Five is the magic number this week: I have arrived at the 5th anniversary of my blog. And as it happens in the Land of Even Numbers, this is my 400th post. Magical!
In 2013 when this blog was birthed, I posted twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays. As writing my memoir manuscript became more important, I have published weekly on Wednesday.
A Story of Magical Fives
Bartholomew Cubbins, on his way to town to sell a bag of cranberries, meets up with King Derwin. He is expected to respectfully remove his hat to royalty, but alas, the hat he doffs is replaced by another and another and another.
Perversely, hats flip, flap, and fly from Bartholomew’s head. Even Wilfred, the King’s grandnephew, wastes a whole quiver of arrows trying to shoot off the ever-emerging hats.
As Bartholomew ascends the staircase to the castle turret to be executed for unintended insolence, the hats become more and more grand.
Some even flaunt rubies and ostrich feathers. The flamboyant hats, once disgraceful peasant headgear, now have captured the king’s fancy.
In the end, the King exchanges the 500th hat for a bag of gold coins. Boy, is Bartholomew happy as he wends his way home!
How Blogging is Like the Story of The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
- Bartholomew wore just one hat at the start of the story. Likewise, I began with just one blog post.
- In a case of multiplying millinery, Bartholomew’s hats piled up. Blog posts also accumulate, one post at a time.
- Sir Alarac, Keeper of King Derwin’s records kept track of the number of hats Bartholomew doffed. My WordPress platform keeps track of numbers of posts published.
- Bartholomew intended to show respect to the king by taking off his hat, in fact all of his hats. Likewise, I have intended to show up here every week. Also, I try to honor your reading and commenting by replying back as soon as I can.
- By far, the most valuable thing about my blog is YOU, my reader.
Like the 500 coins in Bartholomew’s bag garnered from the king who bought his last hat, your friendship is the greatest thing about blogging. I have not met most of you in the flesh, but I venture to say it wouldn’t be hard to slide from an online connection to a face-to-face friendship.
Probably at the drop of a HAT!
Coincidentally, my very first blog on February 25, 2013 post echoes this attitude of gratitude. You can read it here.
How about you?
Does a certain number have a special meaning in your life story?
Have circumstances in your life ever felt like those of Bartholomew Cubbins?
What milestone have you celebrated recently?
Congrats on this amazing accumulation of hats, oops, blog posts, Marian.
Yesterday I helped my mother celebrate age 91 by FaceTming with her and my sister in Lancaster. Baby Lydia, here in Pittsburgh, put on a great show when we sang “happy birthday.” She laughed and laughed.
Thank you, Shirley!
Yesterday I saw your mother’s delight on your Facebook page. Barbara Ann has a host of friends and relatives who love her, all who continue the family legacy of love. No wonder Lydia Ann is elated. That wee girl knows how to party too.
You may know seeing your blog as an example in a continuing education session at UNF has been my inspiration from Day 1. 🙂
How fun, Marian. Thank you for doffing your many blog posts over the years and for being my very first consistent commenter.
And I’m glad to YOU too, introducing me to some several author/bloggers who have consistently supported my writing, not to mention your super hostess skills at Chincoteague. Twice, mind you!
I always learn something new from your well-researched posts. I just brought my sister to our home from the airport, but I intend to stop by your blog soon.
Good morning, Marian! Congratulations on your 5 years of blogging! All of your readers have learned so much about your family.
Well, February is birthday month here, so there have been celebrations, if not exactly milestones. This week I will finish going through the page proofs of my encyclopedia–and I will do more celebrating. And tonight is Purim, which we will not celebrate in a religious way, but I will mark it down as another year of making Hamantaschen. 🙂
Thank you, Merril for the good wishes and for your famous support over the years. You are often the first responder here. I wonder if you are in the kitchen baking cookies now. I looked up the recipe and noted it taked a lot of butter. Maybe you are interspersing that with reading page proofs. Honestly, I don’t know how you do it – cycling between the encylopoedic prose and artful poetry. Amazing!
