love is blonde

I’m stealing this idea from Arjewtino as a way to say happy 2nd birthday to my little blog. (Some of us have husbands who will not allow us to have babies anytime soon, so we must celebrate the milestones of a different four-letter b-word.) (I am a day early, as the official blog birthday is on Friday, when I will be happily on vacation in the middle of nowhere on a lake.) (Also? In two years I have not learned how to stop my addiction to parentheticals.)

If I remember correctly I started this blog after I discovered Amalah and the art (if not the science) of blogging. I began with a blogspot domain called “wise woman / giggling girl” after an Ani DiFranco lyric. Yes, I am that cool. Miss Zoot put a funky pink and red gerbera daisy template up for grabs and I was the first to grab. Does anyone remember reading on that old page? I never saved a screenshot because it was back when I was working on a dinosaur of a PC.

In February 2006 I got really fed up with blogger and in a 24 hour span I moved over to my current domain including coming up with a name and figuring out wtf I was doing with all this uploading and templates and wordpress, and whaaaaa? I guess it turned out for the best, though. To be honest, I don’t really check my stats much because my three different stat counters all register wildly different numbers, and I have decided they are all worthless. Let’s just say traffic has grown a little and I’ve come to love and rely on my very pretty (and handsome) readers a lot.

Thanks for reading and commenting and letting me share my life with you for the last two years!

More two-year blogiversary trivia:

Number of posts: 315
Number of comments: 3,719
Number of spam comments deleted: 16,201
Number of page hits: 163,211 since moving to loveisblonde (give or take — the numbers are wacky)
My favorite post to write: my 2006 year end recap only because it was fun to re-read how awesome my year had been. Last week’s pity party was really fun too, and totally exceeded my expectations!
Most read post: oh yeah, I rocked the side ponytail at my wedding
Most commented-upon post: baby name game (50 comments)
First DC blog I ever read: the first I can remember is Amalah (and I spent many hours at work laughing over her archives)
My favorite uploaded photos: me and my very rugged dad skiing in our backyard after two blizzards, us right after our quickie courthouse marriage and lunch at wendy’s, hubby on a lake at sunset
My strongest blog influences: hola, isabel; all & sundry
Bloggers met in real life (who I didn’t know before the blog): Zandria, Lana, a bunch of DC bloggers I finally met at a happy hour. Soon I will be meeting Isabel, Jennifer, and hopefully some more
Bloggers I most want to meet: Elise and Laurel
Blogger happy hours attended: 1
Number of drinks needed to overcome nervousness at said happy hour: 4
Most replicated out in the interwebs: love & hate posts
Blog I get the most incoming hits from: Gabsmash
Number of posts before I got my first comment: 5 (and OMG please do not read my early archives. They will burn your eyes in PAIN and RETARDEDNESS)
Been with me in this blogging thing since (basically) the beginning: Amie, Jessica, Isabel, Erika, Kelly
People in real-life who read my blog because it was announced to the world by the best man at our wedding: Everyone, including friends of my parents who probably think I’m crazy
People I hope have never found this blog: 2 (my bosses)
Times husband probably wished I didn’t have a blog: too many to count
Biggest fan: my mom, even though I once called her a MILF
Most common search phrase that lands people on my site: aside from the usual “love+is+blonde” I get a lot of searches for “dr. robert rey divorce” and “vagina surgery” that lead people to this page, which earned an all-time high of comments at the time
Money earned through blogging: $18.53
Money spent on blogging: somewhere in the neighborhood of $230 (yikes!)
Times I wished I had an anonymous blog: 396 (umm make that 396,000)