Happy Blogiversary To Me, 2022

On October 1, 2018, I published my first “real” post on this blog, making this my blogs 4th birthday. Or blogiversary. Happy Blogiversary to me!

Today seems like a good time to reflect on this last year of blogging. And maybe blow my own horn (a little).

This past year has been a difficult one in many ways.

There were personal issues: the death of my mother-in-law, work conditions going down hill, some other less exciting problems.

Blogging has been more challenging too.

When my life got pretty crazy, I just didn’t have the brain space to write much beyond my fitness logs, and maybe some posts highlighting blog posts by other writers.

Over the past year, many of the bloggers I like to follow have cut back as well. Though I know none of them personally, I realize I often find inspiration for my writing after reading someone else’s thoughts.

Looking back at the year

Over the past year, I have published 102 posts.

More than half of these were my fitness logs.

These are a little bit of a cheat, as they are dead easy to write: I just have to exercise (the point of the logs), pick an art piece to highlight, and reflect on whether I have “a first” to highlight. To be fair, that last aspect is rather difficult.

Strangely enough, on WordPress these posts get the most likes. I suspect this may have to do with sketchy fitness sites and spammers (oh, the spammers!), but I have had some authentic comments, which I greatly appreciate.

As for the other posts:

I have been fortunate enough to be featured by bloggers who are much more widely read than me. In this past year, 4 of my posts were featured on other sites (thank you Physician on Fire, Financial Success MD, [the now defunct] All Star Money, and Personal Finance Blogs) and 2 more were mentioned in newsletters. One post even made it to Doximity. By far and away, Physician on Fire has sent me the most traffic (thanks again, PoF!!)

I have posted 10 round up posts in the past year. I hope that this produced some benefits (if small) to the authors I highlighted. WordPress tells me I have passed on readers to other sites at least 142 times (top referral to Money Meets Medicine (a podcast)).

Four times this year, I hit publish on updated versions of old posts. It turns out revising those posts wasn’t as easy as I would have thought. I think these posts did get a little more attention than when they were first published, but I am not sure how much I will do this going forward.

I skipped a few weeks when times got too tough to put a post together; it felt bad when that happened, but was surprised to go back and count only 6 times in the past 12 months. Go me.

Special posts

Unsurprisingly, the most popular posts are those featured by more successful bloggers.

What I Learned From Reviewing Our Yearly Spending was featured on multiple blogs, and is by far the most read post on this blog.

Going down the list, I see my home page, my about page, and then many other featured posts.

What surprises me is the continued popularity of a post from 2021, A Year of Decluttering. Thank you for those who read it, and I hope the posts I linked to help you with your quest to make your home less cluttered.

A post from earlier this year that I was quite proud of is A PCP Looks At Fire. I was a little sad that not as many people wanted to read it as my other posts, but c’est la vie.

The posts I feel most guilty about are 2 I still haven’t finished: parts 2 and 3 of my review of Take More Vacations. I don’t know that anyone is dying to read what I got out of the book, but I do eventually want to finish my notes, as there were some verrry interesting details. I’ll have to get the book out from the library again; or maybe even (gasp!) purchase it.

Going forward

At this point, I think it is clear that I should enjoy writing for the blog for my own sake. I am not monetizing it (and if I tried, I don’t think I would make…anything).

However, I do have hopes that some of my writing may inspire others: to save money, to invest wisely, to take a walk, to exercise.

If you enjoy my blog, please feel free to share a post with friends, family, co-workers.

I don’t have a mailing list (to prevent spamming, mailing services now require a real life mailing address, which would reduce my chances of staying anonymous as I talk about retiring early), so no signing up there. Until recently, I have been listed at Xrayvsn’s Hospital page, but something seems to be off in the past few weeks. One can follow me on WordPress, if so desired.

If you enjoy the blog and aren’t sure about sharing it, a special blogiversary present that I would really appreciate is: drop me a note. It’s easiest to leave a comment, but if the comments section is closed, or you prefer to say something privately, send an email to physicianinnumbers at gmail dot com.

Meanwhile, I would like to thank you, my readers, for visiting my site and (maybe) celebrating my blogiversary with me.