Grateful

        Thanksgiving seemed ideal to express my gratitude on how wonderful an experience this blog has been for me as a learning experience and also as something fun in my life.
      You readers and followers have been such a blessing to me and I was blessed with such a wonderful bunch that the sweet number of you guys TOTALLY out-ruled the haters. :) I think for every negative remark or e-mail or comment there were 5 positive ones!
       This span of time writing on here has improved my capacity to understand a community online, meet new people and write and take photos. This has truly been one thing I will not forget. Racing home to write a post or take pictures or read other blogs had been such an enormous highlight that shined on.
     So thank you. All of you. Every single hair on your head deserves the highest of praises for giving me such a feeling of love and welcoming and friendship.
    I know that even though my time writing these posts were ultimately numbered (and my gaps in between posts has been apparent) in that this blog is going to retire.
      All blogs, as dolls do, have a point of time when they must just be an archive, something to look back on, something to remember.
         I know we always consider when a doll retires something sad. Their time as a girl's toy being able to be pulled off the shelves has been ended, but ultimately there is always a new generation of wonderful new dolls that follow giving more insight, more info and more enjoyment.
This is my archival.
       I am realistic about this in that I'm sure a very limited number of you will be reading this as I have neglected this sight for so long and haven't been involved that my page-views and followers have plummeted.
But that was always going to happen. I know that there would always come a point with a final breath, a final wave, and final "goodbye, friend."
     And of course, as Dr. Suess says "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
I am beaming that I was able to impact people, that I had a voice people took the time to listen to, that I improved so many of my life skills that I will hang onto forever because of this wonderful, wonderful blog.
      "My American Girl" became "Your American Girl" and I am SO grateful for that. Honest to goodness I am so grateful that I was able to do this all the way up until the year 2013. For three years! THREE YEARS!
     I am grateful I was able to do something I loved and make it my own while connecting with readers like you. That you could make this your own as well.
       I started small, with a few cruddy pictures here and there and I BLOSSOMED. I grew with the page-views and I grew with the readers and I grew through the mean comments and the harsh emails and I LOVED you ALL. Remember that.

 I want my last few words on here to convey not GOODBYE but THE END, because this has been one long, beautiful, lovely, amazing fairy tale that was unimaginable in the first place but the unimaginable HAPPENED. And that gives me HOPE.
    So thank you. Thank you from the very, bottom of my heart. Even to the ones who called this blog "crap" and "stupid" and "****" and whatever else because it was MY "crap" and "stupidity" and my "****". You taught me to dance in the rain, haters. Ha.
    I've put so much blood and sweat and tears into this but also so much love and laughter and passion into here.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” -Buddha

So this is my final hurrah. My last wave. This is the time I felt was right to archive "My American Girl". You can look back at old posts and old photos to your heart's content and I hope you liked your time here as much as I did. 

And Happy Thanksgiving, and Merry Christmas, Happy Easter, Happy Halloween and a Happy New Year for every year to come. I love you all so much, but I'm stepping down. I'm letting YOU be my successors. 

     I know you all can be wonderful, beautiful people that I know you can be and I hope that as one door closes (mine) that one door opens (yours).

   So my dolls will take a rest from the limelight on a special spot in my closet and in my heart. One day soon they will be something my sisters can play with and love and enjoy, but in the future they will belong to my daughter someday, for her to think "Cool! My mom liked dolls once too!". That's a future to look forward to for those dolls. :) Someday I hope I have a daughter or niece or somebody to pass on this love and treasure that was once mine but can become theirs.

So you guys are the future, the heirs to the throne, the beautiful AG community I have so much faith and respect and love for. I dare you to dream!

And I hope you all live Happily Ever After. 

THE END