I've spent the last 3 days completely immersed in finishing the
CWP redesign and uploading articles. I have all the issues after 2004 in the database, plus the new one, ready for upload. I started scrounging for 1998-2003 stuff. It has been the sweetest trip down memory lane...
Looking at the very first issues we published
10 years ago, (!!!) I'm tickled. I'm also delighted to know what God has done and where we've come. I haven't looked at any of these pages in 6 or so years. I find myself charmed by the sweet, innocent passion I had for ministering to women and the mission of the
CWP. It stirs me.
Tabbing through the pages is like looking at a scrapbook. I had forgotten
Misty Taggart interviewed Liz and I via live chat after our one year anniversary in 1999. That interview sent us more traffic than we ever dreamed possible. I recorded bits and pieces from the lives of my two oldest boys. I was mommy blogging before there was
blog! But
I'm like that. We had a chat room and e-cards. Then there's the Julia Stories that I can't wait to re-read. Oh and all of Cyndie's articles - our first author. I'm finding it hard to focus on "getting the job done." I really just want to call Liz and say, "Hey, you remember when?" But that would probably break the magic because she wouldn't be able to see them.
As if that wasn't all dreamy enough, this photo from our original "About Us" page made me stop... This was the first Easter picture we ever took. Those were my boys. Josh was 4 and Ben had just turned 2. I would get pregnant with Christopher that August.
Cuties aren't they?
Today, I read several blogs by moms with one or two toddlers or babies and I realized that I'm not there anymore. It seems so distant. I've got a teen and my youngest is reading! My "baby" will be 5 next week and is
READING!! Nope, I don't relate. But reading the original issues of the
CWP brought it all back.
I remember the sweet days again. They were simple and crazy and fun - diapers and all. There was no algebra to wade through. No grammar to make anybody cry. No reading lessons to scuffle over, just boy toys, hand-me-down Osh Kosh overhauls (b'gosh I'd forgotten about those too!) and reading
Winnie the Pooh before afternoon naps.
That photo in 1999 started a Messenger tradition. With the exception of one year, we've got shots from every Easter from then to now. My cute little dumpins aren't so little anymore. Josh is taller than me by a 1/2 inch and Ben's feet are bigger than mine.
{
sigh}
Life was so simple ten years ago. And I thought it was exhausting. Oh silly me! Little did I know...
