It seems like just yesterday, I was contemplating starting a blog. I’d gone through several months of personal wrangling, trying to decide whether I should take the leap. The school year was fast approaching, and I knew that if I didn’t take the plunge into blogging, it would be put on the back burner…again.

Quite honestly, I don’t know what got into me that week two years ago. I actually started writing things that I’d been saying and thinking for years. I started to flesh out a bit of an editorial calendar, and I even bought a domain name for my blog. I investigated what it would take to setup a WordPress site, and even played around with it during the week. Our oldest daughter had started her new job in New York a few months prior, and things were still new, exciting, and confusing to her. We were getting regular updates, and I was often talking to her on the phone helping her navigate the vagaries of living alone in a big city. Three of our girls were going back to college in Iowa, Colorado, and Maine so travel arrangements were driving us all crazy. The elementary, middle school, and high school kids were all going to start school and I’m not sure that we had all their school supplies purchased.

So, in short it was a typical hectic week at Hectic Manor.

But something got into me. Something I can’t explain. Some I don’t understand. I actually kept playing around with the WordPress settings for a site I never really thought would see the light of day. Then I decided, on a whim, to publish my first post:  Another School Year Begins. A mere 280 words, but a huge step for me.

I was excited, but honestly had no idea how to determine if anybody had read the post. I didn’t know anything about analytics then. I didn’t really understand how WordPress worked, so I was still struggling with plugins. Like any good blogger, I told everybody in my household that I’d put up my first blog post. To say that I got blank stares would be an understatement. It wasn’t until I told my oldest daughter, the one living in Brooklyn at that time, that anybody even asked what the domain name was. She logged in and read the post. At that point I’d settle for one reader. It was a start.

Four days later I published my second post, Just Say Maybe.

This one was over a 1,000 words long. Not nearly as long as what would be written in the future, but another big step for me. More posts followed on August 22, 24, 27, 29, 31. By the end of August I had an amazing seven posts in my arsenal! I was getting comments. People were reading what I wrote. I was doing a happy dance a lot.

Eventually I discovered most of the comments were from spammers. I discovered that blogging meant digging into my brain and actually writing about what I was thinking. While I had an editorial calendar of sorts, my Hectic-Life kept getting in the way. There were weeks when I couldn’t get a post out. There were times when I considered just packing it in.

But every once in a while I would get a glimmer of hope from another blogger. Somebody who read what I wrote and responded to it. A real person, not a spammer. Somebody who read something that made a tiny impact on them. And somebody who took the time to let me know, via the comments, that I’d made an itty, bitty difference. That’s all it took, just a little nudge and I’d keep writing.

It’s been a fun two-year journey. So many things have happened to me, to my family, and to those around me. The world is a different place than it was in August of 2013. Some things are better, some are not. But overall I’ve learned so much through blogging.

Hectic-Manor will be a bit quieter this school year. Two daughters have moved out permanently. One has moved back home. Three kids will be in college, two in high school, and one in middle school. Our days of having the first generation of the Hectic Clan in elementary school are over. But Hectic Grandson has burst onto the scene and has provided tons of inspiration for the blog, Facebook page, Instagram account, Pinterest account, and Twitter account! He’s a bundle of energy, and has everybody in the Hectic Clan wrapped around his chubby little finger.

In a few short days, I’ll be writing another back to school post. I’m sure I’ll be writing about the new clothes, shoes, backpacks, and binders. The new attitudes. The new hopes and dreams that accompany a new year. Not just for the kids, but for me as well. For as long as I can remember, my year has had a second-birth with the start of school. This year will be no different.

It’s the journey that matters. So I welcome you to another year of Hectic-Dad.

Let’s make it a great year!