426 Down, 575 To Go!

I started my blog on April 13th, 2010, which was 426 days ago!  It has been 1 year and 2 months since I started this journey, and I thought I'd write a post to talk about how I think I'm doing.

{4 from my neighbors door, 2 from the elevator at work and 6 from my stove clock.}

I find myself slightly freaking out about my ability to keep up with my daily photo goal.  I love taking the pictures, documenting all the things I do, sharing them with my readers, but I've shot myself in the foot somewhat.  I think when I originally came up with my 101 list, I thought that I'd just post the picture and call it a day.  Then I realized I wanted to explain it, tell the funny stories behind it, do that particular day justice, and well, that is slightly hard to keep up with.  It all started when my hard drive crashed and I was without a computer for about 2 weeks.  I fell behind on my posting and have been trying to play catch up ever since.  The problem with having all these fun things going on, fun things I want to share with everyone, is that I spend most of my free time doing said fun things instead of writing.  All those weekend trips to Nantucket, the Cape, Maine and New Hampshire mean that it's a weekend I am unplugged and falling even more behind on my posting.  I find myself wide awake in the middle of the night, thinking about how unbelievably behind I've fallen, but then I remind myself that I am posting things, lately I've been posting things daily, and as long as I keep chipping away and contributing to my blog, I feel successful.  The more I post the more traffic I get as well, which is a huge motivator.


Speaking of traffic, here is a breakdown of how many people read my blog.  I have 14 subscribers, meaning that 14 people have my blog posts emailed to them on the day they are posted.  Okay 13 people really, as I have my posts emailed to myself.  I like to make sure that my formatting in the emails comes through correctly, it's all about the quality control!  It's also a great way to have all my posts someplace other than Blogger.  Sometimes there are glitches, and posts are erased or posted out of order, should anything happen to the server, I want to make sure that all my posts can be recovered.  I probably have data issues stemming from the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2010.  I like to make sure things are triple backed up, just in case.  I have 41 subscribers on Google Reader, meaning that the moment I post something, it goes straight to 41 super fans' Google accounts.  I also have 39 Blogger Followers, where the posts get sent to their Google Reader accounts as well as their Blogger Home Page. That means, on any given post, 94 people are reading it.  That's not including general traffic to my blog.  According to Blogger stats, I've had 9,823 original views on my blog, which breaks down to 23 additional views a day, though lately I've been averaging 50+, before you even count the 94 various subscriptions I have.  For the past view months, I've averaged more than 1,000 page views per month, with the number right now sitting at 1,373.  I think that is pretty great if you ask me!  It makes me realize that people care about what I have to say, but I need to make sure that I keep up with the content to get people coming back.  I want to make sure that when people read my blog, they enjoy it and therefore keep reading.


I've completed 10 goals with 21 in process and am pretty proud of that.  A few goals seem obsolete now, and I think it's because I am at a different place in my life now than I was 426 days ago.  Last year I was at a job I hated.  I felt like I was floundering, that I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.  I called it a quarter life crisis and thankfully, I think I've come out of it a much stronger person.  I love my job, I love my coworkers, I love everything about where I work.  I feel successful, happy, driven and motivated, all things I couldn't associate with my last job.  Take for example goal 39. Find A Mentor.  I didn't have anyone I could talk to or look up to professionally, as my boss was disconnected from almost all aspects of my position, so I really wanted to find someone who could point me in the right direction.  Well now I have 2 great bosses who really support their employees' personal and professional growth and it has definitely filled in my development void.  I may find a mentor down the line, who knows, but for right now I feel pretty happy where I'm at.


I've built some blogging relationships, some new and some old, and I really love the support I've received from these people.  I think it has made me and some of my long standing friends closer, and has also helped me connect with some people whom I might not otherwise have met.  I look forward to reading their blogs, commenting on their posts and having them read mine.  I look forward to everything our blogs have in store for us!


I think it has been a great 426 days so far, and hope that you stick around for the next 575!  And beyond, because I have a feeling this blog isn't going anywhere anytime soon.