My First Inner Circle of Jelly Beans a.k.a. My First Love...

When I first started blogging, I had this wonderful blog called *The Sum Total of Me*, and it was dedicated to someone that has made a huge difference in my life. It was written with so much love, and the people I met through that first blog were just amazing. They had become like a second family to me. However, I was holding a dirty little secret--sometimes my blogging was a threat to people in my "real life" and so one day, I got so angry, that I deleted my blog. Since then, every blog I've tried to create was like one of those boyfriends you end up with on the rebound, just not a good situation to be in. May I just say, that deleting that blog ranks right up there with the regret of not finishing college, or the regrets I have with choices I've made day to day as a parent, daughter, sister, wife and friend.

I've tried writing blogger and even offered money to recover all those writings that came straight from my heart but have not been successful. I still check on all those wonderful people I met three years ago. The circle of life just continues when I visit their blogs, and it's like seeing an old friend I've missed desperately. Some of those friends have lost siblings, marriages have ended, new loves have been found, parental figures have died, job changes have taken place, kids have gone off to college, children have taken their first step or entered the world of elementary school, some have become wonderful photographers, giving me an even deeper glimpse into their soul--and with all this, I realize it's LIFE in the making and it's those human experiences that have moved me personally and sometimes made me laugh or cry that I MISS SO MUCH.

Here's to you: Kate, befrank, gemmak, leeza, jenny, littlemissdrinkalot, tara, terry, mia goddess... and all the others that were my first love, including my miss D. I'm going to jump in again... and for those just joining, I found this in a google search. It's an old review from the Web Log, which sums up perfectly what I hope this "continued version" of the original blog will be:

"The Sum Total of Me opens with a generic blogger template. While it is not a fantastic template, the template works very well for this blog. Something that few templates can do. This isn't known until about halfway through all the posts, so please don't let that get to you.

The Sum Total of Me is about True Willow. It wasn't until the last post I read (the first post of the blog) that I fully understood the title of this site. TW says Like an irritable child I asked her why, and I will never forget what she said, �Because we are the sum total of everything we have been through in life.� She goes on to dedicate this site to the person who told her this quote and the first post was very moving for me.

The blog is just what it says; the total of the author. The posts range from childhood memories to current events happening within TW's life. She talks about her children, her friends, and her family. She is a teacher, and her words are well chosen. I was amazed at how quickly I was drawn into this site.

This site is hard to review without just pulling quotes from the site. I read each post and genuinely felt emotion with each. Sometimes I laughed, sometimes I almost cried which is a first for me as a reviewer, and sometimes I was scared for her, just as she was when telling a story. This site reads like a great movie with flashbacks in key points to give us that much more character development. To say that this is a story is kind of misleading, as each piece makes up a different part of the puzzle. I enjoyed my time here, and look forward to spending more here."

This site was reviewed on 2004-11-20 by Brent.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
Brent felt that The Sum Total Of Me deserved a rating of 4.


Later Jelly Bean!

~TW