Another year come and another year gone… sometimes it seems so fast.

When I began maintaining a personal website (precursor blog) in 1997, I wanted to keep family and friends on the other side of the country updated on our adventures.  I’ve journaled off and on my whole life, and I studied journalism at university. I like information and think a one stop shop is a great way to inform people.

2011 was definitely an interesting year for me. I officially moved my blog to wordpress just before 2011 and I’ve never regretted it. I didn’t travel as much as I wanted (I just really love travel), but that’s OK. I made a lot of personal changes in my life and I think that I’m healthier and happier for them. Sometimes it’s the little things.

I now officially have two teenagers.  My oldest enrolled in Seminary this year and it’s exhausting to get him to and fro at such an early time of the morning. We made a big change to our educational plans and they seem to work really well. I made some interesting new clothing, participated in my first ever Zombie Walk, won a picture contest resulting in yummy cookies, finished editing/revising one novel and the vast majority of a second, and read 116 books.  I also revised my resume, joined the pubic affairs team for my stake (think dioceses) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and began blogging for the Fredericksburg Patch, Let’s not forget the writing over at Yahoo!

I survived the record breaking heat this summer, a 5.9 earthquake as part of the Epic Natural Disaster Smackdown. I played a major part in putting together the Fredericksburg portion of the VA Day of Service all with a double-sprained ankle after a nasty fall.  At least I had my new car which I kept away from my first monster truck!

Super busy year, but 2012 looks busier!  I’m involved in an even bigger way with a regional Youth Celebration, among other things.

I love blogging and now that stat-gathering is so robust, I’m completely fascinated by the readers of my blog. I love reading and responding to comments, seeing where visitors come from, looking at search terms, the whole kit-and-kaboodle! The fun thing about WordPress, is they did this for me:

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Feel free to check out that complete report. It shows all sorts of interesting things.  Like, apparently you readers like my playlists, me being geeky, and referring to myself as a troll.

If you like that sort of tongue in cheek, you should really check out my New Year’s Resolutions.

Some of my fave search terms for my blog last year:

• mission: visit attackofthecute.com and survive the cute overload (good luck – seems a little Mission: Impossible)
• girly skull and crossbones
• lds temple spires
• hello kitty gun target (which goes along with “hello kitty army”)
• knitted zombies
• naked in graveyard (um…oooookaaaaay)
• “joe pesci” “biggest badass” (I don’t think I’ve EVER blogged about Joe Pesci)
• top ten trolls (Hope I’m one!)
• maybe i need some fairy dust (You and me, too, searcher)
• cat tank is not amused (That’s putting the “cat” in “personification”!)

So to you, my various viewers, thanks for visiting. I love you and hope to amuse you more in 2012!

–Lady Ozma