Looking Back To Move Forward

Instead of jumping in and trying to catch up a couple *cough* weeks, I thought I’d recap what happened on the blog in 2014 and share what I gleaned from doing a 52 Week Project. I’ll admit there were weeks where I struggled to get anything up but for the most part the highlight of my week was carving out that time, time spent just doing something solely because I enjoy it. That’s a big deal, giving yourself permission to step over the laundry basket, push aside the stack of unpaid bills and just create. That’s really why I started doing the recaps every week, I was hoping that the habit of shooting and writing would help jump start that mojo again. But when I do start to spend more and more time here, the justification argument begins to creep in and I find it hard to come up with more than a couple reasons with the why. Do I make money doing this? Heck no. Has it lead to other work? Yes. I try to remind myself of the latter. Perhaps a little bit of wishful thinking on my part but sometimes you just gotta hold onto the idea that one thing leads to the next. So here we are, 2015. I now have a year of documentation to look back on. I already know what’s going to happen here, I’m going to see kids change adults no so much.

What WordPress had to say about 2014

At the end of the year I get a nice little report from the wordpress.com plugin Jetpack, it tells me how many visitors I had, top 10 posts, where people come from and what websites send me the most traffic. I look forward to it every January.

There are no surprises here, Pinterest is the #1 referrer along with The Pioneer Woman (xoxo), Facebook, Twitter and my photo site.

Top stories are always Make A Slideshow for Instagram Using Flipagram Photo Canvas Printing from Costco, Trader Joes Chunky Lentil Dip, Ina’s Celery Root Puree and A Year In Review using Flipagram – year after year. I know kinda zzzzzz isnt it. I’m thinking about ways I can shake this up.

No earthshattering news there as they are frequent squatters the sidebar under Top Posts Today. Which make me realize something, people are coming here because they want to read about one thing, not my weekly recaps, which begs the question, do I keep writing the other stuff, weekly recaps included. That’s a difficult question to answer because I don’t know the behaviors well enough of my regular readers, I know I have a handful, and because most of you get your posts via email I never get to “see” you. I’m going to start truncating the posts via email to see if that doesn’t help bring some of you out from behind the couch. Maybe then it will feel a little less lonely. If you aren’t a subscriber already you can here >> email sign up.

The infographic below tells me that I was pretty consistent up until June where the wheels fell off and then again in October, where I posted 4 weeks worth of updated in a few days. Looks like the best day to come visit and find something new is on a Monday. Committing yourself to a weekly project will help keep you on track for posting consistently, one of the golden rules of blogging (along with alotta other ones.)

Looking back I’m glad I have all the moments documents, I feel better for getting stuff off my chest like I did in Week 10 and sometimes surprised at myself for being so open about life’s darker moments like Week 7. But I try to remain committed to the basic task of documenting and sharing, sorting through it all and making sense of this thing called life and how to make each day COUNT. So maybe I am done with the reflecting, maybe doing this for another year might make me feel like Bill Murray trapped in an infinite loop (Groundhog Day.) which by the way everyone need to see at least once.

Plans for 2015

The blog turns five this year in March, I know … FIVE and one thought always comes to mind, and you must think this too, how log can I keep doing this? I thought with my return to the workforce two years ago that I wouldn’t have time to keep this up and I’m partially right I really have ten million better things to do but I still love it. I admit having a desk job AND blogging is a real body killer and that is something I have to change immediately or I won’t physically be able to enjoy either in the near future. Every passing day of the new year THIS is becoming abundantly clear, so I need to make some touch decisions on where to spend my time. Suddenly I have a 17 year old whose beginning to show cracks from the pressure of finishing high school and choosing which college to attend. Seems the out of state schools are starting to look less and less appealing the closer we get to making a selection, so I plan to spent every extra minute I can to help steer him in the right direction, which is incredibly hard given the fact that I have my own agenda. I regret not going to a big school and having memories of dorm rooms, football games and college sweatshirts.

sidenote: parents with sons go watch Boyhood and then read Love Life by Rob Lowe.

Then there is the 8 soon to be 9 year old whom I loving call my shadow. She wants to be next to me 24/7 as in skin to skin we need to be touching one another when we read together, watch TV, anything. So you can imagine me sitting at the computer for hours at a time doesn’t really work for her. When I walk out of the kitchen mug in hand her reply is “bye.”

Its a bone of contention with more than one person in this house so I’m trying to change things one micro action at a time with the help of a new little app called YOU by Jamie Oliver. My sister and I have been encouraging one another to stay on track and do the daily challenges. The app serves up one weekly challenge along with daily challenges, ones that you complete, take a photo and post to share how you completed the task. The idea behind the app is that small changes lead to new ways of thinking new ways of thinking lead to remapping in the brain which inturn least o new habits forming. I totally believe that is the way to change, small steps. If you join in come find me I’m of course modchik.