On the occasion of my thirty-seventh birthday earlier this year, my father offered some time-honored wisdom regarding the sanctity of birthdays and anniversaries:

The older you get, the more stuff happens.

My father is a classy man but I may have edited his otherwise colorful language.

He was trying to tell me that preserving my birthday and insisting on a celebration would be increasingly difficult as I got older. This year his prediction was particularly true: I spent most of my birthday doing things for my daughters, including attending a birthday party for someone else.

The older you get, the more stuff gets in the way.

So when I wrote in my journal last week and noted the anniversary of my first Rogue Cheerios post, I was already late to celebrate three years of Rogue Cheerios.

This third year has been slightly different than the first two. I took a year to find my footing, settle on my voice, and write my way through my last year of graduate school. I started to connect to some readers and continue to love the feedback and comments people share. I took my second year to explore life after graduate school and the challenges of parenthood and marriage. I was surprised and thrilled over Freshly Pressed exposure. And in this third year, I have been branching out, writing for other publications and discovering a rich community of writers locally and on the internet.

So I picked today, September 9th for a small commemoration of this project. September 9th holds a sweet spot in my heart. Today, I mark the 14th anniversary of my first date with my husband. And my oldest daughter has reminded me that today is also her half birthday.

On the anniversary of that first post, I have returned to the advice I received when I thought about carving out my little space on the internet. I still don’t know what it’s going to be yet. Coming back to this advice every year is reaffirming–it makes me feel hopeful and grateful at the same time. Lucky for me, if my father is right, the older I get, the more stuff happens.

Let’s hope it’s all good stuff in the end.