a day of celebrations
Oh December 4, how quickly you came upon me once again!
Just one year ago at this time I was fiddling with something I learned was called a template, trying desperately to link to some of the blogs that had inspired me to jump into the big bad blogosphere, and figuring out what I could possibly write about.
And here we are, one year later.
It’s Bleeding Espresso’s 1 year blogiversary!
And it’s also P’s 29th birthday!
Woohoo!
Perhaps you were expecting balloons and a fun contest, but I have even bigger plans in store to be unveiled soon. You’ll just have to keep reading. And I know where you can start.
Although a lot of bloggers don’t care much for their early posts, I’m actually going to encourage you to go back to December 2006 and have a look at what was going on around here. I remember writing those early posts every day with such excitement and enthusiasm.
Every now and again, it’s good to remind ourselves of the beginning of any experience, isn’t it? To bring us back to what it *used* to feel like, whether it was nervousness, excitement, anxiety, or just plain fun?
In the case of Bleeding Espresso, from Italian wedding soup to owls to what I miss from the United States to childhood Christmas memories to Calabrian stuffed lasagna to Paris Hilton (now you *know* you’re curious), there was a lot happening during our first month in the blogosphere, and I hope you’ll have a look.
Feel free to load up the entire month and start from the bottom. Comments always welcome!
Oh, and of course I’ve made espresso.
Cappuccino if you prefer.
What’s that? You don’t drink cappuccino either?
Hmm… well what if I told you this:
Now if that doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will.
*EDITED TO ADD: As I’m getting some comments on this post, it occurred to me that I should’ve written something else:I’d really love to hear about your favorite posts, what you like to read here, what you’d like to see more of, etc. You all make this blogging adventure so fulfilling and fun, and your input is always appreciated.
And thank you, thank you, thank you for continuing to read and comment!
So please let me know what you think, and if you’ve already commented and are seeing this through a feedreader, don’t be shy. Come back and tell me!
Tanti auguri Bleeding Espresso and P!
P.S. Be sure to stop by Ilva’s Lucullian Delights for today’s Dolce Italiano recipe–a cake that’s *almost* too pretty to eat, Cassata alla Siciliana–and comment for a chance to win a personalized, signed copy of Dolce Italiano by Gina DePalma. See full contest rules here.
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[tags]blog anniversaries, espresso, cappuccino[/tags]
68 Beans of Wisdom to “a day of celebrations”
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
Calabria Guidebook
Recipes
Congratulations!
Happy Blog-aversary! Make mine a cuppacino.
(My second blog birthday is in March – I can’t quite believe it!)
tanti auguri a voi dal nord!
(oh, and thanks for the caffè, i needed one proprio adesso)
*Patricia, thanks!
*Charlotte, mmm, I’m with on the cappuccino 🙂 Two years under your belt? I have a lot of reading to catch up on over at your place!
*Lango, grazie e prego 😉
Tanti auguri Bleeding Espresso and P! Happy anniversary too! I love Italy. I’ve visited Italy twice and Sicily (my families home) once. I can’t wait to be able to visit again. You did very well with your blog starting up a year ago. I’m still struggling trying to get my thoughts into words. It’s a skill not all can master, but I don’t give up easily.
*Plongstocking, thanks, and keep plugging away at expressing your thoughts…it gets easier, I promise!
And if you’re back around southern Italy sometime, let me know!
Wow,Michelle…that year went quickly!!!Congratulations and thank you for keeping me in daily contact with Calabria. Your commitment and perserverance are awesome,as is your writing talent.
Enjoy your success!!! and Tanti Auguri a Paolo
Happy Blogiversary! I remember when you started the blog, so it’s easy to say that I’ve been here since day one. I have been a very happy reader since. 🙂 Happy birthday to P too!
Happy blog birthday and to Happy birthday to P! Somehow I thought you had been blogging for years! You’re such an expert! ; )
Well, have a great day and I have to come back and read some of the old posts later today. Maybe I’ll be sipping a cappucchino!
What?! It’s only been a year? I cannot believe it. I have seen your blog readership really grow and while I can’t remember how I found you (my first comment was mid December 2006), I’m glad I did.
Mi piace molto la tua blog. Congrats on your Blogiversary and P’s 29th. 🙂
A big congratulations! You have definitely brightened the Italian expat blogosphere with your creative writing and positive outlook.
Auguri to P!
