2011: A Year in Review - Top Blog Posts

I started the year strong, with lots of blog posts, but I had a huge lull from May to November. Despite that, there were some posts that stood out as the most visited. Here they are again, in case you missed them!

5. Chocolate Chip Irish Creme Cupcakes: These are some of the best cupcakes I have ever tasted!

4. Tuesday Tutorial: Cupcake Tower: I have now made several of these and they are a lot of fun!

3. Soccer Party Printables: Taking a queue from TomKat Studios, I designed my own soccer cupcake toppers and posted them as a free download!

2. Mickey Mouse Birthday Party: I made a cupcake tower, homemade cupcakes and lot of other Mickey shaped goodies!


1. Recipe Review: Cinnamon Roll Pancakes from Recipe Girl: I didn't even have time to take pictures of my final product, but this post was a big hit! The pancakes were an even bigger hit. My family went nuts over them!

Well, that about does it for my top 5 blog posts of 2011. Here's to an even better 2012!

Google Reader

The more I get into blogging, the more I read other peoples' blogs. I figure I'm doing my due diligence (to borrow a phrase from my real job) to find out what other people are talking about and how they are attracting readers. The problem is that it became increasingly harder to keep up with all of the blogs that I was following, so I usually was only checking each one about once a week. Then I read Marian Schembari's post The Ultimate Blog Checklist where she talked about a "reader." She didn't elaborate, but upon further investigation, I found this post, A Blog + A Feed + A Reader = A More Efficient You on BlogHer. It is a great tutorial on how to get started with Google Reader, which is free! I couldn't believe that this was right under my nose the whole time! It posts the newest posts for any blogs you set up a subscription to, all in one place! I got started immediately.

At first I was going to the reader directly. Then I realized that if I used iGoogle as my homepage, I could put the reader front and center, so I'd see all unread posts as soon as I open my browser, along with the weather, and other things. How cool is that? As a result, I'm keeping up with my friends' blogs, and getting information much sooner than I would have otherwise! I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out!

So thank you fellow bloggers for the help! I feel so much more in tune now!

I just joined BlogHer!

Since I've decided to get serious about this blogging thing, I decided to join BlogHer. It's a blog network for women (and some men). Many of the bloggers that I follow are already members, so I thought I would give it a shot. It's a HUGE network of women, and I'm looking forward to being a part of it!

Hello old friend!

I started this blog back in 2007 as a way to just talk...to myself, and anyone who might be reading. I wrote about myself and some controversial topics in the news. Now that it's been well over a year since I posted anything, it was my first inclination to just delete all of my posts and start fresh. I've decided I want to use this blog kind of like a diary of my life. But instead of starting with a blank slate, I'm going to leave up the personal posts and just continue on. I think that the older posts will give people insight into who I am, and what I am about. It's also a good reminder for me!

I have been writing another blog for a few months called 52 Books. It's about my personal challenge to read 52 books in a year! So far I've only read about 4 or 5, but I'm working on finding the balance that I need, so that I have time for that, and everything else that I need to fit into my life! Eventually I may find a way to merge that blog with this one, but in the meantime...here I go--embarking on yet another blog adventure!