Happy Blogaversary to Me!

One year ago today!

Normally I don’t post on Tuesdays very often, but today is a special day.

It’s my One Year Blogaversary!

One year ago today, I posted my first official post, My First Morsel, on this blog.

I wasn’t new to blogging, I’d had blogs on and off on varying topics since believe it or not, 1999 when my brother set one up for me with the birth of my first daughter. I will say, with a newborn, I did not post on that one very often! But, I was a blogger before most people (even me) really knew what a blog was.

Through the years I had a rubber stamping and scrapbooking blog, a blog of all my newspaper articles and a blog of our family recipes.

I loved them all, but with the amount of writing I need to do for my newspaper job, I needed to find one blog where I could post all of that and more, anything that I wanted to write about or share, all in one place. I didn’t want to limit myself to just one topic, but I did want to limit myself to only one blog!

And so, The Whole Bag of Chips was born. It was a place where for the last year I tried to find my way in the blogging arena, one which has exploded with blogs since 1999 when I wrote my first blog post as a new mom.

I can truly say that I love my blog. It gives me the chance to share and to be a resource and to try new things, all of which I love to do. It gave me something new to fill my days with my children all in school for the first time ever, last year. And, it gave me another excuse to write, to cook, and to craft, all things I love to do and love to talk about.

I love when I get an email or bump into someone, and they say, “I love your blog,” or “I tried your recipe,” or “I learned this from you.”

It gives me a warm feeling to know that I can share what I’m learning along the way and help others too.

When I first started, I remember being excited when I had 3 or 4 or 5 people reading my blog a day, and I was thrilled when I had more than 100 in a day, and most recently when I had more than 400 in a day, my highest to date.

I set a goal for myself last September, to see if I could draw a large enough audience to reach 20,000 hits in one year and I am thrilled to say that I surpassed that goal a few weeks ago, and as of today I am close to having more than 23,000 hits for my first year.

I don’t know how that compares to other blogs, and really it doesn’t matter to me, I’m thrilled and proud of my blog’s success this year.

I have found a posting pattern that works well for me and my readers, who span the entire world, literally, seem to like it as well. I have posted about crafts, kids, holidays, recipes, books, giveaways, day trips, awards I have received for my writing, vacation spots we have visited, my foray into couponing, living life on a very (extremely) tight budget as we move towards being debt-free in just eight more months, our amazing trip to the White House this summer, and really just about anything my heart desires.

So today, I’d love to hear from my readers. I always love your comments and feedback on any given day, but today I’d love to know: what’s one post that you particularly loved, or what is one topic you really look forward to? Anything you want to read more about? Let me know today!

I know my blog isn’t perfect, but I’ve got another whole year to work on it before my second Blogaversary. Until then…..

Happy Blogaversary….To Me.

Tags: blogging, Jennifer L. Cowart, The Whole Bag of Chips