Paddy & Aly

Today is our special day. One year ago, Paddy and I started something new - and now it's our first anniversary together.

Hey, who's cueing up the Puccini?? No no no, it's not like THAT. I was thinking more along the lines of something with a fiddle. Uillean pipes and a bodhran would be nice, too. And if we're going to get sentimental...well, for me it has to be "The Rainbow Connection," that haunting banjo ballad sung so poignantly by the most famous green Muppet in the world.

You see, I'm celebrating two things today. First, it is my most favorite non-Yule holiday of the year, the day that honors St. Patrick, the missionary to Ireland. (I don't know about the snakes...wasn't it the guy on the plane who drove those out?) Second, Becoming Aly is one year old!! Yes, I have been a blogger for a whole year already.

Admittedly, my blogging has been rather patchy at times. Especially last month, in which I deftly managed to avoid posting a single entry. [Insert frowny face here.] If I were a professional columnist, I would have been fired a long time ago. [An embarrassed pause, in which the author hangs her head.] However...I am not a professional! Sure, I don't have the acclaim that comes with being syndicated and receiving fan mail and having bucketloads of readers down my daily dose of wisdom along with their morning caffeine jolt. But there is one thing amateurs have a lot of: freedom. Freedom to be inconsistent, freedom to be random, freedom to experiment (and get really lousy results), freedom to hack away at the world's problems one moment and then stop to pull out a prickly, petty issue from one's soul the next.

So I am not congratulating myself for being a wonderfully prolific blogger who dispenses entries at every click of the reader's mouse, like some sort of cyber gumball machine. I am merely celebrating the fact that within a year's time I have established a little nook on the World Wide Web that I can call home. And when I'm not terribly behind on my housekeeping, whenever I've actually made Becoming Aly presentable (i.e., posted an entry more recent than the milk that expired last month), I'm blessed and happy to have received a few visitors.

This little thing called graduate school, on top of the little thing I call my full-time job, has made it difficult for me to be anything but inconsistent. So I thank all the readers who have kindly stopped by for a visit in Becoming Aly's first year. I thank you most sincerely, and with a bit of sentimentality if I dare (but no Puccini, please). I hope I may make your visits more worthwhile in the years to come...but I know better than to make any promises. What You See Is What You Get: if you like what you see you're more than welcome to it! There are plenty of other sites on the information superhighway that have better food for thought, I'm sure. But there's only one Becoming Aly! (At least, there's only one at this URL...I gotta keep that old saying in mind: "Remember, you are unique - just like everyone else.")

So Happy St. Patrick's Day to you, and Happy First Anniversary to Becoming Aly!