I do know a little about the feast of Purim and wonder if you have any friends or relatives named Esther.
Thank you for your kind words. Marian. The recipe I use actually uses oil, not butter. Although I’ve also just made some spinach, cheese, and potato ones, and that dough does have butter. No, I don’t think I have any relatives named Esther.
Thanks for the follow-up here, Merril!
It’s always a pleasure to read your blog, Marian. Congratulations on your 5th Anniversary and 400th post!
Thanks for the compliment and for teaching me what little I know about trivets. Congratulations are in order for you too, the birth of your first grandbaby!
What a fantastic number of posts Marian. Many Congratulations.Less than a year maybe to the next big target.
xxx Huge Hugs xxx
Thanks, Sir David – for the nod here, and for always accompanying your comments with huge hugs. May we both have a year of good health and productive writing. ((( )))
Congratulations on reaching this milestone, Marian. Your intention to show up each week and provide quality content for your readers is admirable. Here’s to five more years!
Thank you, Linda. I recall you were one of my earliest followers.
I find your blog posts calming and centering, reflecting your intention to bring peace and joy to this chaotic world. Your photos are exquisite. I can’t think of a better way to describe them. 🙂
Congratualtions on 5 years of wonderful blog posts. I love that your first one is about gratitude. Today I am grateful my brother in Thailand is OK after a motorcycle accident. I have always loved the 500 Hats story bt Dr. Suess. I have so often felt just like Bartholemew. The more hats I take off, the more get piled on me!
I’m grateful too for good news about your brother. I wonder if he’s the one who maintains your website so efficiently.
Yes, I can see that you would identify with Bartholomew, productive writer that you are. Thanks for the good wishes, Darlene!
Happy blogoversary, Marian! I’m glad to see another blogger who has been at it five years. I just celebrated my fifth year too!
I loved your comparison to The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. I read that book years ago, having discovered it at the library. I’d thought I’d read all of Dr. Seuss’s books. I was wrong! So I read and enjoyed it.
Huge congratulations to you too, Marie! Producing quality posts like you do is not accident. It takes energy, creativity, and perseverance. Thank you so much for reading and commenting here today.
That’s That’s one huge milestone Marian … and great that millenary has to do with hats even if I’m stretching the point –
I’m pleased to have you showing up in my blogosphere – there’s always something of interest 🙂
No recent milestones this side of the world – though I’m just back from a funeral of a wonderful 98 year old woman. A few coming up this year …
Thank you for your online presence here – and most of all for your friendship, Susan.I have been praying that God would send rain to South Africa to relieve the drought or provide clean water by some other means.
About your last comment: I’m glad your could honor your 98-year-old friend today. Few people reach such a milestone.
CONGRATULATIONS on your fifth year of blogging and your 400th post—WOW! I enjoyed reading the oh-so-clever similarities you sussed out between your blog and The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. My HAT is off to you!
Suss and Seuss – very clever, Laurie. Thank you for the encouragement I find from you here every week and for your always inspirational posts. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” you seem to say, and your posts are very soulful!
Congratulations on reaching this milestone! I love your creative take on your blogging.
I’m grateful for your visit here today, April. As a pastor your schedule is busy, busy, so I’m especially appreciative. Thank you for the compliment too. 🙂
Thank you, Marian. I’ve followed your blogs for only a year and each one has been very interesting to me. I am a long-time friend of your sister Jean so your blogs about Aunt Ruthie were especially appreciated. Please continue to write.
I intend to continue, Jane, with some more posts about family, including some excerpts from diaries that we unearthed cleaning out Ruthie’s house. You may interested in knowing that I just brought my PA sister to our home from the airport today.
Thanks for the nod here. Do visit again!
Hello Marian, I am so thankful that you began with a blog on gratitude and your blogs have multiplied like Bartholomew’s hats. I feel so at home in your blogs, and I would not mind if they keep on coming.
