Happy blogiversary to me

Today is St. Urho's Day, an invented holiday created by a Minnesotan in honor of a fictional saint who drove all the grasshoppers out of Finland. A teacher at my hometown high school celebrated it every year to honor his Finnish heritage. You can even send St. Urho's Day e-cards. My wife's family background is partially Irish, so we're naturally more into St. Patrick's Day (and always get shamrock shakes every year), but kudos to St. Urho and his fans. I just think it's kind of wild that someone can create an entire holiday. (Likewise, Sweetest Day in October was originated by a candy company that wanted to create an excuse to get people to buy more candy.)

Today also happens to be the one-year blogiversary of this blog. (There is dispute in the blogosphere over whether it should be spelled "blogoversary" or even "bloggoversary," but "blogiversary" seems to have the highest usage.) At first I wasn't sure I would have enough ideas to be blogging regularly, but I was surprised how often a bloggable thought comes across. Plenty of material for two or three posts a week, though lots of things have disappeared into the ether because I didn't post on it in timely enough a fashion. Blogging has eaten up a lot more time than I ever anticipated (more in reading other people's blogs than posting on my own). I'm trying to be more disciplined these days. But I like it. It's fun and generally more valuable than not. And I've recently drawn my wife into blogging - she has started posting more regularly on our family blog.

At any rate, I'm celebrating my blogiversary with a new template, just to freshen up the look a bit. Also, in many cultures, if it's your birthday you don't receive gifts from others but instead are the gift-giver. So in honor of the blogiversary of The Suburban Christian blog, I'd like to give out a few copies of my book The Suburban Christian. I have five copies sitting here that I'll send out for free to the first five people that contact me, whether by blog comment or e-mail or whatever. No obligation - my only request is that you really read it (rather than resell it on Amazon or eBay) and, if you're so inspired and inclined, to blog about it on your own blog, or whatever other medium might be appropriate to you. Hope you find it helpful!

So thanks again to everyone who reads or visits this blog. It's been fun to have the interaction and virtual community in this small corner of the blogosphere.