First of all, can I just congratulate those of you who actually blogged every single day with me? It was quite the feat. If I hadn’t been the originator of this little challenge, I’m not sure I would have actually stuck with it, myself. I never really had time to pre-blog anything, so I found myself writing a post almost every single day… and as many of you know, the topics were often sort of “deep” or at least required a fair bit of thought. The nature of this challenge was, well, challenging, and that explains the fact that 856 bloggers linked up the first day, and we were averaging 100 to 200 or so in the last week. BUT. The fact that even that many were still with me here at the end made my heart smile, cheesy as that may sound. And those of you who only participated occasionally… good for you, too. I was so glad to see people of all sorts having fun and being creative with this month’s topics. Many of you even expressed interest in doing it again in the future. I’d love to, as well, and will consider it maybe for September or October, though I’ll definitely be modifying the Challenge to give us weekends off, mmkay?! ;)
My memories don’t actually become all that vivid until after I was maybe 8 or 9 years old, when my parents finally realized I was blind as a bat and got me some glasses. Then a whole new world opened up to me, and I started to... well... see stuff. Today's memory certainly doesn't have to be from childhood, but I think mine will be.
Some of my favorite and most vivid memories involve exploring out in the woods behind our military apartment complex when my family lived in Germany. My sister and I spent hours out in that forest, and oh, the adventures we would have! I specifically remember walking out on the train tracks that wrapped around one side of the woods, picking warm blackberries right off the bushes beside the tracks and heading over to our little Wonder Land and what we called the "jumping things," which were essentially just huge slabs of concrete piled high on top of each other in long rows, and my sister and I would climb them and run and jump from one pile to the next... hence, the title "jumping things." I'm fairly certain we weren't supposed to be in that area of the Army base, and maybe that's one reason why it was fun... since it was a little bit dangerous. I also remember picking lily of the valley in the same woods, and how fragrant they were, and finding what appeared to be old bomb craters and being convinced that a certain section of the woods that turned to all pine trees was, indubitably, haunted. I hope some day that my children will love the outdoors and have the same opportunities to imagine that I did. Like I said, my most vivid memories are from that enchanted forest just steps from our back door... :)
Share your memories below, and give yourself a big fat pat on the back for making it to the end of a very long May. Now take the weekend off, yeah?!
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