The Year 2010 In Stats

It was a big year here at Our Front Door.

A big year indeed.

In 2009, Google Analytics recorded 16,400 visits.  This year that number jumped to 51,604 from 9,854 visitors. 

Just to give you an idea of how huge that is, 9,854 unique visitors is pretty similar to what The Pioneer Woman brings in.

In an hour.

So perhaps "huge" is overstating things a bit, but still I am very, very pleased.  Because I crave attention you see.  But today is not about me for a change - it's about you.

You and the other 9,853 visitors from the past year.

Those 9,854 visitors came from 76 countries.

Country with the best name?

Trinidad and Tobago.

It must be a really great place to warrant two names.

Here in the U.S., visitors came from all 50 states.  Somehow though, Google Analytics is telling me that this means people dropped in from 52 regions.

I realize that I am bad at keeping up with current events, but no one told me that we have more than 50 states.

Someone has a lot of 'splainin to do.

Top 5 Referrers

Of the blogs that referred visitors to Our Front Door, the Top 5 referrers were:

5.  From Single To Married

4.  The Lumberjack's Wife

3.  Newlyweds

2.  Five Walkers

1.  Confessions Of A Young Married Couple  Many, many thanks to Katie, Chris, Bean and Gracie.  My stint as Reader of the Month really brought in a lot of new readers!

Top 5 Most Popular Posts

5.  The Best Parent/Teacher Conference Ever  Also a personal favorite of mine, this post details the heart break leading to triumph in parenting our ADHD kid.

4.  19 I have to say, I probably only produce about 2-3 truly well-written posts a year and this was one of them.

3.  The Way It Is  Probably my least favorite post of the year, but it struck a chord with a lot of people so that's a good thing I guess.

2.  Confessions Of A Middle Aged Married Couple This was the post I had up the day Katie featured me on her blog so I don't know that it's such a great post, but it got a lot of page views.

And now (drum roll please) for the MOST popular post of the year! 

A post that was both funny and poignant. . . 

A post that warmed my heart and brought in readers in droves. . .

A post that I did not write . . .

1.  It's Possible He May Have Over Reacted  Yes indeedy, the most popular post this year here at Our Front Door was written by The Lumberjack's Wife.  I'm going to try really hard to not think about what that means.

Taylor?  Clearly your childhood dating drama resonates with readers throughout blogland.  Thank you for letting Our Front Door host this hilarious tale!

And now we move on to a slightly neglected section of this blog:  In The Fridge.

I think the best recipe of the year is Beef Barley Vegetable Soup.  I believe everyone should make this recipe.

Right now.

Go!  Make it!  I'll wait.

No.  No I won't because I need to report what you think the top recipes were.

3.  Southern Peach Cobbler with Pecan Topping - Actually a lot of people get here by googling some variation of this recipe title.  Folks must really like pecans with their peaches.

2.  Cookie Dough Brownies

1.  Zucchini Brownies

Hmmmmm . . . It would seem that I am not the only one with a sweet tooth around here.

Finally, for my favorite category:

Weirdest Google Searches That Brought Visitors To Our Front Door

• goats eyes  Shudder
• my existence is pointless  Good to know
• "her poor shoes  What?  Just because I wear an 11?
• are mcd chicken nuggets good for pregnant women? Do you really have to ask?
• bacon poodles I. Do. Not. Want. To. Know.
• calves nut bucket  Ditto
• i like it next to the front door  It?  What, exactly, might "it" be?
• mindee foot model  Wrong Mindee.  My feet are ugly in addition to being big.

I love blogging.  I love it for a lot of reasons.  I love the documentation, the process of storytelling, the creative outlet and the ease of keeping up with friends and family.

More than all of that though, I love the people I've met through Our Front Door.  Funny people, friendly people, smart people, caring people . . . the list goes on and on.

There have been 9,854 such people this year and I am grateful to each and every one.

Except the one looking for bacon poodles.

That's just creepy.

Autumn in Finlad

Sarah is originally from Arizona and now lives in Finland.  Sarah is also my favorite blogging photographer.  I even, dare I say it, like her pictures better than Pioneer Woman's.  It's something about her use of lighting.  Her blog is called pikkuarkki which means "little ark" and in addition to her photos, she blogs about life in Finland with her husband and two precious little boys who have the BLUEST eyes.

