Break out the champagne and cake, the blog is celebrating a birthday. Yep last Friday was the anniversary of my first post. Can you believe it has been a year? What a ride. At times I have felt like Alice stepping through the looking-glass into a wild and crazy world. There have been moments I thought I was getting the hang of it, and others where it was patently obvious I didn’t have a bloody clue what I was doing.

I have tried to find my “voice”, wondered what on earth would be interesting for you guys to read about, worried I was producing self-indulgent drivel, and agonised over being nicheless. Now I’ve decided to adopt Susannah Conway’s take on personal blogging “it’s the magazine of me”.  I’ve created a mission statement for my blog, nicking a quote from Elisabeth Murdoch in her MacTaggart Lecture “We are here to tell great stories, to inspire our audience and to build a sense of community.” She was talking about television but it fits perfectly with what I want to achieve in my blogging space.

Starting a blog (and finding some readers) was one of my Project 44 goals. So what did I manage to achieve in the blogosphere in one year?

I have attended two conferences, Word Camp and Nuffnang Blogopolis.

I have completed two blogging courses Blogging Your Way and Blogging from the Heart, and am just now working on Blogging Your Way Boot Camp.

For those of you fascinated by the stats of others, here’s the geeky stuff (non-bloggers hang in there).

According to my WP stats, I’ve published 298 posts. If we estimate roughly 400 words per post (most are longer but the photo posts don’t have a lot of words in them) I’ve probably cracked the 100,000 words written, maybe around 119,000? Gosh, there’s the book I wanted to write.

WP stats say I have had 27,429 page views since I began.

My best day for page views (262) was May 22nd, when Eden from Edenland told people I existed.

My top posts number wise were What’s a Perfect Life? Probably because my top search term is what is a perfect life? Although naked 50-year-old woman also makes a strong appearance because I once wrote about the Deborah Hutton’s Women’s Weekly Cover. Over at wordpress.com my top post had been Waiting a photo taken by Hippie Child where I talked about the games the girls played with the dogs. Sadly, both dogs died throughout the year.

You lovely people have left 2,783 comments (thank you).

According to Google Analytics I manage around 7,000 page views per month and have 1,000 unique visitors each 30 days.

How does that shape up? I have no idea. I suspect there are others who started at the same time as me who have done a lot better than that, however, given this little blog is written in the early hours of the morning, or late, late at night, after I meet the obligations of my real world job, two children and a bemused husband who is still trying to understand the POINT of blogging, I reckon we’ll just enjoy what has been achieved.

Where to next? Well it typical Shambolic style I have a million and one ideas, this next twelve months will see me putting some of them into practice. I’m planning to do some regular series of posts, which I think you will find interesting. I’m setting goals for increasing visitors. I’m also going to do a little bit of (tentative) monetising. At a minimum the blog will need to cover its costs so it doesn’t impact on the family budget, ’cause let’s be honest the family budget is fully subscribed particularly by those pesky children who insist on being feed and educated.

Finally, some appreciation needs to be awarded. To my non-blogger friends who were the first to start reading – Veronica, Jenny, Diane, Kim (from work), Kim (from America), Sarah,  Terri, Jodie, Leanne, Therese, Michele and Kylie. Also Ally and Lesley (two of the best amateur PR’s in town they are constantly telling people to come and read my blog – to the point where another soccer mum started quoting my words to me ’cause Lesley had told her to go read this great blog, halfway through I realised she was talking about my team sports post, I got to say “I wrote that” like some sort of famous person!). My family, Mum (Betty), Robin and now Dorothy too.

There’s nothing like having your boss and your mother read you blog to keep you very conscious of what you say on-line!!

Also very special thanks to my brother, David who provides the beautiful sea and animal photographs I feature on the blog each week. (Can you please dropbox me some more we are running low).

I also want to say a very big thank you to Noreen from beauty of everyday life. Even from thousands upon thousands of miles away I can tell she is a really sweet and kind person, she visits and comments all the time, not just on my blog but on many others. Her calm, zen like presence is a direct counter to my frenetic shambles.

My other big commenters were  Orpels (Marcy King), I was on a high for days after she commented that my writing reminded her of Erma Bombeck. The delightful Chrystina Noel who’s instagram conversation with me about s’mores continues to generate page views from people wanting to know how to make them in Australia (who would have thought???).  The wonderful First and Fabulous who is indeed fabulous. The lovely Madhu from the Urge to Wander who is currently wandering through Japan. The literary Diana Douglas who has just self-published two books, well done!!!

To each and every one of you who have taken the time out of your busy days to visit my little space. I value very much your repeated visits, whether you throw in a comment or enjoy in silence I  am very grateful  for your presence and your sharing of my posts.

Here’s to an even bigger year ahead, now I’m off to eat cupcake.