700 in 4

All right, it's time to look back. July 20th and this post mark another milestone for Hoosier Happenings. This past week HH celebrated 4 years of rambling and this post makes the 700th dribble. Both seem a bit hard to believe.....hard to believe I've kept this up for the last four years and have found 700 things to post about.

It's foggy out right now....but in that cool beautiful sort of way. It's also a bit foggy inside. I started this post yesterday and have kept going back to it in my head and have started over several times. Yesterday was a strange day. We woke up to news that my wife's grandmother passed away. Which it then dawned on me when my family gathered together to celebrate my mom's birthday last night that it was also same day my grandfather passed away. Add to that the sort of surreal nature of having our church service in the park with storms looming and then I began to understand why the former ending of this post went the way it did. So I re-wrote it, again. What you won't know is what is Sunday or Monday's tone.

Anyhow, (I don't know that I've ever typed that before) I searched Bing.com for images related to 700. I got photos of Pat Robertson and the 700 pound man. Neither seemed to relate to what I wanted to express, though Pat has been featured on past posts. So I settled on a "looking back" photo. When I started HH in July of 2007 I tried to maintain some anonymity, as well as some class. Many of the posts were raw and a few hit some nerves, I know. And I don't apologize. And as for anonymity-well, anyone who knows me has already figured out who Hoosier Reborn is.

Strangely enough, I still run into folks who tell me that they read this, even though most experts would say blogging is dead. Just last week at the fair I had someone say that they read this all the time. That was news to me. And at my school reunion I had more than one person tell me to keep blogging. So I figure I have roughly the same number of readers as our local paper, so of course I'm obligated to put out the news.

Lately my posts have centered around places and culture in Indiana. Which that's cool and all-but I'd like to get back to more stories on faith and let loose with some political banter. But I feel rather uninspired with those topics because it just seems pointless. Then I go back to.....why did I start this thing in the first place. Well, mostly for myself I guess. But at the same time, I'd like to think that exposing the few people who do read this to new ideas on faith and politics might just help shape change. I'm certain this is how the Tea Party got its start.

Recently I saw someone's blog turned into a book....like a real, live, paper filled with ink sort of book. That concept seems a bit strange since books are becoming paperless like a blog; regardless, I wondered what if I took all of those 700 random stories and aligned them into their general topics-could they be book-worthy? Probably not. But it did give me a very different way to think of blogging and maybe helped redefine my purpose a little.

I appreciate everyone who reads this. I'd like to be a bit more edgy when it comes to faith and politics. I'd like to be a bit more in depth when it comes to culture and cover a wider range of topics. But more than anything I'd like to know that I've pricked the consciousness of those who take the time to read this. I am not a good writer by any stretch of the imagination....I'm not even sure that anyhow is a word.....but just like most hobbies, blogging has brought a great deal of satisfaction personally. We'll have another self-evaluation at 1000.