I began this blog after my oldest daughter, Joanna, began one of her own. I didn't want to crowd her with my comments on her blog, so I began my own. Little did I know how much I would enjoy blogging.
Readers of my blog know that I use personal affirmations to help move myself towards goals that are important to me. I have three affirmations/choices that tie closely to why I blog.
1) I choose to find delight in interacting with my wife, family, friends.
2) I choose to write to inspire and to instruct. It gives me satisfaction.
3) I enjoy the feedback my readers provide. I feel their love and care.
I work hard to be genuine. I detest hypocrisy. As an educator, I often teach writing. My master's thesis in education explored the question: Does my writing teacher write? I discovered that blogging gave me a forum for practicing the craft of genuine writing.
Blogging provides me with and opportunity to interact with my readers. I love your comments. (I also love the insights offered on your blogs. It's a two-way street.)
Blogging helps me distill out of my life those things that have inspired and instructed me. I discover what I believe through the writing process. Through blogging I've discovered a like-minded community of caring, thoughtful people.
I also enjoy the sense of unknown influence. I began my blog in October of 2008. In December, I started using Google's Analytics to track visitors. (Joanna taught me how.) Here are some statistics regarding my blog that Analytics has compiled since December of 2008:
1,058 unique visitors
5,608 page-views
2,374 visits from 60 countries. (Top 5: US, UK, Taiwan, Canada, India)
1,820 visits from the US (47 states -- just missing S. Dakota, W. Virginia, and New Jersey)
Analytics provides me with a sense of involvement in the blog-o-sphere, but it is my regular readers and comment-ers who motivate me to blog. You are the ones who inspire me share my musings and miscellaneous thoughts. Thanks for your friendship and involvement.
Happy Saturday!
Don, congrats on 200! Your blog is one of my favorites. I appreciate your positive perspective on life and your generous sharing of ideas. Keep writing Don! You have some happy readers here :)
ReplyDeleteThose look like cherry tomatoes. Did you grow them?
ReplyDelete@September: Back at ya. I enjoy your blog as well. It's fun watching you navigate your voyage with family in tow. Your humor, poetry, and commentary on life are a daily enjoyment.
ReplyDelete@Dennis: You got it: cherry tomatoes. (Circa Christmas '08 in Palm Springs Farmer's Market) Joanna was with me (from Illinois) and marveled at the Winter bounty available in Palm Springs in December.
Cherry tomatoes at Christmas. Baaaaah humbug!
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Thanks for blogging, Don!
@Saphron: There is a reason people move to California. The growing season is longer, in fact, in parts of state it never ends. (Contrast this: the main crop of Nova Scotia is winter wheat, which they grow in the summer.) The down side? I have to mow my yard year-round. (Once a week Fall, Spring, and Summer. Once every two weeks in the "Winter.") The up side? I never have to shovel snow. (But I can visit snow in the winter: a two hour drive into the local mountains.)
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