Growing Blog, Top Post And Blog Forecast For 2008

I’m amazed and also quite pleased to see that I continue to make the Growing Blog list on WordPress despite the exponential factor which should make it progressively more difficult to be on this list.

To remain a growing blog, you not only have to grow, but you have to outdo your own growing rate and the rate of others each time, and I’ve started the new year with a bang not only being one of the WordPress Growing Blogs, but also having one of the Top Posts on WordPress.

At last count my post Organizing Household Resources In An Address Book was the 99th Top Post on WordPress out of more than 2 million blogs and an unknown bazillion posts.

I’ve said it before, but I have to say it again that I thank my readers.  I’m so glad that you find my blog to be interesting and useful.  I’m so glad when I look at my statistics and see that you came to my site from a link which was e-mailed to you or when I read my own e-mail and there’s a note from you telling me that you are putting me on your reader so you won’t miss a post.

As you saw with yesterday’s post, I don’t like to make New Year Resolutions because so few people can keep them and if I’m going to have a resolution or a goal, why wait for January 1, but here are just a few of the directions I see my blog going in the coming months.  I have other plans too that I’ll let you know about as the year unfolds.

If you’ve made the resolution to be organized, this blog is quickly becoming the place to find easy tips and solutions.  I’ve even created pages at the top of this blog for Household Tips and for Organizing so that you can easily find my posts at any time.  To help you with that there are also a search feature and a calendar in the sidebar.

I’ve noticed that you are also especially interested in my posts on healthy eating and cookies (not so healthy but yummy) as well as other recipes.  So I’ll give you a bit more in these areas too in the coming months.

I’ll continue to post about religion, God and my opinions on the topic.  The Lenten season is approaching quickly.  For the past two years I have used the book “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren to prepare for Easter by reading his book and reflecting on his 40-day spiritual journey.  I found different insights each year as I have grown and changed, and for 2008 I hope you’ll join me on-line.  I highly recommend this book which according to Publishers Weekly has become “the bestselling nonfiction hardback book in history.”  So come find out why with me and my other readers.  If you don’t already own it, you can check it out from your local library when the time comes, or you can purchase it.

Today and anytime, feel free to leave me comments.  Comments help us get to know each other and to build a community.

In the meantime, thanks a million to all of you for reading my blog, and I wish you and your loved ones a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year 2008!!!

Bookcases at the Breaking Point? Join Paper Back Swap.

I meander through blogs one click at a time and I found what seems to be a great Web site for all of us bookworms. I periodically lighten the load on my bookshelves by taking lots of boxes to my local charity and start the process all over again by filling up those shelves quicker than my wallet appreciates. I know all of you fellow bookworms can identify.

Well, I’ll still give to charity of course, but I’m going to give Paper Back Swap a try and see if I can’t give my wallet something to cheer about for once.

Basically you sign up your unloved books (hardbacks too) for adoption at Paper Back Swap. When a fellow PBS member wants to adopt your book, you mail it to them and you can adopt someone’s unloved book. It’s an even trade book for book. The site is free. Even with postage, which PBS tells us is $1.59 for a paperback, that’s still cheaper than buying from a used bookstore.

They claim their members are the best part about their club.

Co-founder Robert Swarthout says, “What started as a trading system has turned into a social community of readers that share so much more than books. Our members transcend miles and become best friends through club communications, discussion forums and coffee-time chat rooms.”

There’s also a writer’s corner called The Eclectic Pen and a recipe corner, too. They claim to have a large selection of homeschooling books.

They have almost 2 million books available and have been recommended by Good Housekeeping, Wired, Real Simple, Martha Stewart.com, The Today Show, CNN, Nasdaq’s Marshall Loeb, ABC News, and numerous more media sources across the country, so they should be a reliable site.

I’m going to give it a try, and if you already have tried them, please let me and my readers know what you think.

• Don’t know what NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo are? Read all about it here and here.

• Want to know why I’m participating in both? Click here.