Saturday
Aug022008
Posts that moved me...posts that moved you...
Saturday, August 2, 2008
The first half of 2008 is behind us (edited to add: I now realize I am a month behind...I blame it on Mommy brain). I have been wanting to start blogging for a long time and finally got kick started with this blog while on vacation visiting my in-laws back in May. I've also started reading a lot of other blogs since I begun my journey and am enjoying it thoroughly. So I thought I'd post some of my favourites and your favourites from this first half of 2008.
Posts that moved me...
There are lot of blogs that I really enjoy reading. Some of them are in my Blogroll. Others are on my iGoogle or in my favourites. Some I just come across again and again through tag surfer or other means of travelling the blogosphere. Here are three of the posts that moved me, some to tears and some to laughter, during the first half of this year:
Rite of Passage: A SAHD, half of the Sweet Juniper blogging team, guest writes on Dooce about the first time he sent his daughter into the women's washroom on her own, freeing her of the grossness of men's washrooms.
Bite your tongue: This is the first post that I read on the blog Bits of Myself, written by a breastfeeding mother who was diagnosed with cancer and had to wean to undergo treatment. I've been hooked and moved by everything she and her daughter are going through ever since reading this first post. This post really grabbed me because I could picture myself thinking the exact same thing if I was ever in that same situation...and every ounce of my being hopes that I never will be.
Collective bargaining: A lot of the writing at Sweet Juniper is fun, but this one about collective bargaining had me in stitches. Perhaps because I could picture this being my kids (if the genders were reversed) and partly because my husband is also a stay at home dad that previously worked in labour law.
A letter of apology to my kids: A mom of 3 kids whose youngest child has cancer writes a letter of apology to her other two children for all of the difficulties it has caused them and all that they have had to give up and live without.
The style, the words and the message of all of those posts are amazing. It reminds me of the power of words and the power of feelings.
Posts that moved you...
I love statistics. I admit it. I'm a geek. So that is why I find it so fun and rewarding to watch the stats on which posts people have been reading, how they got to my blog, what links they clicked on, and so on. Sometimes I can predict what posts are going to be a hit and sometimes it catches me by surprise. Here are the top four so far this year:
Cry it out (CIO): 10 reasons why it is not for us: This appears to be the bread and butter of my blog. This is what brings people back, day in and day out. It does well on the search engines and people like to link to it on message boards. Most days it is this post, along with the most recent post, that tops the traffic on the board.
When breastfeeding is a safety hazard: I only posted this a few days ago and already it has the number two spot in my statistics. Moms being told they can't nurse in public is always a hot topic and this one was helped along by a number of posts (one my own, several by others) on message boards and groups on related topics. I had never heard of MumsNet before a few days ago, but someone posted a link to my blog there it brought me hundreds and hundreds of visitors to this post.
Faulty logic from the Ontario coroner regarding bed sharing:This was my coming out of hiding post I guess. Prior to this post, it was mostly a handful of my friends that were reading the blog and maybe a Google search or two on something I'd written. I was on vacation on the other side of the world and my sister-in-law e-mailed me an article on co-sleeping that had been in the National Post after reading a few of my first blog posts. I remembered reading about the coroner's report on the same topic the previous year and remembered how it made my blood boil. But I was too busy caring for a newborn and a busy 2.5 year old at the time, so I didn't have a chance to do anything about it other than blow smoke out of my ears. Well this year, I wasn't going to sit back and take it anymore. I wrote and wrote and wrote. And you read and read and read. I was glad to see this post doing well on the search engines so that people searching on the topic after hearing about the coroner's report hopefully found my post too.
Avent sucks: This post was purely a rant. I didn't expect it to get a lot of traffic. I just needed to let off some steam. Little did I realize that the Z-report on BPA in Children's Products that I linked to also links to all blogs that link to it. Since the Z-report gets tons of traffic, my post ended up getting lots of traffic from that site.
Looking forward...
I'll keep reading and writing. I hope you'll keep stopping by, sharing things that you like with your friends, and commenting when you feel moved to do so.