*Alexmom, grazie, and it’s a pleasure to keep Calabria on your mind 🙂
*Giulia, yes you’ve definitely been here since the beginning! Grazie mille 🙂
*Anali, well I’ll take that as a compliment 🙂 I hope you do come back with the cappuccino; she (the blog) rather enjoys that 😉
*NYC, thank you so much; I know you’ve been around since the beginning as well and your support is molto apprezzato 😉
*Shelley, why thank you. As you know, it’s not always easy to be positive around here, but I sure do try 😉
Not sure when I joined the Sognatrice Fan Club — maybe March or so, but you have much to be proud of here. Yours is one of the most consistent, creative, interesting, engaging, enlightening and entertaining reads out there. Always something good is cooking, be it desert, soup, photographs, espressos or a delicious combination of words. Congratulations.
And a very Happy Birthday to P.
Happy Blogoversary! You’re such a pro, I could have sworn you’ve been around forevah! I’m going to mark this post to come back and visit some of your older ones. 🙂
Happy Birthday to your sweetheart, too!
I love the coffees! Congrats. I thought mine would die at around a year and I’m still on 1-1/2 years later.
Keep on typing.
Thanks for sharing your life with us. Happy Blogaversary!
I adore your blog. My favorite are your recipes. When I’m crazy busy at work I’ll look at your blog and know that nine times out of ten Nonna is making the same thing for dinner.
Congratulations! I just discovered this blog phenomena a little while ago, but it’s got me hooked! Since my husband (from Abruzzo) and son-in-law (from Calabria) were born in Italy it is fun to see how life is over there. I have a lot of interesting tidbits to tell them.
….forgot to mention that I LOVE the pseudo-vintage poster..what a hoot!
I’ll have to come back later on to read your December 06 posts (and I will be back to read them), but I wanted to say Happy Blog-versary and Happy B-day to P.
Also, I finally posted my 5 Posts Meme you tagged me for.
Happy Anniversary…I didn’t realize you’ve only been at it for a year. You do a fantastic job!
Ciao Bella,
Congratulations!
Our blogs have something in common!
It is my Beijing blog’s 1st anniversary today too!
Of course you celebrate it with your today’s post in a much nicer way!
I will have an espresso on you (tomorrow morning, it is too late here now, otherwise I cannot sleep)
Salute
e auguri a P.!
I thought I’d been reading you since the beginning, but I missed your very earliest posts. Poor Luna! How could anyone call her “Nobody”? And the account of how you finally noticed P is really lovely.
Happy Anniversary!
Tanti auguri! I can’t believe that you’ve only been blogging for a year! You’ve inspired me and after blogging for two months I can only hope to do as well as you have. Today is my birthday too so when I celebrate after my Italian class, I will toast to P. too!
So does it seem like a long time or the blink of an eye?
Cheers
This is my calling card or link“Whittereronautism”until blogger comments get themselves sorted out.
Auguri!!!!
Thanks for the cup of espresso… one cup, we’re hooked and come back for more! (ah, that was the trick, eh?)
Love.
My favorite post is when you narrated about the first night you met your husband
…and when you had us singing J-lo’s song a la puppy in the box version 😉
… e anche!!!
Happy Birthday to P 🙂
Happy blog-birthday! Blirthday? ANd happy birthday to P, too!
I am so glad that I came across your blog. It is a real pleasure to read as you come across as a lovely person.
Auguri to you and P 🙂
Rosa
Happy Blogiversary, and Happy B-day P! (Would that be Happy P-day?)
Congrats on your blogging anniversary and Happy Birthday to P!
*David, thank you kindly sir. Your words always humble me whether they’re here in comments or over at your place.
*Nino, aw, I’m cyber-blushing 🙂
*Sarala, I wish I could fill my house with such photos 😉 You keep typing too!
*Sandy, my pleasure, and thanks!
*Minnie, thank you–I love that Nonna and I are on the same page 😉
*Beachgrl, oh my, you’re surrounded by southern Italy! Glad you found me as well 🙂
*Alexmom, you never know what you’ll find at Allposters.com 😉
*Karina, thanks and I can’t wait to read your 5 🙂
*Softdrink, I’m no longer a newbie! Woohoo!
*Suzie, wow, what a coincidence! Congrats to you as well 🙂
*TheOG, luckily Luna has recovered her self-esteem since her early days. Thanks for your continued reading…you know yours is one of the first blogs I ever came across and it was by bouncing around with the navigation bar. Huh.
*Paninigirl, AUGURI!!! We’ll toast to you as well 🙂
*Maddy, hmm, both actually at different times 🙂
*Roamer, hah, I almost forgot about J Lo’s song…and thanks for your good wishes 🙂
*LaraB, thank you much!
