepared to pledge more to save my life. If you haven't done it yet, I hope you will do what you can.