Today Sarah is blogging about my biggest terror of all:  spending a winter in a Northern clime.  The season is bad enough here, but where Sarah lives it's long and dark too! 

Autumn in Finland

Autumn is a truly beautiful season here in Finland.  Reds and yellows line the streets.  Fallen leaves as big as your head crunch as you walk from here to there.  It's beautiful and majestic.

Unfortunately, autumn has come and gone in these parts.  Although, the last decaying leaves are clinging to the trees for dear life, by and large, fall has fallen.
In about a week, we'll be surrounded by naked trees and darkness.  And yet no snow for months.  Not autumn, not yet winter.  Not a season at all, really.  An inbetweason (made that word up myself- are you impressed?).  Post-autumn.  Also known as the dreaded month of November.

I thought I'd give you a taste of what November means for us Northerners.  Just be warned, it ain't pretty.

November means Vitamin D supplements, the taste of which is indescribably awful.  Sure, there are less disgusting supplements, but those render my infant inconsolable, since he can't digest it very well.  I had never heard of Vitamin D supplements before arriving in Finland.  I come from Phoenix- the Valley of the Sun, where Vitamin D can be gotten in full simply by walking from your air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned supermarket.  But alas, if I don't want my dear children (or indeed myself!) to develop a deficiency, these drops must be administered daily for the next six months at least.


November means a whole lot of clothing.  In order to get out the door, I have to put my son Henry in a snow suit and two hats.  Then I bundle him in the stroller, using a baby sleeping bag.  Benjy gets a fleece sweater, his "spring suit" (also doubles as an autumn and post-autumn suit), a scarf, a hat, mittens, and either sneakers, rain boots, or snow boots, depending on the weather.  When the weather gets cold enough, his full body spring suit will be substituted for snow pants and a snow jacket.  This is in addition to my own snow coat, hat, gloves, scarf, and boots that I need to keep my own body warm.  You can imagine, I'm sure, how long it takes to get out of the house.

And how thrilled my children are to be bundled. 


November means sleet, frozen rain, and slippery sidewalks.  It means lethargy and moodiness.  It means being holed up for days inside, isolated, alone.

November, in short, is not nice.

But on the bright side, November leads to December.  And, if we're lucky, December means snow.  At the very least it means Christmas, and Christmas is always great. 

And then December leads to January, which means winter.

And after winter is spring.

And then after a short spring, we're back to summer.

So, really- REALLY- when you think about it, November's not so bad afterall...  Right?

See more of Sarah's fab photos and beautiful babies at Pikku Arkki Valokuvaus.  I'm hoping that if enough people catch on to Sarah's photography that one day she'll do a U.S. photo tour and I can get her to shoot my family!

You Never Would Have Guessed She'd End Up A Pastor's Wife

Even if Missy of Team Kollar were not my IRL friend and fashion consultant, I would read her blog.  She started it when they decided to adopt their youngest child, Luci, and I love her posts.  Missy makes me laugh and cry - sometimes in the same post - on a regular basis. 

I wasn’t a bad kid. I mean look at me…

How much trouble could I get into looking like that? Maybe my Mom inflicted with me with that bowl cut on purpose to limit my options in wild and crazy behavior. It worked. But by junior high, I looked a little more ready to take a walk on the wild side…

On the whole, my adolescence wasn’t too terrifying. But I do have a few skeletons in my closet that could be considered a wee bit scary.


Exhibit A:
There comes a time when every girl needs to break free from her mother and assume a little independence in choosing her own Halloween costume. At twelve, I was ready to move beyond Casper and clowns. I wanted to live on the edge a little more. So I decided to dress as a “lady of the night”. I know today most of the female costumes look like hookers, but it’s still not really socially acceptable to say that is what you are dressed as. Especially not when you are twelve. What can I say? I was mature for my age. I honestly don’t know how I got out of the house. Or what I told my parents I was dressed as. I don’t fully remember what my “costume” consisted of, but I know it involved a red, fur jacket and a short skirt. This is not a picture of it…

That is just a regular old school day in 1982. I don’t know what’s scarier, the way I look or the red, shag carpet.

