Wow, y’all.
SEVEN YEARS!
That’s how long this blog has been around.
It is always fun to go back to early posts to see how much my writing style, and life in general has changed. From the very first post on July 6, 2011, my life and this blog has evolved and changed, and we have covered a lot here.
- A new name and site
- Leaving a PhD program
- Moving to CO
- Moving to CT
- Getting engaged!
- Getting married!
- Buying a house
- Moving to NC
As for the blogging side of things:
- Over 15,000 subscribers (OMG thank you!)
- A cool Christmas video collaboration
- Over 600 posts published
- Tons of products and places reviewed
- An average of 700-1000 visitors per day!
I love days with peaks, and a large “area under the curve”. When the number of visitors and visits is nearly the same, it means someone showed up, read one or two articles, and left.
But when I see big peaks, it tells me that someone came here, liked what they saw, and stuck around for a while. Those are the deep readers, the true fans, who muck about in the Index to mine the archives for gems.
I see you. And I appreciate you!
Since the blog was down for some time, I had a nice little break from writing to re-evaluate… and good news for you, I want to keep blogging!
Goals for this lucky number seven year:
- Continue to write high quality content at least 1/week
- Expand the social network (go drool over my new Insta!)
- Monetize a tiny bit in a smart way (?)
- Complete one ebook by the end of the year
- Post at least one guest post here (email me ideas!)
- Submit at least one guest post to somewhere else
- Continue to seek contentment & balance in all things
Trent at the Simple Dollar said it well in his post How Epicurean Principles Can Help You Transform Your Financial Life.
Epicurus argued that pleasure is found by living modestly, curbing one’s desires, enjoying simple pleasures in the moment without gluttony, and reflecting on and understanding the world. Doing this leads to tranquility and freedom from fear (and, to some extent, less physical pain) and that those factors together are a huge source for personal happiness. Epicurus considered this state to be the highest and best form of happiness and pleasure.
That was the original founding idea of this blog, that you don’t need much in life to be happy and content.
We are constantly evaluating things, people, and processes in our life with an eye towards minimizing, frugalizing, and streamlining our days and our spaces.
We are pursuing building wealth in order to eventually attain Financial Independence, aka freedom to use our time however we see fit to maximize happiness.
We are pursuing our best health in order to enjoy a long, fulfilling life to maximize our enjoyment of our time freedom, while also enjoying and being thankful for every day during the journey.
Hopefully these values come through in the writing and ideas here, and the simple yet delicious recipes I try to create and share with you all.
If there is some topic or food you want me to explore in the future, drop me a line, I always love emails from readers. Or come find me on any social media and lets be friends. You never know when we might have a chance to meet up and become IRL friends!