Three years, 500 posts and 9,9** visits

It's still Doodle Week for another 35 minutes where I'm at. And, since this is my 500th post and today is this site's blogoversary, I doodled myself some cake. See?

Three candles. Yes, this blog is three years old today!

I thought I might get the trifecta today and hit 10,000 visits also, but it looks like that won't happen until tomorrow or Tuesday.

Darn. I wanted to give someone 2,000 Entrecredits for capturing a print screen of it happening today.

But there's still 1,000 Entrecredits on the table for the first person to capture a print screen of it for me as close to the 10,000 mark as possible (see this post for more details.)

Anyway, enough about my little giveaway. I want to talk about this blog and some of its milestones.

On July 20, 2005, I opened my Blogger account and started this blog. You can read the introductory post here, but it's quite boring.

I didn't really do anything with the site until Jan. 3, 2006. That's when I named it The Beacon and started posting on a regular basis. (Read about it here.)

In February 2006, a former co-worker found my blog through a Google search and emailed me. Scared me to death. OMG, someone I know is actually reading this! (Read about it here.)

I went right out and installed a hit tracker. I needed to know who was reading this site.

I didn't join Site Meter until Feb. 21, 2006, so I have no idea how many people may have stumbled on the site and read something before then. When I joined Site Meter, I credited myself with 4 hits prior to installing the widget. Yes, 4!

I didn't tell my family about the blog until about March 1, 2006, so I guess that's another blog birthday. (Read about it here.)

Over the years, this little blog has been a labor of love. I wrote it, a few friends checked it out, but mostly it was done out of compulsion. I didn't belong to any blogging networks. I didn't actively promote it. Once or twice, I even took a month off between entries.

Up until I joined EntreCard on Feb. 11, 2008, I'd be lucky to get 10 hits on a good day. I averaged about 4. My sister was my most devoted reader. (Hi Heather!) Now my numbers have gone significantly up.

Here's how much of a difference Entrecard has made to me. On March 5, 2008, I noted for some reason that I'd had 2,888 unique vistors to this site (including the 4 that I credited myself with at installation of the Site Meter). None of those hits were my visits, as I'd learned early on how to set Site Meter to ignore me.

So, even though this site is three years old, 80 percent of my hits have come in the past four and a half months.

Thank you to everyone who has ever dropped by this site and checked it out. That applies to my quiet real-life friends and family, as well as the new blog-world friends I've made over the past few months.

In my post a few days ago, I offered everyone the chance to ask me questions if they like. The offer is still out there. If there's anything you want to ask me, ask. I'll start answering questions tomorrow.

Except for this one. I'll answer it now: Monique, I think you are so awesomely awesome, the word awesome doesn't even begin to describe your awesomeness. :P