Thank you, Dolores, for the compliment and for the encouragement to keep on keeping on. You mentioned feeling at home here. I suspect it may be that we share a love for family history and a similar heritage of faith. Thanks again!
What a magical way to celebrate! I hope you don a hat and enjoy a well-deserved pot of tea and a plate full of goodies (the sinful kind)! Love you! xo
I’d love to share a pot of tea with you, Jenn. I know your’d pick the perfect flavor. My sister just arrived from PA to visit, so I’m sure we’ll indulge one way or another. 🙂
I began blogging in 2012 and got to know your blog through Shirley Showalter who was introduced to me by Dora Dueck, who encouraged me to begin writing a blog! That’s a few hats, isn’t it? I’m very happy I got to know you through your blog posts, Marian! I only post once a month, it seems that works for me.
Thank you for tracing the history of our blog connection, Elfrieda. I’m so happy to have an online friendship with a Canadian with Mennonite roots, who also cherishes family history. Thanks again!
Congratulations on reaching your 5th year of faithful blogging, Marian. What a milestone! You certainly do show your value of your readers not only on your own blog, but by the thoughtful comments you make on others. I know I have appreciated your visits to mine. Wishing you many more successful years of blogging and a successful completion of your memoir.
I’m grateful to Laurie Buchanan, who introduced us. I believe she met you at a writers’ convention is Wisconsin and was so happy to recommend you to me.
Thank you also for the good wishes. Right now I’m in the murky developmental editing process, a stage you certainly understand. Best wishes to you as you continue to soar, Luci!
Congratulations, dear Marian on this momentous milestone ,your 5th year of blogging. I remember so well when you were just starting off in 2013 when we first met. And Baby, look at you now! You always enlighten and inspire through your stories. I will echo what others are saying, my hat is off to you!
Thank you, dear Kathy. You too keep up faithfully posting on your blog. I am amazed at your ability to interview authors who seem to have answers I’m grappling with at the time. Maybe it’s coincidence, but maybe it’s providential. I’d like to think the latter. 🙂
Congratulations, my friend, not only on your milestone but also on filling my life with wonderful stories of your Mennonite family and background. You have made me a better person for it.
I have met your wonderful Cliff in person, but not you. I’m still hoping that happens for us both some day soon. Marian, thanks for being you and being a part of my online world!
You have given me high praise here, Sherrey. My motto for my blog and for the memoir in progress is simply this: “Soli Deo Gloria” If you have benefited, that is a big bonus.
Yes, someday I hope we can have a face to face encounter ~ of the best kind, of course! 🙂
Congratulations on your fifth anniversary, Marian! Why did it take us so long to find each other? 🙂 I’ve seen many bloggers come and go, it’s nice when the good ones stick with it. I recently celebrated a sneak peek of my book cover for A Father for Bella. It’s always exciting to see it for the first time. Happy Wednesday!
Oh, thank you, Jill.
Now I’m SO excited to see your book cover. Will you have a special unveiling? Perhaps on your blog or in a special ceremony.
I recently decided on a title for my memoir. It’s about 90 % set but I’m open to other (better) ideas. Nevertheless, it feels good to have a “hook” to hang my chapters upon, fired up by others like you who show the way. 🙂
How exciting that you’ve decided on a title for your memoir, Marian! It feels good to give our babies a name, doesn’t it? 🙂
Thanks for your excitement about my cover. Once I’m authorized to share, I plan to give my blogging friends the first peek. I’m so blessed to have this wonderful community. Happy writing! <3
I’m feeling the excitement with you, Jill. And, yes, where would we be without a cheering section. I do so look forward to the unveiling!
Congrats on your anniversary. Here’s to many more.
Thank you, Janet. Your comment put a 🙂 on my face!
Then I’ve done my job for the day 🙂
Janet, like your blog aims to do. Thank you for spreading such positive energy!
