Along with it being the one year anniversary of the farm this week, it’s also the one year anniversary of this blog. Today, I’m taking a look back at some of the highlights of my first year as a blogger–and, yes, after a year I am calling myself a blogger.

Here are some of my favourite things that have happened this first year:

• Having the bridesmaid dress I sewed along with a link to my blog featured in Vogue Patterns magazine
• Talking to the Toronto Star about our experience paying off the mortgage on our first house
• Being nominated for One Lovely Blogger Award by Julie at Outtakes on the Outskirts
• Seeing my blog listed in another blogger’s blogroll
• Experiencing the support and input from the blogging community–Dyson dilemma, where I asked people what vacuum we should buy, got the most comments of any of the posts I published this year
• The friendships and connections I’ve made over the past year with people I’ve never met, but who share some of the same interests — Diane, Lyndsay, Mathew and Carly to name a few

In the first year, I published 171 posts and uploaded 652 pictures. At the start, I was posting four times a week, but now I’ve moved to three times a week. I like having a regular schedule for posting, and I find it pretty manageable to think of and write three posts a week

The blog had 16,815 views in the first year. It averaged 44 views per day in 2012. So far in 2013, the average is 57.

The busiest day of the year was July 23 when I had 543 views in one day. This was the day I published Change of pace, the post about the bridesmaid dress I sewed for my sister’s wedding.

Surprisingly, for a blog that’s supposed to be about home renovation and country living, this sewing post was my most popular for the first year.

Here are the posts that make up the top five from the first year and the number of views they had:

1. Change of pace – 828
2. The reveal… aka how to strip wallpaper – 363
3. How to install a pot light – 223
4. Free furry friends for you – 157
5. Umbrella-ella-ella, the country version – 114

This list shows some of the different ways people find the blog. Most of the traffic on Change of pace came from Pattern Review, a very active online sewing community where I shared the dress. This post continues to get a few hits every day and got a little boost in the fall when the Vogue Patterns article was published. The second and third top posts are how-tos, which turned out to be popular for online searches. The fourth most popular post was our free kitten promotion, which Matt and I sent to pretty much everyone we knew. Number five, which I posted only last week, was my Pinterest Challenge entry, which got a lot of traffic through Young House Love.

The other posts that round out the top 10 illustrate the interconnectedness of the blogging communities. The Pinterest Challenge is an obvious one, but other top posts got a lot of traffic simply through comments on other blogs.

The posts that have been the most popular have been a bit surprising to me. I expected my geothermal series to be more popular than it was. I’ve now realized that geothermal is a project undertaken by a smaller number of people, whereas lots of people want to install potlights and strip wallpaper.

Probably the biggest surprise from the first year has been all of the different places visitors have come from–94 countries in all.

Here are the top 10 countries and the number of visitors from each:

1. Canada – 8,870
2. United States – 5,951
3. United Kingdom – 390
4. Australia – 241
5. Switzerland – 156 (hallo to Matt’s relatives!)
6. Germany – 120
7. India – 95
8. France – 54
9. New Zealand – 48
10. Philippines – 44

Search is of course a common way visitors make their way to the blog. The most frequent searches were for home on 129 acres (obvious), kioti cs2410 (our lovely tractor Wiley), pyjamas and snow boots outside (???), benjamin moore wrought iron (the paint colour I chose for the basement bathroom), wallpaper newspaper (I didn’t like it, but apparently a lot of people do), and carpeted stringers on stairs.

Most common searches are one thing. The best ones, though, are the ones that come through much less frequently:

• tile saw spraying me in face — Yup. That’s how it goes.
• why was well drilled by barn and not house — Who knows? I’d really like to understand that myself.
• how long will dry wall dust stay in my nose/drywall dust in my mouth how do i clean/basement drywalling how to not get dust upstairs — Answers: a long time/spit, rinse & repeat/not possible, sorry, deal with it
• we bought a farm now what — Good question. I’m working on figuring it out.

As we work on figuring out this farm living thing, the blog has been a great way to capture all of our adventures–both for myself and for all of you out there. To all of my visitors, thank you very much for reading. I like knowing you’re out there. Year one has been a lot of fun. Stay tuned. There’s more to come.

Last month, Julie at Outtakes on the Outskirts nominated me for a One Lovely Blog Award. As a very new blogger, I was quite excited when I read her post and saw my name in the list. The rules for the One Lovely Blog Award are that I need to share seven random things about myself and nominate 10 bloggers for the award.

