9!

Today is my ninth blogaversary! Blogoversary? The spelling of made-up words seems a bit fluid…

This is my 1,682nd post. There have been 6,458 comments, 56,348 views, and 31,286 visitors from 126 countries and territories. There are 1,572 followers via WordPress with another couple hundred by email, twitter, and Facebook, with, I’m sure, a bit of overlap.

It seems like so many added up that way, but Top of JC’s Mind is still a small blog, averaging about 20 views a day. I remain grateful for all my visitors and followers. [Time for my usual disclaimer: I rarely look at my stats and don’t do much to actively gain views. In the crush of real life, I decided to devote my blogging time to writing posts and answering comments, so I don’t do the kinds of outreach needed to build up a large readership.]

I’m thankful to still be actively blogging at all. It seems that many bloggers start out but don’t continue for this many years or only post a few times a year.

Not that I post on a regular schedule but I’ve made it to 1,682 posts, so I do manage to say things!

I’ve been happy with my choice to be an eclectic blog. I know some of you visit for the poetry posts or for the family stories. Others might favor my political posts or pandemic posts or environmental posts. Some visit via Linda G. Hill‘s One-Liner Wednesdays or Stream of Consciousness Saturdays series. Some seem to arrive via searches of various sorts, which I find fascinating.

I know now that there are quite a few other eclectic blogs and I love knowing that there are so many of us rambling on about whatever is “top of mind” at the moment.

So, on to Year 10! Hope to see you checking in from time to time.

With thanks,
Joanne

One-Liner Wednesday: Congratulations!

It’s taken since September 2013, but Top of JC’s Mind has just passed the 50,000 view mark!
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This self-congratulatory one-liner is brought to you in conjunction with Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays. Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/09/08/one-liner-wednesday-camera-shy/

Piran

On Friday, the Smith College Alumnae Chorus and our travelling companions visited Piran, a beautiful, historic town on the Adriatic coast of Slovenia. Slovenia, before its independence in 1991, had spent centuries under the dominance of other entities. Piran shows the influence of its time as part of the Venetian republic.

The main square has a statue of Italian composer and violinist Giuseppe Tartini, whose birthplace, now a historic landmark, is on the piazza.

As you would expect, some of the streets, now used as footpaths, are very narrow.

Consequently, the cars are very small by US standards. (For scale, I am 5’1.5″ or 156 cm.)

We walked up to the Church of St. George, shown here from Tartini Square.

The baptistry is the small, octagonal building whose roof you see to the right of the belltower, which is itself a smaller replica of the tower of St. Mark’s in Venice.

The restoration of the church is amazing! The wall on the left has a sculpture of St. George slaying the dragon.

The ceilings were especially eye-catching.

Because I was an organist, B took a special photo of the organ.

A path leads down from the church to the point and lighthouse.

Piran affords views of the coast of Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia.

We loved our visit to Piran and definitely recommend including it in your itinerary if you visit Slovenia.

do-it-yourself 2016 summary

Once upon a time, I think I got a year-end summary from WordPress that compared how many people visited the site to various buildings or transportation modes, like trains. You could share it to your blog.

I assumed that WordPress sent us an email with a link to our personal information, although I didn’t remember. I have been on the lookout, though.

I finally searched for my 2015 summary and realized that I had the info well before now. I started searching and found out that, unfortunately, WordPress is not sending out year-end summaries for 2016.

As a (less fancy and engaging) substitute, I am taking a (rare) look at my stats page to share a bit.

In 2016, Top of JC’s Mind had 226 posts, which garnered 7,507 views from 3,578 visitors from 62 countries.  (Or thereabouts, given that people who read my blog via email don’t show up in my stats.) The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada were the top three countries.

The top posts were:
Shock 
crying does not help dry eyes
Poem: Crowning Glory
Feeling the Bern in Binghamton
the legacy of Father James
April 8

It’s a fairly eclectic list, albeit a bit heavy on the personal trauma scale, but that was the kind of year that 2016 was.

I want to thank everyone reading this post and everyone who visited Top of JC’s Mind in 2016.

And thank you to Linda for once again motivating me to get off to a good, energetic start in January with Just Jot It January. No promises, but I’ve made every day so far…
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Linda is hosting Just Jot It January again this year. Join us! Details here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/06/jusjojan-daily-prompt-jan-617/

 

Record views

People who have been visiting Top of JC’s Mind for a while know that I am not a diligent stats watcher.

I tend to look in every once in a while, but not every day.

Or even every week….

Since Grandma died and I have not been posting much, I hadn’t even looked at my stats at all – until today.

On May 2nd, I set a new record for views – 153!

I would tell you what the old record was if I could figure it out…

I published a post that day about attending a very emotional service, which was then shared by one of the participants. I’m sure this accounts for the new record views.

As always, I am grateful to all those who visit here at Top of JC’s Mind.  It’s fun to have a new record as a prompt to say so.

inscrutable stats

WordPress stats can be weird.

At the moment, for today I have 29 views, 20 visitors, 43 likes, and 3 comments.

It seems strange to have more likes than views.

I’m guessing that means that some of the likes are through the reader or through people who get instant email messages of new posts.

Maybe there are reasons I don’t pay that much attention to my stats page…

Another record!

I posted last week about a new record for likes.

I am shocked to report that that record, 66 likes, was shattered yesterday, setting a new record of 103 likes!

And, in the odd record-keeping of WordPress, I had only 79 views…

I realize part of that is that I allow full posts by email and in the reader, so some likes come in that don’t register as views.

I had four posts yesterday.

The first was a re-blog of gorgeous flowers from My Food and Flowers. It attracted likes and some new followers from the photo-blog sector, including one who went on to explore and like a lot of posts. Thank you, v4vikey!

My planned post yesterday was about the ever-popular subject of exercise, featuring adventures with Wii Fit.

Then, there were two spur-of-the-moment posts on my re-vamping of my blog theme, one on the new header and one on the menu.  Posts about blogging always seem to attract attention – among bloggers.  Go figure!

Part of the success of the post-likes in a single day is the time of day when the posts appear. All four posts appeared in the morning in my time zone, so it gave more hours for my readers to find them the same day.

Thanks to all my readers and “likers” – especially those of my followers who visit on a regular basis. I really do appreciate your visits, comments, and likes here at Top of JC’s Mind!

Wishing you all a great weekend,
Joanne

How many read your blog today?

I think that everyone should read Tric’s blog! You can tell her I sent you. 😉

My thoughts on a page.

I was toying between that title or perhaps,  ‘How not to increase traffic to your blog’. I’ve been blogging over two years and for the most part have enjoyed every day of it. However in the last month, due to life, holidays, my children annoying me and my husband expecting me to feed him, I’ve had less time to write, to read and to post here on wordpress. This has naturally meant my usually high stats, (not!) have nose dived, leading me to wonder, and wondering is not always a good thing!

For as I wondered I grew envious (and bitter). Why do I not have a following of thousands reading my blog? Am I not interesting? At times funny? At times inspirational? Ok perhaps not.

This week I read a couple of posts from bloggers who had big stats. They were kindly telling me, and everyone else, but I…

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curious stats

I am not a big stats watcher, but I just happened to be looking up something and noticed that today I have one view but seven likes on my One-Liner Wednesday post. I realize it is because some people get my blog posts by email and can like a post through their email without visiting my blog. It is a good reminder, though, that some posts that don’t seem to be getting views may be read more widely than the stats show.