2010 Top Ten: Blog Posts and Stats

Excluding the home page, these are my blog posts that were most popular (that is, the ones with the most page views) in 2010:

Image: RYAN REID

10.Paint It Purple Cupcake Party

9.  Recipes Page

8.  Count Me Out

7, 6, 5. AXO Convention: What to Wear (Part 2, Part 3, Part 1)

4.  Adventures in Tallahassee @ New ALoft

3.  Creamy Cucumber Salad

2.  My Favorite Moment of Recruitment

1.  Ten Commandments for Chapter Advisors

I was surprised that my sorority-related posts ranked so highly. Please let me know if there are topics you'd like to hear more about!

I was also surprised by the overall statistics:

During this year (I joined Google Analytics in late February so this is just over ten months of data):
- 1,105 absolute unique visitors
- 6,016 page views
- 38% of visitors have stopped by once
- 18% are my most loyal - visiting 100 times or more (thank you!!)

It was a good year of blogging for me - while I didn't meet my goal of blogging every day, I did average about 22 posts a month. I'm happy with the consistency and will strive to continue along in 2011.

Happy New Year, and thanks for reading!

Solstice Recap

We started celebrating Solstice when T was a year old. In part it was to add more festiveness to the holiday season, and in part it was to take the focus off of presents and put it on activities. Over the years our Solstice celebration has evolved into a night that we all look forward to. Here's our 2010 recap:

The first thing you need is a big Yule log:

It turned out this year's Yule log was too big, so C & T split it into two: one for this year; one for next. Thomas said, "Mom, we saved Solstice!"

The next step is to make that big log into a big fire. Here's a shot with the flash

... and one without:

We then spend the evening hanging out in front of the fire with all the lights turned off (except for the holiday lights - the tree stays on, as does the lit garland on the mantle). We eat homemade pizza and hobo pies. This year for pizza we had Hawaiian (ham, pineapple and (on half) jalapeno) and Greek (olive oil, hummus, ground lamb, tomato, banana peppers). Hobo pies are simple pastries, made of crescent roll dough, filled with (this year) peach pie filling or chocolate chips. We went through a few years where we tried to cook them in the fireplace in pie irons, but the fire is just too hot, and they would end up scorched. 

To complete the Solstice fun, we camp out in the living room over night. We even drag out mattresses so we can be comfortable. It's nice (and toasty!) to fall asleep in front of the fire!