So here goes. Seven random things about me:

1. I do not like green peppers and will avoid eating them at all costs.

No, thank you.

No matter whether they’re cooked or raw, no matter that I’m at a fancy work dinner and I have to make a good impression, if there are green peppers on my plate, they stay there. Sometimes they’ll be pushed to the side, sometimes I try the random scatter technique in an attempt to say, “No, I’m not rejecting these peppers, they just happen to be left over with along with that one piece of lettuce and that random shred of carrot.”

2. I am distantly related to Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of the Anne of Green Gables series and numerous other novels.

My much-loved copy of Anne of Green Gables

The lineage of the Montgomery clan is well documented, and if my grandmother (née Montgomery) was still alive, she could explain the connection. However, my relationship to LMM is very remote. I am not eligible for any royalties, and I don’t have a special pass to Green Gables. I do however have pretty much every LMM book, including a very tattered copy of Anne of Green Gables.

3. I love to waterski and have been slaloming since I was about 10 years old.

Yes, that’s me

I’ve been part of a waterski pyramid (on the bottom) and slalomed on a paddle (not as hard as it sounds). I’m still pushing to improve my slalom technique and have big goals of mastering a 360 my Dad’s trick skis and one day being able to barefoot.

4. As you saw at the beginning of the week, I’m a sewer and have made a lot of my own clothes.

My favourite prom dress. The pattern is Butterick 5542 in case anyone’s interested. And yes, Matt was my date.

You’ll see this interest reflected in some of the blogs I nominate below. I don’t know how young I was when my Mom first started teaching me, but I made my grade 8 graduation dress, multiple semi-formal dresses, two prom dresses and most recently a bridesmaid dress.

5. I love clothes and have a very special (if stereotypically female) affection for shoes.

My favourite shoes roughing it on the gravel driveway

My top three pairs are grey felt heels with white satin stitch embroidery on the heels and fur pompoms on the toes, taxi cab kitten heels in bright yellow with black toe buckles, and leopard print pony hair with black patent wedges. Completely inappropriate for the farm, but oh so fabulous!

6. I started wearing glasses the summer before I turned 10.

Ugh, the awkward tween years

While I eventually progressed to contacts, I was pretty much lost without my glasses. I could see up to about two feet in front of my face without some kind of visual aid, which is not a good way to see the world. But three years ago, I had laser surgery, and I’ve been 20/20 since then! Highly recommend laser vision correction, by the way.

7. I’m a runner (currently on hiatus as renovating a basement and managing a 129-acre property provide enough exercise for now). Seven years ago, Matt and I completed a marathon.

Matt and me after our marathon

It was a goal, it’s done and now I’m quite happy to keep my runs to 10K or less. My favourite race is the Around the Bay, the oldest road race in North America–older than the Boston marathon even. I’ve done the full 30K, a couple of relays and numerous years as a spectator.

That’s it! Any green pepper fans out there who want to defend their poor maligned vegetable? Any kindred spirits who love their Lucy Maud Montgomery?

And now on to the second part of the award.

My nominees are:

1. Growing up, one day at a time – The personal diary of a friend at work. Leah has a great philosophy on life.
2. Welcome to Turtle House – An amazing transformation–seriously, Katy’s slideshow on the homepage is astounding–and a gorgeous waterfront setting.
3. That 70s House – Another young couple DIYing their way through their house. If you only check out this blog for the fabulous header image, it’s worth it.
4. Girl meets farm – A fellow Canadian. City girl meets boy and moves to country. Their saga of the search for their perfect farm parallels Matt’s and mine almost exactly. Where we differ is that they’re actually farming–check out their lambs, donkeys and chickens.
5. Four Square Walls – A sewing blog. Andrea’s unfailing ability to laugh at herself–and share her foibles with the world–are always entertaining.
6. Welcome to Heardmont – A third young couple DIYing their house–see a theme here? Check out how they dealt with their kitchen bulkhead and the pretty+functionality they added to their master closet.
7. It’s Great To Be Home – A lot of people think about flipping houses. Liz and her husband actually do it! Great design sense and budget conscious renovations make this blog a winner.
8. Adventures in Dressmaking – A great sewist who’s just about to move into her brand new house. I can’t wait to see how she decorates it.
9. Lightly Crunchy – Another Canadian keeping up the family tradition of country living.
10. yrppies – Another story of the transition to country living and a massive renovation of an old farmhouse.

Thanks to all of the nominees. Reading your stories (some for several years) has been inspiring.