Wow 5 years what an achievement Marian I am only on 4 yrs so I will never catch up with you but will never be far behind…lol I love your comparisson with hats and I suppose I have worn many hats over the 4 years but have finally I think settled down a little and found my favourites…. Here’s to the next 5 years…I wonder what they will bring???
Thank you, Carol. I have seen your theme evolve over the years and observe the fine web of connections you and I have made. I see all of this as a cooperation, not a competition: Each of us has something unique to blend into the mix. Yes, we will “write on”!
Yes I think you are correct Marian we work in harmony not competition which I think is brilliant and yes we will indeed ” write on ” 🙂 x
🙂
Congratulations again, Marian. Doesn’t time fly! I reached that milestone in October 2016 when I started publishing the hand-written log I had been keeping since we started motorhoming in March 2010! Like you, I was very pleasantly surprised by the lovely and warm-hearted people you meet on the Blogsphere, to the point where they feel like friends after a while.
Even when I wasn’t blogging last year due to Peter’s illness, I still wanted to read the blogs I was following just to see how my fellow writers were getting on and, oh boy, did I miss writing! So keep on writing and we’ll keep on reading, whatever the number! And very well done to you! 👍👍👍
You have both a travelogue and personal journal. Not many bloggers live such an adventurous life as you do. Thank you for appearing here so often with kind words. Travel blessings to you and Peter! 🙂
Congratulations on five wonderful years . If you hadn’t of ventured out I might never of met you , how awful would that be . I feel I‘ve known you for ever . One day we will meet I’m sure of it .
The milestone for us was our peal weddding 30 years …I think you celebrated a special wedding too didn’t you .
I’ve just gone back to your first blog and you have made me remember how we share the love of Alexander McCall Smith …I’m reading his lastest
No 1 ladies detective agency and laughing out loud 😂😂😂. Have I told you I met him ? He is the sweetest man he hugged me when I told him I like to read his books under the Apple tree ( when I lived in my old house ) . We are having -4 temperatures at the mo in the U.K so that would not be advisable even if we had an apple tree .
Cherryx
Thank you for all of this, and congrats back to you for 30-year milestone. The years do add up, don’t they? And without our paying much attention.
Now that you mention it, I do remember your mentioning meeting Alexand McCall Smith ~ and how I envied you. Thank you for reminding me that we have this connection too. Whenever I want to feel released from hard thinking this master storyteller calls me into his stories, which I call mystery lite – ha!
You never fail to crack me up with your touches of humor. Of course you heard me chuckle when I read about the apple tree. Huge hugs to my favorite Welsh friend! ((( ))) And fingers crossed for warmer weather!
It is a tribute to your work and creative posts that you have mostly “friends you haven’t met yet” here. Including me! I appreciate your faithfulness both in posting and in commenting. You post more steadily–I have had spurts where I blogged every day during Advent or Lent, for instance, which upped my numbers. I’m also pleased to have been asked to consult on your background project.
I’m wondering if you have put your hands on EMU’s centennial history yet. I was reminded of your story many times as I’ve read it and I’m only half way through. I’m thinking you will find it as fascinating as I am. Oh congrats on your 400 posts and your five years. Whew!
Thank you for your comment with the “long view” in mind. Clarity comes with distance sometimes, which is why I am setting aside my project while my sister visits.
As to your query: No, I have not gotten my hands on EMU’s centennial history yet but I am curious. I happened to have attended when college students looked very plain and homogeneous, so unlike the diversity which I observe (and applaud) these days.
I accept your congratulations and am honored to have you as an online friend, yet to meet. 🙂
Love the analogies here Marian. Happy 5th and 400th my friend. 🙂
You know all about analogies and milestones. Here’s to more of the same for both of us. Thanks, sweet friend!
Cheers to that! I’ll drink a pina colada to that for you next week! 🙂 xx
Go right ahead – safe travels!
Thanks again Marian. 🙂 x
Congratulations! I just loved this story of the hats – and your blog.
