Blogiversary #1

I can’t believe that’s it’s been a full year since I started Ask Anna! I want to share a little bit about how I got started {because it honestly wasn’t my idea} but first I want to share with you some stats. {I am borrowing this idea from a post I saw on Young House Love earlier this year.}

Here is Ask Anna by numbers

448 – The number of published posts to date on Ask Anna {including this one}.

30 – My average number of posts per month

4,954 – The total number of followers {Google & Feedburner}

124,460 – The most hits I’ve received on a single post according to blogger.com. That is for Reader Question: Cleaning your Washing Machine.

57,750 – The second most hits I’ve received on a post. This one is for Amazing Transformation.

232,523 – Total number of pageviews for last month.

989,651– Total number of pageviews to date {so close to 1 million!!!}

70 – Total number of times my posts have been featured on other blogs.

47 — Total number of times the Ask Anna Column has been published in our local paper.

3 – Total number of times that Ask Anna has been published in a magazine this year.

#1 commenter – Anne Marie. Every single day she sends me a comment, and every day I look forward to them.

When I look at those stats I can’t believe the crazy good year I’ve had! And I have loved every minute of it! Now let me share with you how it all began…

There are really three people I need to thank for getting me started on this great adventure: Emily, Heather and Amy. Last Thanksgiving {Thanksgiving of 2010} my friend Emily did a Gratitude Challenge on her blog. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her posts and it got me thinking that maybe I should start blogging again. After much encouragement from her I decided to start up again. I had taken a 1 year and 4 month break and this was my first post: I’m Back!, which was accompanied by this picture for Emily

No makeup awesomeness!

Then a couple weeks later my best friend Heather told me that I should bring back Ask Anna. Years ago when I was blogging I used to answer my friends cleaning and organizing questions. It was long before the days of Facebook and Twitter so it never really took off. I needed questions to answer, in order to write posts, so when I ran out of questions I stopped writing. If you go back and read my old posts, it’s pretty funny. Let’s just say that my writing has come a long way… This was the “Ask Anna” picture that I would put at the top of each post. {I’ve come a long ways!}

So anyways… I told Heather that I’d give it a try and see if anyone was interested this time around. The very first post I wrote on my new Ask Anna Blog was posted on Sunday, January 9th, and it was a Recipe of the Week. I had one comment and it was from my friend Bethany. Then I got a call from Amy of Increasingly Domestic. We go to the same church so she happily gave me all her blogging tips. Without Amy’s help it would have taken me ages to figure out how to do link parties, make my posts look good, etc. But with her help I was able to jump right in and get noticed!

I also want to thank my amazing husband for putting up with me, and all my Ask Anna quirks. There was a point at which I had to stop posting recipes because Matt got so annoyed that I always had to take pictures of our dinner before he could eat it, but that’s pretty much the only complaint I’ve heard. He has been incredibly supportive and helpful with all of the projects we’ve done this year {you’ll see more of those this afternoon}. I definitely couldn’t write this blog without his help and support.

How did I get here? It’s almost like I’ve been living in a dream world this past year. I feel so blessed and I am so excited to see where Ask Anna will be at this time next year. I have lots of things I’m planning but I’m not sure how much of that will get accomplished until Malea is in school for more than only 3 hours a week. A girl can only do so much. :)

Thank you to all of you for reading my blog and for asking me your cleaning & organizing questions. I have loved every minute of the time I’ve put into my blog this year and I am looking forward to another amazing year with all of you!