Winter Writing

AvvoStories

I’m writing for AvvoStories occasionally again, and my first story back was about why writing your will should be your New Year resolution. I also wrote about the ripple effects of the government shutdown.

ParentMap

My new year story for ParentMap was about getting in gear with physical activity the whole family could enjoy together.

When my oldest daughter was little and I still worked in an office, I had the hardest time remembering that Easter was when you had to sign up for summer camps or risk the ones you wanted being full. I’m glad those days are behind me, because this year I researched STEM Camps over the holidays, and the story is already old.

Not all my ParentMap stories were so forward-thinking. I also compiled upcoming family-friendly performances and the International Children’s Film Festival. I looked into whether the new passenger airline terminal at Paine Field will work better for families than SeaTac.

In a couple of stories close to my heart, I considered how parents and schools can make heritage homework less fraught for adopted kids and met some amazing teen activists working to dismantle racism.

For Valentine’s Day, I wrote a love letter to books with art at the heart of the story.

Earth911

I wrote about planning a raised bed garden and choosing a raised bed kit. Then I solved the recycling mystery of what happens to dental appliances and explained the basics of microplastic pollution. In case your winter heating bills were high, these energy audit basics should be helpful.

In honor of World Wetlands Day, I explained why sometimes it’s better not to drain the swamp. I looked at how much consumers can affect companies through everyday activism and asked just how safe is our food? Did you know that compared to the rest of the world, Americans are addicted to paper towels?

And I did some very detailed consumer research to bring out a buyers’ guide to the greenest pillow manufacturers. Unfortunately, it did not involve testing the products. Alas, neither did the research for my articles on whether it’s better to box or bottle wine, and whether corks or caps are greener closures.

On the Blog

I finally shamed myself into learning the basic navigation of Google Analytics, so from now on I will have more reliable blog statistics. For the first time, I can confidently state just how small this blog is. It’s a little embarrassing actually, and disheartening, too. I mostly write for myself, but am the sort of person who remembers what their GPA was in high school. Oh well, knowing is half the battle, and good data is the first step to good blogging. Or something.

Traffic

I had 427 page views from 398 visitors in January and 671 from 491 in February. My bounce rate was a horrifying 86%. I think that’s related to an average page load time of 12.74 seconds. I just learned how to find that statistic, and it doesn’t reflect my experience when I try to visit my own site, so I haven’t figured out how to fix it yet.

Demographics

In February, 90% of visitors were looking at my blog for the first time. Visitors were evenly split between male and female (Did you know Google was forcing you into the gender binary? I didn’t.) About a quarter of them were millennials and about a fifth of them were in the decade above mine. Folks my own age…not so much. Go figure.

Activity

In the months of January and February, I posted 23 times.

In January, the most popular posts were:

Il Trovatore at Seattle Opera

Calling Forth the Militia – Constitution Article 1 §8.15 (I wonder if this is like the time I used a religious-sounding title to review a Lamb of God show and attracted the wrong readers? Or does this mean it’s time to get back to my Constitutional studies?)

Commander in Chief Clause – Constitution Article 2 §2.1 (I guess I need to resume my Constitutional studies.)

In February, the most popular posts were:

The Sleeping Beauty at Pacific Northwest Ballet

Calling Forth the Militia – Constitution Article 1 §8.15

Why I’m Looking Forward to the (R)evolution of Steve Jobs

I’m not sure how to find interesting search terms these days. Hopefully I’ll figure it out for next time, because I think they’re fun.