*Rosa, thank you for your kind words and good wishes; they are much appreciated 🙂
*Sara, P seems to think it’s P-day….
*Janet, grazie grazie!
I can’t believe you’ve only been blogging a year! For some reason it just feels like you’ve been at it for a very long time. 🙂
Congratulations on your blog anniversary, and of course happy birthday to P! 🙂
happy celebrations all!
hey! happy anniversary! let’s all at shameless drink (a cuppa) to that!
happy blogiversary!!!
wow… you seem such a natural, i though you’d been blogging way longer than me!
congrats also on finishing (inter)nablopomo!
and thanks for pointing me in the direction of my cute prize… i hadn’t thought to even look!
love to you
Vx
Happy Blogiversary and a very Happy Birthday to P. Did you plan that? 🙂
I’ve already read your first month because I was lucky to have found you when you were still a wee baby and I read it from the start. After all, you were a huge inspiration to me and starting my own blog.
xo
Happy anniversary! Isn’t it scary how fast a year goes…?
I loved the puppy posts. I will always love the puppy posts. Puppy posts touch my heart!
Auguri to the both of you!
May both of you have many more years and decades to come and may your coffee never be too amaro.
Baci!
happy anniversary!! these last few weeks seem to be anniversaries galore (mine is in april, i just had 2 yrs)…
i love your photos, esp the coffee ones, beautiful!! 🙂
Happy Blog-aversary to you, Happy Birthday to P! I wish I could handle espresso, it always smells so good, but I am weak, and caffeine-sensitive. : (
I hope you are feeling better.
Congratulations!! Oh and a younger man, congratulaions on that too. 🙂
Sad to say I can’t handle such beverages, I feel sick just drinking hot cocoa, but I am willing to give it a try at least on day each winter, believing “this time it will be different”. A bit like Charlie Brown and Lucy. And, oh how sick I feel each time.
You seem like a natural born blogger, hard to believe it was just a year ago you started.
Ideas? You seem to have ’em, as easy as you bake up batches of muffins. For me they are more like catching snowflakes, just when I think I got a nice one, I try to close my hands around it, and it melts away.
Happy Birthsay P and Bleeding Espresso. I can’t beleive you are only 1!!!! I thought you had been around so much longer. Goes by fast, huh??? Mine is coming in January..yikes! I love the coffee shots!!! That espresso slogan sums it all up!!!
Happy Blogiversary! Tanti auguri Bleeding Espresso and P!
I am so glad you started this blog, it is always nice to hear news from the otherside, being that I am downunder. 😉
Cradle Robber!!! Auguri to BE!
Tanti auguri Michelle e Buon compleanno a P.
I made the ricotta poundcake, it was delicious. I’ve been asked to make it again, but next time I will bake it a little longer for a darker brown.
Carole in Missouri
Happy anniversary! Print this out and you will have your “paper” gift for year 1. (Or is that only countable for wedding anniversaries?)
Happy blogiversary! And happy birthday, P! I don’t even remember how I connected with you in blogdom, but I’m glad I did. 🙂
Tanti auguri P and Bleeding Espresso! I just re-read your posts from December 2006. I liked all your posts that month but I think the story of how you and P finally met is my favorite although i filippi is darn cute. (Oh, and I saw the other photo you snuck in of P. You two are too cute.)
And I think I would feel the same way you did about getting to watch TV in English even though I have 180 channels on satellite and I just can’t believe how many times there is nothing worth watching. I’m down to the Naked Archaeologist (no, he isn’t naked but the archaeology is), Kimora – Life in the Fab Lane (supermodel, business mogul reality show), Jon and Kate + 8 (reality shows of a family with twins and sextuplets) and Clean House (gets me motivated to declutter my house) and even most of those are now reruns. I used to subscribe to RAI here and I watched the soap, Un Posto al Sole because it had subtitles and last year I loved watching Ballando con le Stelle. That Raimondo Todero (hear sizzling sound?) is from Calabria. But mostly they were talk shows, talk shows about soccer and the nonsensical game show, Affari Tuoi (how I hate Affari Tuoi). I’d rather watch Murder She Wrote dubbed in italian.
So a toast to your first year blogging and to P’s 29th birthday and to many, many more. Brindisi!
Congratulations!
Did that ad really say “Euphoria without the unslight TRACK MARKS?”
*Tina, just one year that seems to have both flown by and taken forever 😉 Thanks!
*Flutter, grazie!
*Puresunshine, I’ll drink to that!
