100 days of blogging | Bertram's Blog

100 Days

April 10, 2026 — Pat Bertram

January seemed to pass so slowly, I was relieved to turn the calendar to February. If nothing else, it was proof that January wasn’t going to be the permanent fixture it felt like. Now suddenly, here we are, 100 days into the year. I haven’t kept track of the days and probably wouldn’t even have noticed how much time has passed, but I got a notification yesterday that I was on a 99-day blog streak. So today is not only the 100th day of the year, but also the 100th day of daily blogging.

That’s amazing to me, to have written so much this year. To be completely honest, I haven’t been able to write every day, but since some days I wrote an extra blog or two, I have been able to post every day, which counts as daily blogging, and certainly counts as part of the “streak.”

It’s funny how this blog seems to change. At the beginning, it was all about writing, then about promoting authors. Then, after Jeff died, it was all about grief. Once I bought my house, this became something of a gardening blog. Now it seems to be mostly a book blog, though I doubt that will last long. I’m still reading, of course, but I’m only reading the books in my own miniscule library, which means rereading and re-rereading the same books. Every once in a while, I think I should go to the library and pick out something different, but the thought of looking at those same shelves for the 1000th time changes my mind. (That number isn’t hyperbole. In the seven years since I’ve been here, I’ve gone to the library about 12 times a month. That’s a lot of library visits!) I’m sure someday I’ll return, but I can’t force myself to go back quite yet.

I look for books to buy, of course, but I want them to be in the mythological epic series category, where there’s depth and meaning not available on the first, second, or even third reading, and those books are hard to find. Some such books I enjoyed the first couple of times, especially when I was young, like the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but those stories got old. As did Harry Potter. Still, I continue to look.

The point I’m trying to make is that you can’t have a book blog without books, so I’m open to a new blog path to follow. Luckily, spring is coming. Oops. Spring is already here!! We are far from January!

Now that spring is here, I can go back to writing about gardening, assuming I can find a way to engage myself in the process rather than just going through the motions as I did last year. (I’ve already been doing a lot of work, such as weeding, digging up Bermuda grass, and watering, but nothing worth rhapsodizing about.)

Or I can continue to do what I’ve always done when it comes to blogging — just wing it. Write whatever comes to mind, and if the posts end up fitting in a category, that’s fine and dandy. If not, well, they still fit in a category — me. Ultimately, whatever the subject, it comes down to my thoughts and my life, even if my life is contained in the few thousand square feet of land I occupy.

But that’s all for the future. Today I am celebrating 100 days!

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in blogging, books, gardening, life, writing. Tags: 100 days of blogging, 100th day of the year, looking for epic series, mythological epic books, spring is here. 6 Comments »

100 Days

September 23, 2020 — Pat Bertram

There are one hundred days until the end of the year. What are you going to do with those days? Will you finally get around to the New Year’s resolutions you made and promptly forgot? Are you going to slack off, giving yourself permission to take a break from the breakneck speed of your life? Are you going to get going on that novel you wanted to start, continue, finish, or edit? Are you going to make inroads in the pile of to-be-read books on your nightstand, or finally read some of those ebooks you downloaded? Are you going attempt the photography project you always wanted to do? Are you going to blog every day?

That’s what I’m going to do — recommit to blogging every day. I’ve been blogging every day for the past 365 days, and I intend to extend that commitment to the end of the year. (I’ll try to make the blogs interesting because posting something just to post something sort of negates the “challenge” part.) Feel free to join me! We can help each other, offering encouragement or topics when the will begins to wane. And it does. When I was grieving, it was easier to come up with topics than it is now when I am in a more comfortable situation. It’s hard to find lesson in being at peace. I suppose peace is a lesson in itself, but what can you say beyond that you’re at peace?

Still, I do manage to find something to write about. My sincere apologies for the more mindless posts and my eternal gratitude to everyone who reads what I write. A special thank you to those who comment, and a heartfelt appreciation for the thought-provoking responses. It’s always good to have more thoughts in my head than simply those I put there.

Even in a year as difficult and as slow as this one, the days do pass. And in 100 days it will be over. I have no great belief that next year will be better, so it’s not as though I’m counting down to the end of the year in order to get rid of this one. It’s more about taking something besides fear and isolation out of this year. It’s about making this year count, or at least making the last 100 days count. How are you going to make your days count?

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Posted in blogging, culture, life. Tags: 100 days of blogging, being at peace, blog challenge, daily blogging, last 100 days of the year, making the days count, renewing New Year's resolutions. 11 Comments »

100 Days

September 25, 2019 — Pat Bertram

There are ninety-eight days until the end of the year. What are you going to do with those days? Will you finally get around to the New Year’s resolutions you made and promptly forgot? Are you going to slack off, giving yourself permission to take a break from the breakneck speed of your life? Are you going to get going on that novel you wanted to start, continue, finish, or edit? Are you going to make inroads in the pile of books on your nightstand, or finally read some of those ebooks you downloaded? Are you going attempt the photography project you always wanted to do?

In yesterday’s blog about my twelve-year blog anniversary, I mentioned that several years ago I had made a commitment to post every day for the last 100 days of the year, and I suddenly felt as if I’d like to take up the challenge again. After all, I had already completed the first day! (Since I am getting a late start — the 100 last days began with September 23 — I will have to add the first day of the new year to make an even 100 days. Assuming I get that far. Assuming that decimal numbers are important.)

The first challenge helped me get back into writing, helped me get back into myself. Too often I am pulled in many directions, with no clear direction of what I want to do or be, so a challenge like this might be what I need to give me a bit of focus.

And challenge it will be. I have a hard time focusing my mind on any sort of writing right now. I am trying to put together a press release about my latest (and possibly my most important) book Grief: The Inside Story, but the words don’t seem to connect with me.

It’s possible this disconnect with words is due not so much to letting myself drift but falling once again into my old book-a-day reading habit. (After Jeff died, I couldn’t read because books either had a couple getting together, which made me cry, or had the couple not getting together, which made me cry, or had too many deaths, which made me cry. It was easier simply to stop reading. Compared to losing Jeff, giving up reading was easy, though it had always been a major part of my life.)

I recently read that reading and writing go hand in hand because reading is inhaling and writing is exhaling. (That’s how I always felt about reading, as if it were a type of breathing.) But now I suppose I need to try to exhale, though I’m not sure what I would be exhaling. I have little to say, no real inclination to say what I do have to say, and making a commitment goes against my current desire to drift, but what the heck. I never let a lack of wisdom stop me from blogging before.

All this is by way of warning for those of you who follow this blog. Yesterday, today, and the coming ninety-eight days are more for me, just for the discipline of writing. I don’t expect you to read or comment on my meanderings, (especially not this blog post), but if you desire to do so anyway, I will be glad of the company.

And maybe I will even be glad of a chance to stop the drift. Just drifting has been good for me, especially the past few months where I’ve been getting used to a new house, a new town, a new life, but it doesn’t really seem to accomplish much.

So, this is a start.

Perhaps.

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