Four years ago today, on January 18, 2007, I started blogging.

It wasn’t this blog… it was one I started called Mama Doggy Love to chronicle my life as a mom to my two dogs. (That link will take you to a “private blog” message, by the way. Sorry! More on that later.)

My first post wasn’t profound or really very interesting. It was basically a summary of who I was: a married dog mom. I used pseudonyms for everyone I talked about, including myself. I didn’t even tell anyone I knew that I had started a blog until weeks later… and I only told a select few, at that.

So much – so very much – was different then.

Mom Generations wasn’t even launched yet. We started the website in March 2007, but it was called Pinks & Blues at that time and it was strictly a product review site (we would change our name to Mom Generations in 2008 to better reflect what our site is about). The blog portion of Pinks & Blues began in March 2007, also, but it was on a separate WordPress blog.

The first big change in my life as a Mama Doggy Love blogger occurred soon after I began blogging. On June 1, 2007 my dog Bismarck was diagnosed with cancer. By then, I had already made some amazing blogging friends who were also animal lovers, and they truly helped me beyond belief during that time.

(And I’m fortunate that I have kept in touch with many of the bloggers who I originally met through Mama Doggy Love, like Bari, C, Eve, Kai and Drea.)

After we lost Bismarck, we were a one-dog family for a few months, with just Ryder, and then we added Seth to the family.

Welcoming Seth was such a huge part of all of our healing after losing Bismarck, and I love having an online diary that chronicled happy moments like this, complete with photos to remember that time.

Eventually, as Pinks & Blues/Mom Generations grew, I started blogging more there, and less at Mama Doggy Love. In January 2008 I stopped blogging there altogether, but I kept it online because I didn’t want to lose all the writing and chronicling I’d done. I had made a lot of memories, both good and bad, and I wanted to keep them there.

I recently made Mama Doggy Love private. There was just too much on there about my marriage, and I didn’t feel comfortable with it being “out there” anymore. It’s still there, but just for me to read and reflect back on, which is just the way I like it.

I’m sorry to be telling you all about my old blog without allowing you to see any of it… but I can share that I have another blog that I recently launched. It’s not even close to being complete, but I have a few posts up that I can share. It’s going to be a place for me to write my real personal stuff, like all about life with that cutie Brian (not that personal… you know what I mean).

So, check that out here: Blog, Jane, Blog

Don’t worry, I’m not going to stop blogging here at Mom Generations! The new blog will be a place to just share different kinds of posts.

Oh, yeah… and Happy Blogging Anniversary to me!