*Vanessa, I was so happy to see prizewinners I knew (you and Frances from Blogjem) that I just had to spread the word! Congrats, and thanks for your well wishes 🙂
*Cheeky, and I’ll never forget your first post. Warm fuzzies just thinking of it! I really didn’t plan the P’s birthday/birth of blog thing–guess even other people’s birthdays gets you thinking about starting new things.
*Alyndabear, puppy posts are probably my favorites too 🙂
*Alex, grazie mille!
*Elena Jane, congratulations to you as well!
*BLC, I think I got all your caffeine resistance. Sorry about that or you’re welcome, depending on how you look at it. Thanks for the wishes 🙂
*Taffiny, as always your words are most appreciated. Sometimes lots of ideas can be a curse as well–too many directions, where to go, where to go….
Don’t worry about the cocoa, espresso, etc. I’ve definitely had your share in my lifetime already, and I’ll continue to do my part. I used to do the same thing with sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving, by the way…maybe this year?! You know what? One year, it worked, and now I love them.
*Robin, thanks; I know you’ll enjoy a cappuccino for me 😉
*Vee, thanks; it’s always a pleasure to see your name in my inbox 🙂
*Gil, hah! And thanks!
*Carole, so glad you enjoyed the cake. I’m terrible at waiting for a darker brown, so I send you patient vibes 🙂
*Jeni, very clever 🙂
*Stefanie, I think I found you first, and I am equally glad 🙂
*Homebody, you mean “La Signora in Giallo”? P *loves* that show. Amazing what makes the leap across the ocean, isn’t it? Thanks for reading all those posts–that was some undertaking!
And you’re also a trooper for even watching that much of Italian TV. I can’t say as though I bother with the RAI and Mediaset channels much anymore….
Thanks for the good wishes!
*Jennifer, yes! Addiction is funny, didn’t you hear?
Oh how I wish I was in Italy savoring a cappuccino with ya! After having SEVERAL there – they just are not the same in the good ol’ USA.
Congratulations on your Blog-anniversary! I enjoy reading your blog.
*Jenn, don’t worry, I’ll be sure to have one for you. Maybe two 😉
Happy 1st anniversary!
Mazeltov! I had no idea that you hadn’t been doing this longer.
My favorite posts all have animals in them. 🙂 Probably my all time favorite is the one about morning which includes belly rubs for Ms. Luna.
I guess you’re doing a lot more belly rubbing every morning nowadays.
HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY!!!!
Or however that goes…
YAY! I’m very glad you started doing this, yours is one of the best out there, and we are all lucky that you started it and keep it up.
Thank YOU for doing it all!
big hugs!
Scarlett & Viaggiatore
*Shameless, thanks!
*Scarlett, why thank you; you know that I feel the same about your venture 🙂
Indeed Tanti Auguri to your blog (and the major effort you put into it!) and P!!!
happy birthday to yo-hoo-hoo!
Tanti auguri! I found your blog only a month or two after you started it. I can’t believe it is only a year old now!
I make my espresso every morning and then sit down to read your blog before leaving for work. You are a very talented and entertaining writer. I don’t know why I have never commented before, but I have enjoyed all of your posts and have discovered many more great blogs through your blog.
*Jeni and Inge, thanks!
*Girasoli, ciao! So happy to know you’ve been here since nearly the beginning even though I don’t hear from you often. Thanks for taking the time to comment and for your continued support 🙂
Happiness abound! Happy Bloganiversary!
congrats lady…i will have a coffee for you. (except it won’t be as good due to the fact that it is american.)
kerith
Congratulations! And I think I need some espresso. And Happy Birthday to P!
*Corey, happiness indeed; thanks 🙂
*Kerith, oh I drink American coffee here too (shh). Sorry but sometimes I just need a big ole cuppa Folger’s 😉
*Jen, thanks!
Well a happy belated one year blogoversary to you (and happy birthday to P!). I have so enjoyed reading your blog over the last year. Your posts are always a bright spot in my days : ) I have missed reading it in the last month while living at my parents…I have such a slow internet connection that I can hardly load many blogs and I feel a little out of the loop. Only a couple more months and hopefully I can catch up on my friends lives.
Sognatrice….wow, has it really been over a year since your slice of blogart began? Time flies when the reading’s so good….congrats and please, keep up the great My Way work.
Ciao, ciao,
WunschD
*Erin, it’s always lovely to see your smile here; thanks for reading!
*WD, I know–unbelievable that a year has passed already! I’ll keep writing if you’ll keep reading 😉