P.S. - somewhat off topic, but I try to remember to use the Wordpress spell check on my posts and I find it amusing that the word "blog" isn't in the dictionary that is used.
Posts that moved me...
There are lot of blogs that I really enjoy reading. Some of them are in my Blogroll. Others are on my iGoogle or in my favourites. Some I just come across again and again through tag surfer or other means of travelling the blogosphere. Here are three of the posts that moved me, some to tears and some to laughter, during the first half of this year:
Rite of Passage: A SAHD, half of the Sweet Juniper blogging team, guest writes on Dooce about the first time he sent his daughter into the women's washroom on her own, freeing her of the grossness of men's washrooms.
Bite your tongue: This is the first post that I read on the blog Bits of Myself, written by a breastfeeding mother who was diagnosed with cancer and had to wean to undergo treatment. I've been hooked and moved by everything she and her daughter are going through ever since reading this first post. This post really grabbed me because I could picture myself thinking the exact same thing if I was ever in that same situation...and every ounce of my being hopes that I never will be.
Collective bargaining: A lot of the writing at Sweet Juniper is fun, but this one about collective bargaining had me in stitches. Perhaps because I could picture this being my kids (if the genders were reversed) and partly because my husband is also a stay at home dad that previously worked in labour law.
A letter of apology to my kids: A mom of 3 kids whose youngest child has cancer writes a letter of apology to her other two children for all of the difficulties it has caused them and all that they have had to give up and live without.
The style, the words and the message of all of those posts are amazing. It reminds me of the power of words and the power of feelings.
Posts that moved you...
I love statistics. I admit it. I'm a geek. So that is why I find it so fun and rewarding to watch the stats on which posts people have been reading, how they got to my blog, what links they clicked on, and so on. Sometimes I can predict what posts are going to be a hit and sometimes it catches me by surprise. Here are the top four so far this year:
Cry it out (CIO): 10 reasons why it is not for us: This appears to be the bread and butter of my blog. This is what brings people back, day in and day out. It does well on the search engines and people like to link to it on message boards. Most days it is this post, along with the most recent post, that tops the traffic on the board.
When breastfeeding is a safety hazard: I only posted this a few days ago and already it has the number two spot in my statistics. Moms being told they can't nurse in public is always a hot topic and this one was helped along by a number of posts (one my own, several by others) on message boards and groups on related topics. I had never heard of MumsNet before a few days ago, but someone posted a link to my blog there it brought me hundreds and hundreds of visitors to this post.
Faulty logic from the Ontario coroner regarding bed sharing:This was my coming out of hiding post I guess. Prior to this post, it was mostly a handful of my friends that were reading the blog and maybe a Google search or two on something I'd written. I was on vacation on the other side of the world and my sister-in-law e-mailed me an article on co-sleeping that had been in the National Post after reading a few of my first blog posts. I remembered reading about the coroner's report on the same topic the previous year and remembered how it made my blood boil. But I was too busy caring for a newborn and a busy 2.5 year old at the time, so I didn't have a chance to do anything about it other than blow smoke out of my ears. Well this year, I wasn't going to sit back and take it anymore. I wrote and wrote and wrote. And you read and read and read. I was glad to see this post doing well on the search engines so that people searching on the topic after hearing about the coroner's report hopefully found my post too.
Avent sucks: This post was purely a rant. I didn't expect it to get a lot of traffic. I just needed to let off some steam. Little did I realize that the Z-report on BPA in Children's Products that I linked to also links to all blogs that link to it. Since the Z-report gets tons of traffic, my post ended up getting lots of traffic from that site.
Looking forward...
I'll keep reading and writing. I hope you'll keep stopping by, sharing things that you like with your friends, and commenting when you feel moved to do so.
P.S. - somewhat off topic, but I try to remember to use the Wordpress spell check on my posts and I find it amusing that the word "blog" isn't in the dictionary that is used.
Reader Comments (2)
Wow, that's some mighty fine company! Thank you so much for adding me to your list, what an honor.
[...] us, which has 9,277 page views so far. The places you could have gotten hints about this include posts that moved me, posts that moved you (it was my most popular post at the time, but that was a long time ago) and desperate times, [...]