Why do I still blog?

I am totally aware of the fact that blogging seems to have become old school and no one is really doing it anymore. In fact, I am sure no one even reads my little blog anymore so why do I still do it?

Well, let me tell you a little story . . .

A little bit ago, Kurt and I were talking about how we have had our trailer for 10 years now and about all our camping trips we have been on and about how our trailer has been a huge blessing to our family. We have truly cherished all of our trips and the time we have with our kids. Our trailer has gotten us out exploring areas that I don't think we would have ever gone if we didn't have it. We absolutely love it!

When we first started camping, I had a binder that we took with us on every trip. It had a set up list, a take down list and a packing list in it. We constantly referred to these lists to make sure we weren't forgetting something (like closing all the windows before we traveled or filling up with water before we unhooked from the truck). I also wrote summaries of each trip including where we stayed, camp site #'s (if I could remember), maps of the campsite (if I had kept them), what we did, and probably most importantly, what we learned. In the beginning, we learned something on every trip!

Here is my journal/summary of our very first camping trip:

Somewhere along the way, we got really good at set up and take down and I stopped bringing the binder. I also stopped writing journal entries for our trips. When we were talking about our 10 years of travel, I was really bummed that I had not carried on that tradition because it was so fun to go back and read the entries. 

So the wheels started spinning and I started trying to figure out a way to remember all the other trips that had been missed. Lightbulb moment! Check my blog!

I sat for hours going back over 10 years worth of blogging to find camping trips. At first I wasn't very good about blogging and would just mention "we went camping this weekend" and not too much more than that. For those first few years, I had to go back through pictures (that I thought I had lost and recently found on an external back up drive - thank goodness!) and recreate journal entries for them BUT for the more recent years, I had really detailed blog posts about our camping trips. I was able to just copy and paste my blogs and print journal entries for those trips. I was so excited! I worked my little tail off in any spare moment I could find (and maybe some laundry moments might have been used too!) but I updated our camping binder and it now has a list of every single camping trip we have ever taken and journal entries for each one! I love it!

There were some trips that I had completely forgotten about but remembered once I read the blog. Details long forgotten that are now right there to read about. There is one trip that I can't remember at all but I'm there in the pictures so I must have gone. Ha ha!

And that is why I blog. I forget things. I can't remember details. I am, after all, getting old (I did turn 40 this year ya know!) but if it is in my blog, I can go back and remember and what a precious gift that is! I go in phases with blogging. I start. I get busy. I stop. I forget. And then I get caught up again. Usually there is something that I want to blog about (usually a trip) and the OCD part of me wants everything in chronological order so I have to blog about everything that has happened prior to that event before I can blog about it and that is what motivates me to get caught up again. 

So I am motivated again. We just got back from camping 2 days ago and it ended with a bang ~ a breakdown, abandonment of the trailer and an ER visit, all within 9 hours of each other. Good times! Actually, they were good times. Well, not the ER visit so much, but the rest wasn't so bad. But before I can tell about that, I have to catch up on everything from January until now. So, hopefully I can do that quickly and get to the camping trip.