the seven year itch

This just in: I have officially been blogging for seven years Sometimes putting my thoughts out into the world makes me feel like that guy up there (minus the man junk), but mostly blogging is a wonderful part of my life. I am so thankful–and frankly surprised!–to have all of you lovely readers.

I ought to start off by mentioning that in the first three years of blogging, there were four readers (parents and grandparents: check). During that time, I had an all-time high of a whopping EIGHT views of any particular post. Eight! Ah, the pre-Facebook era of blogging. **crickets** To offer perspective, these days I usually get eight views within an hour of posting, even at 7:30 am!

From this analysis of the pageviews of yore, I gained the awareness that my tiny cadre of readers enjoyed when I bitched about being sick while traveling in Sweden. I had a low point of ZERO views for two posts, one about relaxing in our little British town (note to self: never title a post “laying low”…yawn), and the other about the boat race between Oxford and Cambridge. This means that if you go read them now, you will literally be the first reader. Get on it!

It was fun to go back and read some of those oldies. Real life happened, y’all. It’s only in the last half a year that I have really begun to share the blog with the outside world, and it has been a fun experiment I plan to continue. Here are some of my favorite posts from the last six months:

I’m all analytical and stuff, where I analyzed my readers and provided the toy rotation tip. And the great wooden train!

I am the fiyah startah, where I ran free-boobied to the post office.

A goat rodeo, where I prepared for thanksgiving and drove home blindly.

As part of my blogiversary celebration, I’ve decided to host my first giveaway in a few days. I wouldn’t host a giveaway normally, but this time I’m really excited to share an awesome toy I’ve been having fun with lately. Sorry to be so vague. More soon!

I live for the comments you leave, so if you’re on the fence about popping out to say hello, I hope you know it means a lot to me. I learn from YOU! I am borrowing a cool blogger’s idea (Heather @ The Extraordinary Ordinary) to ask you to add a comment below letting me know where you are reading from…i.e. your city and state. It was fun browsing through Heather’s readers, and I managed to connect with a reader who’s in my area. So if you’re a reader of this blog, either a newbie or an old-timer, and you don’t often comment, here’s how:

1. First click the post title (i.e. up where it says “the seven year itch”) so that you are looking only at this post instead of all the posts.

2. See there at the bottom of the post where it says “Add New Comment”? Here, I took a picture:

3. Just start typing in that box. Then click “Post as…,” and you can either post as a guest or use one of your existing accounts to log in (just makes an already quick process that much quicker).

That’s it! Easy peasy, huh?

I’m looking forward to seeing where all of you are, since I feel somehow like I know you already.

Thanks!
~J

p.s. Pic is from our trip to Sweden in ’06.