Happy Birthday Dodie's Discourse!

I just realized that my blog will be a year old soon.

When I started this, I always assumed that writing here would benefit me because I was in desperate need of some sort of creative outlet. What has surprised me has been the readership, uptake, and response from others. I am truly humbled.

I've had nearly 4,000 page views since last January. I know that's probably not huge in the grand scheme of the internet, but I'm shocked at it and it's certainly more than I would have anticipated. It is particularly unbelievable to me that nearly 20% of those page views have come from outside of the United States! I have readership from Canada, the UK, Germany, and perhaps most surprising, I've had quite a few views from Russia.

The most popular/highest viewed piece over the past year was something I wrote about My Favorite Dog other than our Own (Butler Blue II, the Butler University mascot). I imagine that back-to-back appearances in the NCAA men's basketball championship game led several people to search for Butler and maybe even Butler Blue since he appeared on national TV and news several times during the tournament. I'm glad to have done what I could to help Blue in his social media efforts to spread "the Butler way" throughout society.

Most of my page views have come from sources like Facebook and Twitter, from the links I've shared when I've made an entry, but some of the hits are definitely from search engines and the search terms that led people to me are pretty funny. Examples of these are Dracula Christmas (leading to my post about our Christmas card tradition), Bucky Badger funny (which took them to my Butler Blue II post that featured of photo of Blue hiking his leg to a giant blow-up Badger the week Butler played Wisconsin in the tournament), and toy castle (which apparently led that poor reader to my review of the ABC TV show, Castle).

I have my own personal favorite posts from this past year, of course. These would include (selfishly) two that I wrote in part to deal with my own grief: A Loving Life Well Lived following the loss of our wonderful cat Abby to Cancer, and Janie following my mother's unexpected death.  I also particularly enjoyed writing the from-the-heart-as-a-former-teacher essay Teaching - Is there a more valuable and rewarding (and less valued and rewarded) profession? and the slightly silly piece about The Royal Wedding - Why I will be getting up at 3:00 a.m. on Friday.

So, whether you know me in real life or are a complete stranger, I'd like thank you for indulging me by coming here to see what I have to say. It's an honor that some of you come back regularly and I'm particularly intrigued by those of you reading from places like Latvia, the Philippines, and Australia. (Really?! How cool is that?)

 I think I'll do my best to keep posting in 2012 and I hope you'll continue to join me from time to time.

With sincere thanks,

Dodie