One Hundred Blogs and Counting

JJS informed me that my one-hundredth blog posting was coming up, and so I feel compelled to acknowledge the occasion. You know, 100 is a big, round number and therefore deserves some attention. Although it's a little confusing to know exactly when it is. My records on blogger say that it's this one although on my page itself I'm one short, I think that's because I deleted "Getting Over It" (the one about forgiveness) after some people seemed uncomfortable with what I wrote about in that post.

Anyways, what is most amazing to me is not that I have managed to find 100 things to write about (the subject matter is infinite) but that some people in this world have actually bothered to READ 100 things that I have to say. It is both flattering and surprising to me that anyone would take an interest in this stuff.

Writing this blog has had some interesting results that I could not have predicted. I originally started it as a way to keep connected with the people I knew from work who I would no longer be seeing on a daily basis when I left. I imagined that I would post pictures of the fish I caught and that would be about it. It turned out that only a few of the work people kept checking in. But then it became a way for some old friends that I don't communicate with nearly enough to keep an eye on what's going on with me. And some relatives found out a way to get glimpses into my life that just don't come out at family gatherings. Some of the people that I do interact with more regularly have also found it fun to watch for what appears in here, probably just in case it happens to include a mention of them! (defensive blog reading) Just to keep my ego in check there are plenty of people in my life who have no interest whatsoever in looking at all of this, and I do get that. (But I get to mention them all I want, heh heh heh)

Also, now that I've been doing this for a while sometimes when something happens that clearly amuses me I'll notice whoever I'm with questioning whether it will show up in the blog. Usually not, but you never know.

Another thing that has happened is that some of my readers have turned into bloggers themselves! It is a total delight to be able to read about other people I know, and all of them have far more interesting things to write about that I ever have. (There are links on the sidebar, check them out!)

I like to keep tinkering with different things I can do. I put an advertisement on because I was curious about the messages they were sending me, that google would automatically crawl my site and then post ads with relevance to the subject matter. It amuses me to see how the automatic program interprets my posts. Plus I have earned a virtual 30 cents!

I also have google analytics on here, which doesn't tell me what I really want to know (who's looking at this and what do they think about it?) But contains fascinating information nonetheless. It has counted over 4,887 page visits from 886 different visitors in over 30 countries. Before I start feeling too famous I see that most of them are random hits from people who are searching for something else. The neat thing is that it tells you what they were searching for. Such as "monkey head string lights," "what does dew point have to do with dragon breath?" and "person behind baby bop costume." So far as I can tell nobody who has arrived through random means has ever elected to return!

And finally, I have found that I just like doing this, as I said it's my "artistic expression" and everyone needs one of those whether it's music or painting or decorating cakes. Sometimes this serves as a way to work something out that I'm thinking about. Other times it's like I'm communicating with an imaginary friend, always there to listen when I have something I want to talk about. And every so often I get some feedback, either through comments or conversations, where someone tells me that something I wrote made them laugh, or think a little, or reminded them of their own experience. To make a connection with another person, in whatever way, well it just feels great to do that.

So happy 100th blogaversary to me! I am humbled and appreciative that you choose to read this, and I hope that you continue to do so. Blog on!