Our Favorite Posts

In this post we thought we’d look back at our year of posts and each talk about our favorite post from the past year and why it meant something more to us.

Jennifer: It’s been quite a year here!  I never imagined I’d be a part of a writing blog.  Yes, I love to write, but articles, book reviews, and author interviews…well I always thought “oh that’s technical writing, I’m not that great at it.” Then when Emilie brought up the idea of a blog to Tricia and me, I started to entertain the idea.  Once I agreed, I made a promise to myself that I’d put my best effort into every post and make it a learning experience.  It’s been worth the time and effort.  While I’m proud of all my posts, there are two that really stand out to me when I think back.  The first is the very first book review I did—Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson.  I think that one stands out so much because it was the moment when everything became “real.”  The other post that I love is my historical article, “More than just a Store,” on country stores in the early 1800s.  I’d been wanting to write an article on them since I did my first bits of research years ago, and when I sat down and wrote it and saw it come alive…it was exhilarating.  No longer was it just an idea in my head, but an actual article I’d written!

Emilie: Yes, yes, it was my idea to do a joint blog, and my husband came up with our name…which should make me the Blog Czar or something, but in our alternate cyber-world, that title goes to Jennifer, the keeper of our calendar, techno-wizard, and comer-upper of many of our early posts.  Tricia and I bow to you, and it has been great fun working on this, in part because it gives us an excuse to keep in touch when we live in about the three furthest-away points in the country.  As to my favorite post, that title goes to my post on the computer game Oregon Trail.  How I loved that game!  How I loved trying to work as many of the stock phrases from it into my post!  Most of all, how I’ve loved playing it again with my husband, loading up the wagon with us, our two cats, and our little nephew and heading west.  Which, incidentally, is kind of what we did a few years ago…only on an airplane that didn’t ask us to chose between caulking and fording:)

Tricia: It’s been an amazing first year. Thanks to my Damsel colleagues for making it so fun. If I were to choose a favorite post, it would have to be anything with primary source material in it. In other words, I love the Vintage Christmas cards post and the fashion posts, because I enjoy discovering and sharing images from popular culture in the past. And since fashion goes in cycles, I wonder how soon it will be fashionable to wear long dresses again.