Good morning everyone.
I'm going to take a break from my weekly look in pictures. Something occurred during the week that I want to reflect on. What happened? December 23rd and 24th to be exact was an anniversary. A four year anniversary. It's hard to believe that I have been writing a geocaching blog for four years now. That's 206 blogs out of a possible 208 weeks that I have published something. I only missed two weeks if I'm doing the math correctly. Those two weeks that I missed occurred in the first year if I'm not mistaken. December 23rd was when I wrote the first blog, and December 24th was when it was published.
The very first blog wasn't really much other than an introduction to who I am. You can read that here > first blog The blog as a whole was a work in progress. I was always thinking of ways to grow the readership base. I featured people and places, did a monthly opening of geocaching stuff that came in the mail, ran a photo contest, and even discussed certain cache types.
My writing has survived four moves (I have moved every year for different reasons), road trips (at least three that I can think of were published while I was in North Dakota), and anything else that was tossed my way. Even when things weren't going all that well personally, I still managed to crank out a blog.
I wrote about my past adventures, recent adventures, particular themes, things I have seen (roadside attractions), and my feelings on certain topics, virtual souvenirs being one of them. I added an interesting stat to start things off each week, and even went on an epic virtual road trip showcasing the oldest caches in each State, Province, Territory, and District.
When I started writing, I was already at work on the next blog shortly after the current one was published. I had the bulk of it written early in the week and I would proof read it over and over until it was time to publish that entry. I always composed everything on my laptop until about a year and a half ago. I was running into an issue with the pictures not showing up in the published form, even though they were there in my copy. I switched and I now compose the entire blog on my phone. Typing takes a little longer, but uploading pictures was much easier.
One finger typing is slower than four fingers. Typing isn't one of my better skills, but I do manage.
Lately, I'm not starting to write the next blog until the morning it's to be published. Life does get in the way and that eagerness to write isn't there anymore. I always come up with something to write about. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it isn't that great. Hit and miss.
Also of late, I've been asking myself how much left do I have in the tank? Four years of doing a weekly blog. Having looked after The Geocaching Guild, I see the different schedules each writer has. Some crank out an adventure almost daily. Some write once per month. Some even less. I originally opted for weekly to maintain an audience. Problem is, I have no idea how big my audience is. Since I use Blogger, it shows me how many views each blog I've written has received. Just scrolling through the entries, my fewest is twenty one views. That was just a couple of weeks ago. The most, from what I can see is 317. It was one of my Cache Crate blogs from almost two years ago. Scrolling through all my entries to see the numbers, I can't help notice the decline in views.
What does this mean going forward? I don't have the answer to that yet. Our lives go through changes and mine certainly has and still is. I am more focused on myself than going geocaching. If I'm not geocaching, then what am I going to write about? I could incorporate the changes into the blog. Make it a geocaching and a more personal blog. That's something I tried to avoid was including my personal life into each entry. It's supposed to be about geocaching and not my dating life. It's a good thing it's not about my dating life. I wouldn't have anything to write about. I have two weeks to decide what I want to do. Why two weeks? Next week is the fourth quarter review of this year and the week after is the yearly review.
That's all I have for this week. Now for the ending. This part has evolved over time, but basically since the second blog, I have been reminding everyone that geocaching is meant to be fun. I've also been quoting my oldest boy, D-2002, as he usually says as we part ways, Peace out. ✌ One good thing about using my phone for writing, I can add emojis. 🙂
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