My former English teacher is reading this, and she must be devastated.

Yes, really, I think she must be. When she looks at this blog and observes the complete lack of grammatical correctness…she probably throws herself in the floor and rocks back and forth…really fast.

I spent the first year of this blog (2007) hiding it from almost every person I know. Well, I let the people that make fun of me on a regular basis read it but that was it. Yes, I wanted to write about things. I had all this crazy up in my head. I just didn’t want people to know how crazy…I really am. Then at the beginning of 2008, I decided to throw all caution to the wind and slowly let people into Big Nanny’s House. And you know what? It’s been fun.

I’ve been looking back over the last year, and I’m glad that I documented every single moment. The sad moments like when the Medium Nanny graduated and left for college. The proud moments when the Lil’Nanny rode a bus and went to church camp without me. The tragic moments like when Lawnmower Man broke his foot. The busy moments of getting a new church building ready for opening day. The funny moments of forgetting to add butter to my cake. The scary moment of running from a homeless man in Hotlanta. The political moments of the one and only Sarah P. And the all informative posts about where to get a good hotdog. You know you can’t get a good hotdog stand review on just anyone’s blog. You need to get that type of information from a trustworthy source. And of course there were the awkward moments where I wrote about something that I thought was hilarious and no one left me a comment. Boy, was that awkward.

And I’ve had a good time reading your blogs, too. Wow! Almost every person I know has a blog now. I’m amazed at all of the useful and not so useful information that I get from reading about your daily life. I love knowing about your family and all the fun stuff that y’all do. (I inserted the y’all for my southern readers.) And since I have some northern readers too, I will rephrase that last sentence just for you….I love knowing about your family and all the fun stuff that you guys do. I just want to make everyone happy. Please know that I never use the phrase “you guys” anymore. I would never look at a group of women and say, “hey, you guys, look at my new purse.” I have lived in the south too long and know better.

But most of all I love writing. I didn’t know I loved it until I started doing it. Some of you are laughing because I call this blog “writing.” But I think we would all agree that the Hair Bow Mafia post is some high quality literature. When people look up the word hairbow on Google it comes straight to me. It also comes straight to me when you Google the word mafia…you gotta be careful with your word choices. The blog has sometimes been stressful, too, like when I have something to say and not enough hours in the day to blog about it.

So about one year ago today my mother gave me the challenge. Remember when she talked about my friend Teresa’s blog, and how she enjoyed reading it. Remember when she told me that I could do it too? And how maybe I could get some advertisers? (Insert the smiley faces and hysterical laughter here.) Well, that’s all I needed. A mother who believed that I could write on the real live www, and she would be thrilled to add me to her favorites list. I wonder after I put the video of her icecapades if she was regretting the day she urged me to get to writin’.

So, in the year 2008, I was able to write 103 posts. I’m not sure what the year 2009 holds. I’ve already been to every hotdog place in town. I don’t have a daughter graduating. You already know that I work at a church and hang out with the young mommy mafia. I think I let way too much crazy out in one year, and I’m not sure I’ve got much more to say. We’ll see. Lord willing and the creek don’t rise…I’ll blog again in 2009. That kind of rhymed…maybe I’ll start rapping?

And Miss Anita…I’m sorry. You were a wonderful English teacher. I’m sure there are lots of students all over these United States that know all there is to know about commas, semi-colons and proper adverb clauses, but I ain’t one of them;) However, I would like to point out that you were my government teacher as well, and I voted for Sarah Palin this past November. That simple fact should fill your heart with pride and allow you to erase every grammar error that you’ve ever read on this here blog.

Happy New Year!