Thanks for the good wishes from Sweden, Fiona – much appreciated!
Congratulations with your fifth blogging anniversary, Marian. And, with your 400 posts. Wow. That sounds like a lot, but they easily accumulate over the years. I never actually checked how many posts I wrote over the seven years of my previous blog, when we were sailing the world. I guess Blogger would tell me if I care to look.
I love how you created this post with a comparison to a Dr. Suess book. I had not heard of this one, but I did once buy “Green Eggs and Ham”, which I gave to my niece last spring. She loved listening to it, even though she did not understand all the English words yet. She did get the gist of the story and it became one of her favorite books (and the only English one so far).
Unfortunately, we don’t celebrate many things. It is an interesting concept as the IWSG blog question for coming Wednesday also has to do with celebrating (your successes). We only celebrate birthdays. Coincidentally, it was my husband’s birthday yesterday, which we celebrated with food and gifts then and with fun activities this afternoon. 🙂
Thank you for your detailed reply, Liesbet. And Happy Birthday to Mark! (You do have a week-long celebration – right?
I am happy that the your niece enjoyed a Dr. Seuss book with a different title. She may like this one too, although the tale is not original with Dr. Seuss, who adapted it later.
Yes, you have many successes to celebrate. They could be measured in nautical miles, geographical locations, blog posts. Who knows – You are quite an accomplished woman!
Thank you so much for that sweet compliment, Marian. We should probably celebrate our accomplishments a bit more. We did actually have a little nautical celebration when we crossed the equator on our sailboat in 2013. 🙂 Mark’s birthday was mostly celebrated on the day of and the day after, but we had a nice weekend as well.
As for my niece… I will wait until she has learned more English before introducing more American books to her, I think. Enjoy your week!
😀
Congratulations on your milestone–I look forward to many more thought-provoking blog “hats” from you in the future!
Thank you for the clever acknowledgement here. I expect more stories from you and your sagacious Sage too. 🙂
Lovely and entertaining post. 500 is a big number. I just looked to see how many I’ve done in And you wear many hats besides a blogger’s hat. Caregiver, grandmother, mother, aunt, sister, wife, creative partner, sweet note sender, keeper of family records, more I could name, and so much more I don’t know.
You made me curious, so I checked at WordPress. I began blogging 6 years ago (in May) and have 270 posts. I’ve never posted twice a week since I was closing in on submitting my book by the time I began blogging and now I write two blogs a month to have time to submit articles to other places. That’s working well for me. I imagine you already have a book in your creative blogs. Thank you for being a friend and for teaching me so much about the possibilities of a Mennonite girlhood. Every blog you write widens my view.
This tribute is lovely, Elaine. To see all these titles listed may explain my tiredness – ha! Yes, I can add one more you my not know about: teacher of two-year-olds. Sunday mornings at my church I “play” with little people. Fresh as they are from the mint of nature, they sharpen my sense of wonder.
Thank you for widening my view of the world too. I see life through a different lens on your blog, and on Facebook the wonders of the Finger Lakes and environs. I admire your output, especially the book publication, another kind of tribute. Someday I will probably reduce blog publication to two monthly, a sensible way to stay in touch.
I treasure our friendship, Elaine, and hope one day to meet in the flesh! 🙂
I’m proud for Marian’s desire to share writing with you her readers and create her newest blog. It keeps her mind whirling and her fingers busy at the keyboard connecting with you her friends. I hope at some future time she’ll be able to meet more of you in person. Keep at it, Dear!
I couldn’t have done it without you – your support and the fine, artistic flair you add to this space! 🙂
Very clever! I never would have thought to compare blogging with a Dr. Suess book!
Liz, I suppose connections like these come from being a teacher for so long. . . and also remembering the story in grade school. Weird connections like these come to mind when I start tapping my fingers here. Thanks for the nod! 😀
You’re welcome, Marian! I love weird connections.