State of the Blog 2016

So we have just completed our first full calendar year of blogging which makes this easily the longest journal-like thing I have ever done. And it was quite a year to be captured by journaling, including major political events (the US Supreme Court legalizing Gay Marriage in the US or the embarrassing reaction our politicians have had to refugees)  major personal hurdles (the death of my dog Reyn and my brief cancer bout) and a bunch of questions about life, faith, and religion besides.

I hesitate to call it a GOOD year... I was actually fairly happy that 2015 ended. But in terms of Ask Pastor Dan... hey, we did a lot.

I started this year wondering what form the Blog would take as the questions started drying up, and then the questions came back for awhile, which was fun. Now they seem to have dried up again, but that's ok... maybe these things come in seasons. To everything, turn, turn, turn...

One of my personal goals this year (DON'T call it a resolution) is to get SOMETHING published by someone other than Google. (Unless, of course, Google opens up a publishing branch. In which case, hey, Google, call me.) I don't know what that will be. Maybe a version of the project that started so bravely for Nanowrimo only to get buried, maybe a different story entirely, maybe I'll find someone to pick up Ask Pastor Dan as a column somewhere. I dunno.

I've been asked a few times to do more vlogging, so we'll see about that, too, but vlogging takes a GREAT DEAL more time than Blogging and 2016 already promises to be one of my busiest years yet. Partially due to the new puppy in our house, and partially due to the fact that 2016 is the year I am going to become a father for the first time.

And to finish up the State of the Blog, I'd like to talk about that.

Rose is pregnant after years of trying finally aided by IVF. I know the pain of wanting children and having trouble having them. I don't know how much the incoming kid will appear in the Blog, but they're on my mind pretty much all the time, and so when I don't have questions and feel like writing, there is a more than fair chance they will be what I am talking about.

I'll try to mark in the blog titles when I am talking about the baby, so that those for whom such conversation is hurtful can avoid it.

And as always, this will not be a fundraiser or a conversion tool, but merely a place for me to answer the questions I am asked, and talk about the bits of life that strike me as interesting when I encounter them.

Here's to a good 2016!