Happy hundred!

It’s true, it’s true! This marks my hundredth post. And what better way to celebrate than with 10 lists of 10? Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy. Here’s to the next hundred!

My 10 favorite posts to write

1. Love in the time of tempera

2. On dishwasher duty and delayed gratification

3. The necessary seasons of singleness

4. I’m a person, not a type.

5. New York, I love you.

6. There’s a place for us

7. He’s a good, good father.

8. Finding peace in the empty piazza

9. The comfort of change and the risk of stability

10. True joy in a parish hall

My 10 most-used words

1. love

2. life

3. time

4. just

5. day

6. way

7. one

8. know

9. new

10. heart

10 random blog statistics

1. 43,078 words

2. 3,802 sentences

3. 909 paragraphs

4. Estimated reading time: 216 minutes

5. Average word length: 4.4 characters

6. Average sentence length: 11.3 words

7. Readability level: 9-10th grade student

8. Countries Abundant Life has been read in: 23

9. Longest word: incomprehensibility

10. Longest sentence: "But because I like to look ahead with confident hopefulness, and because I have the habit of soaking up moments such as sitting around the dinner table with dear friends for hours and happily running my regular route along the river for the umpteenth time and sitting daily in a chapel with Jesus who exists so mysteriously outside of time, I feel perfectly justified in taking countless trips down memory lane."

My 10 favorite images

10 writers and blogs that inspire me

1. Blessed Is She daily devotions

2. Bishop Barron’s daily reflections

3. FemCatholic

4. The Young Catholic Woman

5. Malleable Road, Mary McGinley (a dear friend)

6. Rivers and Roads, Ruth Kalscheur (another dear friend)

7. In Honor of Design, Anna Liesemeyer

8. Whole Parenting Family, Nell O’Leary

9. Mothering Spirit, Laura Kelly Fanucci

10. Alanna Boudreau’s blog

10 topics I’d like to write about

1. The YMCA

2. Training for a triathlon

3. Race and racism

4. Making new friends

5. Long-distance friendship

6. The habit of regular reading

7. Watching Alzheimer’s consume my grandparents

8. The struggle not to let our work define us

9. Music I love

10. Hospitality

10 titles of posts in my drafts folder (that I may or may not ever complete)

1. These many endless days

2. The wiles of workaholism

3. DIY suffering

4. Into the deep

5. On big, fat, juicy miracles

6. Forever alone and other falsehoods

7. FRC won’t let me be

8. On getting over myself

9. A pushover and her preferences

10. Spilled ink in a factory world

10 lessons I’ve learned from blogging

1. It pays to plan ahead, but I do work great under pressure.

2. The internet is vast. And accessible to people all over the world. Like, people in France and Australia the Philippines who I’ll never know. Which brings me to…

3. As much as I’d love to know who each reader is who stumbles upon this space, you’re entirely anonymous to me. And that’s something for me to accept, embrace, and be intrigued by!

4. When it’s offered with prudence and grace, vulnerability is very much worth the risk.

5. While not my primary love language, words of affirmation from kind commenters do mean so very much to me.

6. It’s easy to be consumed by cares of popularity, but in the end, I love, love, love blogging for its own sake.

7. The power of habit is strong. As is a public declaration to a weekly commitment. As is my desire to be a woman of my word, even if no one is paying attention.

8. Capturing profound memories—especially of travel—in written form is a great balm to bouts of nostalgia.

9. As much as I’d like to believe otherwise, I am completely susceptible to typos and other errors of all sorts.

10. Blogging every week helps me to see the world differently, to notice more intentionally, to look for patterns and gifts and seasons, and to be grateful—in other words, to live a more abundant life.

10 goals I have as a writer

1. Write more poetry.

2. Write more about scripture.

3. Write more letters.

4. Write fiction. (It scares me!)

5. Go to the Writers Meetup in Philly.

6. Blog more series.

7. Begin a regular habit of reading. (Which, I’ve heard, will help me become a better writer.)

8. Write more posts in advance.

9. Ask for edits and feedback.

10. Write for other blogs.

10 questions I have for you

1. Who are you?

2. How did you find this blog?

3. What other blogs, if any, do you read?

4. Have you read any good books lately?

5. Of those that you’ve read, do you have a favorite post on Abundant Life? Least favorite?

6. What moves you?

7. What helps you to live an abundant life?

8. If you were to write a blog, what would it be about? (Or if you already have one, what is it about?)

9. As a whole, would you say your time spent on the internet is life-giving? Why or why not?

10. What is one of your hopes for the year ahead?

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Thanks for reading, and for being here! Anonymous or not, you help to make this pursuit—of blogging, of abundant life, of vulnerability—entirely worth it.