2011 Top 5 blog posts

I love looking at the stats on my blog.  It’s really interesting to me to know what people view on my blog, how they get there, how they leave, where they’re from, etc.  I love it.

I decided to review the top 5 blog posts of the year, according to my stats.  I got this idea from my friend Jessica’s blog, except she did the top 11.  My stats don’t show me the top 10 of the year, it goes from monthly to all time, so some of the top 10 are from other years.  Oh well.  Five is enough anyway.

So here are my top 5, most reviewed, blogs for 2011.

 

5.  To my sweet daughter – My letter to Abbie for her 2nd birthday.  It’ll be fun one day to look back and have a whole bunch of these letters to remember the years gone by.  I’m glad we started this tradition.  Which reminds me, I need to do one for Ben’s birth.

4.  Girls weekend in Vegas -  Seems like this trip was a LONG time ago.  I find it funny that this is in the top 5.  I think people just search for “girls weekend in Vegas” and then decide to look at my blog when it pops up in the search results.

3.  I hate my haircut – This one REALLY cracks me up that it’s in my top 5.  Again, I think random people just google phrases so they can get a good laugh, otherwise why on earth would this one be in the top 5?  Out of all the things I wrote about this year… Really?  By the way, I still hate that haircut.  Thank God my friend Rachel fixed it while I was at home.  I like my haircut MUCH more now!

2.  Postage stamp quilt-along – This one also surprises me, but it’s fun to look back on this.  I really, really miss quilting and I wish I had more time to devote to playing with all the fabric that I have sitting downstairs on the shelf waiting for me.  I really love everything about quilting and I feel so productive when I finish a quilt.  Too bad it takes me MONTHS to finish one quilt.  Someday my kids will be grown up and I’ll have tons of time to devote to quilting, and then I’ll be wishing my kids were still the ages they are now.

1.  This summer’s bucket list – Apparently people like bucket lists.  I, personally, like any kind of list.  I did manage to do most of the things I wanted to do this summer.  There were a few things I didn’t do, and some things I wish had been on the list but weren’t, but overall, I was pretty successful with this.  And if this was a top 10 list, This summer’s bucket list (REVISED) would have been #7 on the list!

Blog readers

I love the new “stats” tab that the Blogger dashboard now has.  I love having an idea of who is reading my blog and I like to know that there are actual people reading it!  I’m shocked at some of the places though, that people are reading my blog from! 

Yesterday I had 47 people look at my blog. 37 were from the States.  Eight people were from Germany.  I’m guessing most of those are fellow military spouses stationed in Germany.  Four were in Italy – again military friends.  Two were in South Korea, which I’m guessing are also friends stationed overseas.  I had 2 views from Saint Lucia and I have NO clue who that would be.  I also had 1 from the Netherlands, 1 from Russia, 1 from Saudi Arabia and 1 from Taiwan.  And I have no clue who those people might be either.  It’s so interesting to me to know where my readers live!  And all of that was just from yesterday!

I also notice a bunch of people coming over from friends (Alison and Cheyenne) blogs, which I love!  From May of 2010 until now I’ve had close to 5500 views on my blog, which just shocks me!  Considering 6 months ago I wasn’t sure anyone was looking at it, except for friends and family that I email it to, it boggles my mind to know that THAT many people are reading it!

So thank you for following my blog!  And I love having followers so feel free to add yourself as a follower if you haven’t already!

Cheers!

A slew of updates

So here's a bunch of updates, in random order.

I changed the commenting section on the blog, so it should be easier to leave comments now.  You don't have to type in the word verification now.  I find that annoying.  I'll leave it like this, as long as I don't start getting a bunch of spam comments (cuz I hear that happens if you change it sometimes).  If I start getting a bunch of spam comments I'll change it back, but we'll try this for a while.  Leave a comment!  I LOVE getting comments.  Those of you that comment frequently - thanks.  I truly appreciate it and it makes me feel like people are actually reading when I write.  =)

We went sewing machine shopping today and I think I decided on one.  I think I'm going to get the Janome 6260QC, which is an entry level quilting/sewing machine.  I was looking seriously at the Brother NX-450, but the owner of the shop said she recommended Janome over Brother, and the Janome was $100 cheaper anyway so I went with that one.  They didn't have it in the store, but they're getting it from another one of their stores in the Phoenix area.  I'm going in Tuesday to pick it up and take a class.  I'm excited.

Supposedly we're getting orders early next week.  Apparently it was a "close call" according the Mark's squadron commander and we almost didn't go to Aviano, but he said we "barely squeaked by".  Long story... If you want to know all the details, let me know.  But we're hoping to get orders next week.  I'm not holding my breath until we're on the plane there.  The whole thing just doesn't look promising at all, but hopefully his commander wasn't "kidding" and we actually are still going to Aviano. 

That's about it for now.  Keep your fingers crossed for us...