first birthday!
Creative Commons License photo credit: smcgee

Happy First Birthday| Blog for Parents and Caregivers of People with Disabilities

Can you believe it? On July 21, 2011 ClimbingEveryMountain.Com celebrated its first birthday.

Fellow Climbers

Parents, Caregivers, Advocates, Friends

Parents, Caregivers, Friends and Advocates of people with disabilities need each other. Our journey up the mountain is exhausting and treacherous.

We climb, not because we want to, not because we think it is a fun challenge, not because “it is there”—we climb our mountains out of need—OUR CHILD’S NEED, OUR NEED.

For the past year, this blog has been a basecamp where interesting people from around the world add their ideas, personal stories, ups and downs, advice and expertise. To everyone in our Climbing Every Mountain Community, your love and friendship means so much.

There have been 120 blog posts of original content and 1,261 comments. Here are the first posts which explain what this blog is all about. I’ve updated a couple things, but the mission holds true. I hope you agree.

Shouting my Commitment | Is anybody there?

Climbing Every Mountain is a Team Effort| What this blog is about

I am thankful for each of your comments, emails, phone calls and the many other ways you have reached out to our team. Together we are better. Together, we can each work for inclusion in our own way, and the ripple effect will be that our individual efforts will change the world, not only for people with disabilities, but for all of us.

Google Analytic Statistics for July 21, 2010 to July 21, 2011:

There have been 12,184 visits to https://climbingeverymountain.com from 114 countries/territories. The top ten include: US, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Philippines, India, Ireland, Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand….

3,664 returning visitors. 19,216 Page Views. 1.58 pages a visit.

I’m sure some of these visitors were looking for The Sound of Music or some mountain peak vacation adventure, but I know many were looking for our basecamp for parents, caregivers and advocates. I know Google expects visitors to spend more time on the site and look at several articles each visit, but thank you for a terrific start.

First Birthday Cake
Creative Commons License photo credit: hfb

Tech Support

Climbing Every Mountain has a terrific group of people who help with the tech support. I’m a novice blogger and they have held my hand and guided me up the social media mountain. Real mountain climbers need good equipment and guides, thanks for giving me a safety net and strong lifeline:

Tim Gary

Mindcue: Brilliant Ideas Deserve Brilliant Websites (security, tech support, hardware and software issues, fighting off hackers, bad guys, and encouraging a very insecure webmaster.)

Johnny B. Truant

Johnny creates inexpensive websites and helped me with the start-up, plus he coauthored, Question the Rules, a course for non-traditional thinkers.

Cheerleader Team

Alison Golden

The Secret LIfe of a Warrior Women Alison is my blogging partner and has been a terrific source of information and encouragement. We met at Question the Rules. She is a strong advocate for her children. Her gentle spirit and humor are her secret weapons in being a warrior woman.

A special shout-out to my friends at OVRWA. You help me believe in “happy ever afters” and pick me up when I post an article and get more spam than comments.

Learning to venture into the real community outside Disability World is one of the cornerstones of inclusion. If we want this for our children, we need to learn to build community for ourselves. Alison and OVRWA are helping me learn to be “normal.”

Mentor Team

Sylvie and Michel Fortin

Success Chef Academy Every Wednesday night, Sylvie and Michel serve up an “over the shoulder” look at how to create your own success story. In their informal style, they have taught me about the back and front end of an online business. I’ve come to depend on their advice and personal encouragement. Many of my future goals for Climbing Every Mountain are based on what I am learning in the Success Chef Test Kitchen.

James Chartrand

Men with Pens has also been generous in her encouragement. She is working for social justice in her own way, and reminds me each website must have simple design and good writing. It was her gentle push that finally gave me the courage to take the leap into blogging.

Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan has more ideas than anyone I know. He also takes those ideas and makes companies, and they make money. (That’s certainly different than anyone I know in non-profit and disability world.) He has a geek brain, but… he can translate it into everyday, everyman language. Chris made one tweet about Climbing Every Mountain and I got more traffic that one day, than in a month. He is the guru of social media and helps non-profits. Plus, he talks about his kids and parents. Pretty neat.

There are many others, thanks to each of you.

Best. Cake. Evar.
Creative Commons License photo credit: Ѕolo

Aaron wouldn’t let us end a birthday celebration without a song. Blake Roberts suggested The Climb as a theme song for our Climbing Every Mountain blog. I would like to ask you to listen to the inspiring words and feel proud of everything YOU have accomplished this year. Enjoy the digital magic created by Blake Roberts and Snoopi Botten using DecTalk, an augmented communication software program.

Pastor Snoopi Botten and Blake Roberts have added their magic digitalized and visual effects to The Climb

(click on link)

Keep Climbing: Onward and Upward.

All my best,

Mary

Comments:

What was your favorite post this year? Any suggestions or comments for next year?

Popular articles:

America the Beautiful|Through the autism car window

For more about Blake Roberts and Snoopi Botten, check out Do you hear what I hear, Do you see what I see? for their amazing story.