A Column in Blog Form - 100 Weeks of Rip

Well, this is it.  My 100^th post of Rip Aches All Over, almost three years after Resurrecting Rip on August 28, 2009.  This has of course caused me to reflect on this column, I mean blog, and what it has meant to me.  Mostly though, it made me wonder what in the world I have been talking about all this time.

I first decided to write this blog at the suggestion of my husband, when I revealed in a Facebook quiz that you concoct yourself to find out how well your Friends know you that my ideal fantasy job would be “nationally syndicated humor columnist.”  So, I have my husband and Facebook to thank for becoming Rip again.  This is appropriate, because I owe a lot of my happiness today to my husband and, for that matter, Facebook.

When I first started writing Rip, my blog was a casual undertaking, written and published whenever the mood hit me.  This usually meant every couple of weeks, although I would occasionally go a month or more between posts.  At the urging of my good friend Mary, who was at the time an editor for a weekly community newspaper, and my in-laws (who are my ardent fans and encouragers) Rip got a little more serious.  In 2011, in preparation for marketing Rip to a larger audience, I began publishing blogs between 500 and 800 words once a week on Mondays.  I post them to Facebook, and have an e-mail mailing list of my “readers” (aka my family and friends – I think many of you actually read the column).

So what in the world have I talked about in this weekly column?  Anything, everything, nothing – that is the glory of this wonderful endeavor.  It is entirely up to me.  In looking over my blogs, I have found that I sometimes talk about current events or Pittsburgh or celebrity happenings or plays or movies, but more often it’s about the little mundane events of my everyday life, like the weather or finally getting that Tuna Cheddar Melt sandwich from Eat n Park.  I also like to reminisce, like we more mature folks often do, about stuff that happened to me throughout my life.  

In three years, I have only repeated one column and that one was posted three times – every year on or near February 13^th I post On This Day My Child Was Born, the story of the events of the day that I gave birth to my wonderful son.  Trust me, he’s worth it, and so is the story of that day.

According to my stat counters, on the average, between 50 and 80 of you read Rip each week, and many  of you have taken the time to tell me how much you enjoy the blog.  I appreciate it.  I have 19 followers on the blog site itself, and I receive lots of comments each week there, on Facebook and through e-mail.

So on this momentous occasion, it is time to take Rip to the next level.  Rip Aches All Over now has its own Facebook page!  This is exciting stuff, and you can "invest" in my efforts to market the column with absolutely no cost to you by liking Rip's facebook page and/or following the actual blog.  Thanks in advance, and see you next week!