Danielle Blog

1 year blogoversary

Guess what today is?

New Year’s Eve! Well, yes, that too – and I’ll write about that later I’m sure, complete with photos, I believe.

Today is the 1 year anniversary of the beginning of my blog. I know, it is hard to tell, because of the way I back-dated my bicycling posts in Sept-Nov 2004. But I know that between Christmas and New Year’s last year, when I was on break, I converted those emails to posts, found the pictures, and posted them on the 31st. Also, I wrote my introduction that day, complete with a picture of my eyes and this picture.

At the time, I was not saying much about what I “do” for a living, but I will tell you now that this was part of an experiment that I did while I was rotating in a different laboratory my first year of graduate school. In a nutshell, in order to choose where you want to do your thesis work, you spend a chunk of time doing research in labs where you have an interest.

That lab studied the ovary. And that is an immunofluorescence image of a mouse ovary. I never actually saw the image you see above until the color film was developed, because it entailed flipped the light source of the microscope to see the blues and taking an exposure, changing the light to see the greens/yellows and exposing the film a second time, and then changing the light to see the reds and exposing the film for a third time. So, all of the pinks and purples and such are due to overlap that I couldn’t actually SEE at the time. Not until I got the film back from processing.

I’d thought about entering that image in a contest or two, but never did. I also thought about having it printed really really large and framing it, but was never sure how to do it, since all I had was the slide. Now, with Flickr, I have a feeling I can make an 8×10 of it pretty easily.

Anyway, now you know the back story of that image.

The back story of my blog, as some of you know, is that dooce used to allow comments on her daily photos. She doesn’t anymore due to the popularity of her site and the amount of bandwidth required to keep those comments going, not to mention that everytime she would get recognized by a TV show or radio show or magazine article, her popularity would increase and many more people would ‘discover’ the comments on the daily photo. But that is how I met Ladybug and Amber and Sheryl and Closet Metro and Honestyrain and Doc Ern and Amanda B and Colleen from NJ and Carol along with a whole host of others who may or may not have blogs anymore but don’t come here to comment so won’t be offended if I don’t mention them (unless you are reading in secret and if so, you should comment!). And I started realizing that as my comments got longer and longer and longer on other people’s blogs that perhaps I needed an outlet for my thoughts and my pictures, especially my pictures. And I started daydreaming about what my blog might be. And I started exchanging emails with Sheryl, because she was setting hers up then too.

I had dreamed that it would be a place where my friends from high school and college could ‘meet up’ and comment, and it would be a way to keep track of each other. But I realize now that most people aren’t comfortable with such a public outlet &/or don’t have the interest in reading my wordiness. I also had dreams that it might be a way for family and friends to see what I’m up to, and see the pictures I’ve been taking, since I’m notoriously bad at sending emails, calling, and keeping in touch. And it HAS been that for some of us, like SeaQueen and Jenski and Texas Seestor and Trainwreck and my parents and HB’s parents and some others who don’t publicly comment but tell me by email or other means that they’ve enjoyed certain posts or pictures. Texas Seestor actually left my first real comment (I had done 2 ‘test’ comments).

And through Ladybug and Bucky Four-Eyes and Zoot, new friends have found my blog, like Squirl and Momo and Poopie.

My blog has become a place where I can relieve some of my artistic energy. Before I had this, I would go through these periods of time where I started itching to do something artsy or crafty. Eventually the itch would overcome me and I would have to put reading a book on hold while I tried to paint something or make something out of bakeable clay. And in the background, I was still taking photos and never had an outlet for them. Tah-dah! Now I do.

The biggest unexpected JOY! of my blog though, has been the friendships I’ve made through it. I never expected to find such a warm community of people from all over the world who would support me through some times that, for me, were quite difficult and lonely.

I don’t know if I’ve ever really told you thank you for that. So, I do now. Thank you, so very very much.

I love you all and thank God for all of you. You are truly a blessing to me.

hugs to you,
Danielle