Exhibit B:
There was the time I spent the night at Heidi’s house and we let “the Steve’s” sneak into the basement. There was no funny stuff going on, seriously. But however innocent, when her Mom walked down and found two uninvited middle school boys with us? That was ugly. Even uglier was the brilliant parenting move my Mom made in making me tell my grandmother what happened. I was mortified. I can still remember the confused look on Maw Maw’s face at the thought of little Missy actually being capable of doing something wrong. It achieved its desired purpose. I never snuck boys in again…not at Heidi’s house anyway.

Exhibit C:
My parents did a lot of entertaining. Though my parents were not smokers, for some unknown reason, my mother kept cigarettes for her guests in a crystal dish in our living room. If you smoke, aren’t you generally considered to be responsible for your own cigs? So those things just sat there unused. To the best of my knowledge they sat in that crystal dish for about 7 years until I was 13 and had the brilliant idea of trying them out.

Smoking is nasty enough with fresh cigs, but stale, old ones are even grosser. It was like “gag me with a decomposing nicotine stick”. Like, fer sure. In the end, I think that sneakiness ended up serving me well. I had no desire to do that to myself again.

It is possible that there are a few other things I did in my adolescence that it might not be best to share in this arena. They may or may not include getting into cars with boys I didn’t know, countless games of truth or dare, and the entire first semester of my freshmen year of college.

 As a mother of four, it is a little scary to think about what my own kids might do throughout the years without my knowledge.  It probably is a kindness of the Lord that parents don’t know everything their children do. That way we can at least sleep at night. Thankfully, you can do a lot of really stupid things as a kid and still end up as a productive member of society. It’s comforting to think that I turned out okay. And maybe my kids will too…

Maybe.

Read more about Missy and her husband and four kids at Team Kollar.

Beneath that tweety outfit lurks a born hellion...Sorta

Megan of Best of Fates slays me. (Not literally of course.) Her blog tagline says it best, "A quirky take on an awkward life." Megan may think she's quirky and awkward, but I think she's funny, intelligent and insightful.

Going on the lam, shooting that prison guard, stealing that taco - recollections flew into my mind when Mindee requested I write a post about my undiscovered teenage rebellion. Then I remembered that was just a late night movie and my teenage years were filled with things like being the secretary of the Readers' Club and forming my high school's Certamen team.

(For those of you who played sports, Certamen is like It's Academic, only about Latin grammar and Roman/Greek mythology.)

(Be envious.)

I tried to rebel, but somewhere between my fear of being scolded by an adult and my ineptitude at breaking rules I never quite succeeded.

The die was cast young, when I, along with my childhood best friend Maggie, set our sights on a worthy goal.

We wanted to play in my backyard.

A large rectangle with jungle gym and sandbox surrounded by a 10ft. high security fence, the backyard wasn't off limits.

But walking through the hall and living room to enter the backyard exposed us to prying eyes and used up whole minutes of our precious play time.

We just wanted to be free.

So we did the only logical thing - we cut a large hole out of my bedroom window screen.

Luckily for all involved, my childhood home only had one floor.

And for one glorious afternoon, we contorted ourselves through that screen hole, scurying in and out.

(Though only a few times, as it turns out we cut the hole a bit too small, and it was rather painful to squeeze through.)

(In our defense, have you ever tried to cut through a window screen with child scissors?)

So high on our backyard victory, Maggie and I hadn't planned a disguise for my now exposed window.

Somewhat late, we tried to remove the screen, but child scissors can only do so much, and my mom quickly discovered our mischief.

Like William Wallace before me, my cries for freedom led to nothing but tears and epic battles and death.

But with less epic battles and death.

So I settled into my sedate life, knowing that while I might have the spirit of a rebel, I lack the ability.

And hey, that Roman mythology comes in handy sometimes.

Not so much at parties though,

Megan

Read more about Megan and the woodland creatures she stalks at Best Of Fates.

