Get Ready for 365 Days of Tantrums!

Prepare yourselves loyal fans and devotees, because today the Cheese Party enters the terrible twos! Click here if you're interested in reading my first ever post. As a bonus, it explains why I call SOB by that particular moniker, if you're newish or you don't remember.

Over at BlogRhet they've been asking bloggers to talk about how they got started in the blogsphere. For me, really, it was boredom that lit the fuse. I was working in a poorly managed pharmaceutical laboratory where everybody was assigned roughly the same amount of work, no matter how quickly or slowly you completed your assignments. I have always been a speedy worker, so I ended up with a fair amount of free time at the office. Add to the mix completely unsupervised high speed internet access and a bomb-ass privacy filter for my monitor, and the possibilities were endless!

It began innocently enough. I was a fan of local author Jennifer Weiner, and when I went to her site to find some info on an appearance, I noticed she had a weblog. I started reading there, and then discovered Dooce and Suburban Bliss. The snowball effect had been initiated. From there I went through Heather and Melissa's blog rolls and probably spent nearly half of my forty hour work week reading reading reading. I read pregnancy blogs, infertility blogs (not really a great idea when you're starting to think about getting pregnant), daddy blogs, fashion blogs, photography blogs, television blogs, you name it!

When I found out that my friend Marcello had a blog, I realized that regular folks like me could join in on the fun. No special invitations required or anything! SOB and I had recently 'pulled the goalie' and I thought that blogging might be a fun way to keep a record of the potential life-altering events that were occurring in our lives. I also thought that I might invite our respective families to read along, but when I discussed shitting my pants and made a link to dildos in the first week, I changed my mind. At this point, if they happen upon the Cheese Party, great. If not, great.

Over two years, you can imagine that there have been a lot of changes, both for me and my blog. The blog used to have a different name ($1 to the first person that can identify the short-lived original title of the Cheese Party), a different look and, sometimes I feel like she had a different author. There are old entries that make me cringe (Why was I so obsessed with fantasy football?) There are old entries that make me smile. Some that make me laugh and cry at the same time.

I have never been a big fan of keeping a journal, so I honestly didn't think I would keep up with this whole blogging thing for as long as I have. But two years into this whole thing, I realize that having done so is one of the greatest gifts I have ever given myself. I have an emotional record, more than just dates in a book, of some of the most amazing and important events of my life. I have an outlet. I have a medium that has allowed me to become friends with people I would have never been exposed to otherwise. I even make a bit of scratch and swag on the side!

I can't even begin to count the ways that blogging has bettered my life. And so I won't. I will just continue. Post after post, word after word, until my words run out or my fingers fall off. Which ever comes first.

Though I hope it's the fingers thing.