loveysoven

I can’t believe it’s been a year since loveysoven began.  Some months were more productive than others, but overall I enjoyed myself, and I hope you had a good time, too.   Looking back, I can definitely say I learned quite a bit in 2010.

One of the things I found rather challenging was the monthly theme.  I know that the intent was to give me some focus, but I frequently found myself with baked goods that I couldn’t write about, because they didn’t fit that month’s theme.  For 2011, I’m going to switch it up a bit.  I have a few subtler, personal themes to follow, but I’ll be a lot more flexible with what gets posted.  Hopefully, a side effect of this will be more frequent updates overall.

That said, I received a message from WordPress regarding my 2010 activity, and it wasn’t too shabby.  Looking at the cumulative numbers made me feel a lot better about this experiment overall.  Take a look:

• Approximately 2,900 page views in 2010.  That’s the equivalent of seven full 747s. Not bad!
• 60 posts mean that even when I felt like I was seriously slacking, I was still averaging more than one per week.  For a hobby project, I think that’s perfectly respectable.
• I uploaded 116 pictures.  And none of them were of our cats.
• My busiest day had 65 views.  In 2011 I’d be tickled pink if I can get a day over 100. Hey, a girl can dream, right?
• I have 31 subscribers.  Yay!  I know many of you simply click through from facebook, or your RSS feed, but for some reason that subscriber count slowly growing really makes me smile.  I have a goal in mind for 2011, but I’m keeping it to myself for now.  We’ll see if we get there.
• My coworkers (and those of mrslovey, as well), have gained an average of 5 pounds each.

Ok, that last one was totally made up.  But they have been reaping the benefits of this blog, as nearly everything I’ve baked has been given away.  It’s sad, but I have to, otherwise we’d need to rename this site loveysblimp.  For real.

Lovey, you ask, what was the thing that surprised you most in 2010?*  Oh, glad you asked!!!  I really loved the feedback that I got from all of you.  Your comments and emails made my day(s).  And then, when you started actually making what I was making, asking for advice, and sharing your results?!?  Holy schmoley, I felt like a proud parent, indeed!

Another truly enjoyable part of 2010 was the requests that came in.  From trying to recreate lost recipes to tweaking current favorites, I found it rewarding to present my version and hear a resounding ‘yes, that’s what I was looking for!’.  You can definitely look for more of these posts as I keep working on the to-do list.  And of course, if you have a hankering for something feel free to drop me a note, and I’ll do my best to accommodate.

I started this evening with a little bit of writer’s block, and now it seems I can’t stop typing.  So I’m going to force myself to click ‘publish’, so you can actually see all of my yammerings.  In summary, 2011 will be different, but hopefully in a good way.  I had a blast sharing my  progress with you in 2010, and look forward to continuing our conversation in the coming year.

-smooches, lovey

*See how that works?  As the blog author, I can manipulate pretend conversations in whatever direction I want!  It’s magical!