A Tale of Teenage Terror From the Wheatfields of Kansas

Missy Jill is an American living with her husband and four kids in Canada.  I believe that her blog, What's Going On Here is a hidden gem of the blogosphere.  MJ is a funny, homeschooling mom who would choose baking over cleaning and art projects over laundry - which puts her sensibilities right up my alley. 

A Tale of Teenage Terror From the Wheatfields of Kansas

When Mindee asked me to guest post about scary stories from my past only one story stood out.  I quickly dismissed the time I nearly blew up the neighborhood with ignited sewer gas, only ONE story could fit this bill:  A tale of terror from the wheat fields of Kansas...

I was a goody-goody in high school and  hung out with goody-goodies.  We ran on the edge of the party crowd, always staying within the bounds of propriety.  But it was Friday night and the goody-goodies were bored.

Joni, Deana and I decided to cruise main street with a twist.

"Hey guys, wouldn't it be funny if we put on weird masks and drove around and honked at people?"

"But we only have two ski masks".

"Put pantyhose over your head!"

"And these Groucho Marx glasses!"

We set out in anticipation of all the stares we would get cruising down the main drag.  Strangely enough, people actually tried to avoid eye contact.

It was time to raise the stakes.

"Pull into the Youth Center."

Joni navigated the car right in front of the picture window.  Nobody looked.

"Honk the horn."

That was our downfall.

"Everyone's pointing!  They're coming out!  Oh NO!  Get away before they can see who we are!"

Joni peeled out of the parking lot, gravel flying, half the football team in pursuit. We raced down the highway to safety laughing our heads off until Joni interrupted...

"Guys!  GUYS!  There's flashing lights behind us, what do I do?"

"Don't stop here, everyone will see.  Keep going!  Keep going!"  we sang in unison.
We slowed to a stop in a dark corner.

"Leave your masks on. It will be funny to answer the officer looking weird."

I was startled by three loud bangs at my door.  I turned and looked.  Straight into the barrel of a gun.

"Get out of the car and put your hands on the hood!  GET OUT OF THE CAR AND PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE HOOD!"

We stumbled out in our ski masks. Blinded by the lights, we squinted to see that the entire police force had been radioed in for backup.  A searchlight held us in its gaze for everyone to see. 

All guns trained on us. Joni was so flustered she couldn't find the hood to put her hands on.

"I said THE HOOD, THE HOOD!" the policeman screamed at her.
Their first clue that we weren't an immediate threat probably came when they saw our cheerleading uniforms.  But the gravity of the situation didn't lighten until they asked me my name...

"Spell your last name!"  the officer barked at me, his pen poised above the dreaded pad.

I managed to squeak out my surname, "C-R-O-O-K."  There was a moment of stunned silence.  And then laughter erupted through the night air diffusing all the tension.  They were laughing at us; maybe we weren't going to jail!

They questioned us.  They scolded us.  The ordered us to go home for the night.  We scurried home like wet cats and thought that was the humiliating end of the story. Only then did it hit us--We-- Looked-- Like-- CROOKS.

Ya'think?  It was a good thing we didn't go into the Quick Mart as originally planned.

Sitting in class a few weeks later, I was summoned to the principal's office where a detective sat stoically in the corner.  He flung the high school newspaper at me and demanded, "Did you write that?"

It was our story that I'd written up for the school paper.

"Uhhh,"  I stammered, "well, yes. Yes I did write that."
The detective broke into a grin, "Aw shucks, I'm just kidding you.  You're not in any trouble.  We just have to make a thorough investigation because one of the police officers at the scene did not pull his gun.  And with all the indicators present: out of state plates, ski masks, erratic driving...(he eyeballed me) he should have gone by the book.  He said he knew it was all a prank, but I'm afraid we're going to have to fire him."

"Fire him?"  My jaw dropped.

And that's how the saga ended. 

The smartest man on the force losing his job—because of us.  Probably even more frightening was the answer I got when I asked "What would you have done that night if I'd reached under the seat for my purse first, before I'd opened the car door?"

"I would have blown your head off."
.
Parents take note:  You never know how smart your goody-goody teens are until ski masks and boredom share the same night.

Missy and Joni blithely creeping knee-deep into stupid.

Read more about Missy Jill and her life in Canada at What's Going On Here.