Greetings, friends! Today’s post is brought to you by the lovely Mandy from Manderz Musings. Like with many of my blog friends, I have no idea how we “meet,” but she’s quickly become one of my favorites. Her post today is a lovely view of what it’s like to be a newbie to the blogging community, how get involved and “meet” people and her take on the joys and benefits of this powerful group of people.

Nora and I met through blogging, as many of you can probably relate. A friendship starts so quickly, it often goes unnoticed. For us, a comment here, a response to a tweet there, and now, the opportunity to guest post. I am honored that Nora trusts me this much.

The timing of our relationship could not have been more meaningful to me. You see, I am a huge believer in the Law of Attraction. For those of you that may not have heard of it, the concept is that the universe responds to all your thoughts, wishes, etc and sends exactly what you “ordered” to you. I am horrible at describing something, so I’d honestly recommend a Google search if you want to find out more. Back to to the story though, I had forgotten to put this law to use for me for most of 2009. My negative thoughts attracted negative realities for me. I made the decision to make a change for the better in 2010, and to let the power of my thoughts lead the way.

I have never been the type of person to have a lot of close friends. Acquaintances, I have by the boat-load. A year ago, I followed my fiance away from my hometown and all of my friends and acquaintances. Meeting people I truly “like” has been an on-going challenge though. And so, as part of my goals for 2010, I set out to make some new friends through the blogosphere. To my way of thinking, is there any better place to meet people that share interests, thoughts, opinions with you AND are more than willing to communicate?

As I tried to figure out how to go about actually getting to know the people behind the blog, all of sudden I found posts everywhere on how to get involved. Recommendations to leave comments on blogs, respond to the people who comment on yours, send an email to someone to introduce yourself, join discussions on groups like 20sb. Now these may seem fairly obvious, but it was like a lightbulb going off in my head. A path was unfolding before my very eyes. And so I began to do what was suggested. I delurked through comments and emails, and was ecstatic when I received responses. Responses that encouraged further discussion. Twitter went from something all the cool kids were doing, to a way to follow other bloggers’ daily lives. Almost overnight, I felt myself become a part of the blogging community.

Anytime I started to stray from this involvement I so desperately wanted, a timely message or post would appear. Keeping me inspired and skipping along the path. I continued to read the blogs of those who commented on my favourite blogs. Lo and behold, I found more and more blogs and people with similar interests, or a story that captured my eye. And I made more friends.

The universe gave me exactly what I asked for: blogging friends. I did not know the “how” when I started on this journey, but the universe provided all of this knowledge for me. It just plunked everything I needed in front of me. I firmly believe that this opportunity to guest post was orchestrated by the universe. This is only the beginning of my journey. These new friendships need nurturing so that they will mature and blossom. My writing style is slowly emerging and evolving. I have no doubt that as it continues to do so, that many new blog friends will enter my life. If you want to follow along with me on this journey, I can be found at http://manderzmusings.com.

What has the universe given to you lately?