Archive for November, 2011

one fifty

one fifty


On this Wednesday, the 30th day of November, 2011, I present you, my friends, with my one hundred and fiftieth post on this little blog. I started the blog on January 28 (306 days ago) so some super simple math that I don’t even need a calculator for tells me that I’ve been blogging, on  average, once every two days.  Those that have been here awhile know that it’s actually gone in spurts.  This last couple of weeks, for instance, I’ve been on blogging fire! Whereas, in the summer, I was sort of an absentee blogger. Sorry about that :)

So, for a fun 150th post, I’m going to share some statistics. I sort of feel like I’m getting naked in front of all my friends, here.  But hey, in the spirt of over share… let’s go! Note that I  didn’t install Google Analytics until February 7.  There could have been some serious visitors and page views that aren’t getting counted in that first week (jk).

  • First Post: “Fifty-Two” (formerly, and incorrectly, titled “Sixty-Four”) on January 28, 2011.
  • Total visits: 3,980
  • Absolute unique visitors: 2,580
  • Total pageviews: 10,814
  • Most popular day: April 13, 2011, 670 visits, 852 page views. (I was stumbled by popular bloggers that day)
  • Most popular post: Camera Bag In Action (most hits come from stumble upon, Google and Beers & Beans)
  • Most of my visitors come from Canada (44%), the US (38%), the UK (5%) and Australia (3%).  With the next runner up… Denmark (1%).  And, my visitors from Denmark spend the most time on the blog (an average of 7.5 minutes) and check out the most pages (5.22).  These have been pretty steady visits over time.  So, thanks Danish friends!
  • I’ve got 119 comments (of which 31 are from me), this blog is clearly not much of a conversation!  Web 2.0 fail.  The comments mostly come from  mom (hi mom!), bloggers whose blogs I quote – mostly travel bloggers who are big on the comment train (hi travel bloggers!), and other repeat visitors (hi!).
  • Akismet has protected me from a heck of a lot of spam (a heck of a lot more than 119 comments that’s for sure).  But, I can’t figure out where to find this number. However, for reference, there are 72 spam comments in my spam folder at this very moment.
  • Of all the time my blog is being read, new visitors are reading it about 30% of the time, returning visitors are reading it about 70% of the time.  Thanks repeat friends!  And I hope some of you new guys will stick around!
  • This graph is kind of telling, it shows total number of visits (blue) against average length of time (dashed grey).  Looks like those big spikes in April and August did nothing for the quality of my readership.  It also looks like people were spending way more time (like twice as much time) on the blog in February and March.

What does this graph tell me?

  1. Visitors from Stumble Upon make me feel great when I see how many people popped in and make me feel SAD when I see how little time they stay for.
  2. People used to read my blog for longer.  Much longer. I don’t know why.  Food for thought.
  3. I lost some visitors when I slowed down my blogging this summer.
  4. Both my number of visits and my average time on the blog are trending up again.  Maybe I’m starting to do something right?
Despite all of this feeling like I’m naked on the internet, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this blog is for me.  It is an awesome creative outlet.  It is a place for me to practice my writing and to make a few new friends.  It’s a place to tinker.  If other people are interested and want to come along for the ride, YAY!  Welcome!  Leave a comment, send me an email, or not, whatever works for you! The tone and the content are always changing (when it started it was strictly eat, decorate, photograph, travel), now almost half my posts are just me musing.  And who knows where it will go when I go on indefinite leave of absence from tax law and we move to Buenos Aires in January. (P.S. I’m pretty sure it will go somewhere awesome.)
But thank you, thank you for reading, and for being a part of my adventure on the internet. You rule.  You really do.

 

November 30, 2011 4 comments Read More
travel tuesday (paris : 2011)

travel tuesday (paris : 2011)

J’adore Paris. Images from the first stop on our summer trip.

paris 001paris 002paris 003paris 004paris 005paris 006paris 007paris 008paris 009paris 010paris 011paris 012paris 013paris 014paris 015paris 016paris 017paris 018paris 019paris 020

November 29, 2011 0 comments Read More
paper flowers

paper flowers

Happy Monday friends! This is my third last “Monday” for the indefinite future. Or, I guess every day will be a Monday, depending on my mood! Given my waking up at 5:30 everyday in the last week, including weekends, because I am SO.EXCITED.ABOUT.LIFE I tend towards the no days will feel like Mondays. At least at first!

But, that is neither here nor there. The plan for the blog today was a craft tutorial. Yes… I’m crafty. Or at least I try to be :)

So, a few weeks ago I got my craft on and decided to make some paper flowers. I was inspired by pinterest, where else? (Inspiration here, here and here, among many, many others). And I thought that these flowers would look super cute if I made them with maps (I’m a little obsessed). I also thought this would be a super fun tutorial. And boy, would it ever had been. I took such good and detailed tutorial pictures, I even had the hubs in on the action, photographing as I was crafting – much to his “delight”. It was sweet.

Unfortunately, in my excitement while in San Francisco shooting this wedding, I reformated all my memory cards (in case you can’t see where this is going, let me make it painfully obvious… I did that reformatting BEFORE downloading my tutorial images). Then I filled the cards up with the new images. In other words, I managed to delete all my tutorial pictures. Oops.

Aside: this is why I immediately download images from photoshoots, clearly I’m not bright enough to manage otherwise.

But, then I said “what the heck.” I’ll share a picture instead of the tutorial. I’ll send you to tutorials where I found them (and really, the big flowers are much, much nicer by the original artist anyway). So, feast your eyes on some sweet map flowers. And then go here and/or here, respectively, for sweet tutorials if you feel like getting your craft on!

Note: The flower on the left, super easy, super fast, super cute. The flower on the left, super time consuming, not super easy, and almost cute. I think I know what type of paper flower I’ll be sticking to in the future…

November 28, 2011 0 comments Read More
happy friday!

happy friday!

Just a quick note today to say Happy Friday to all my blog friends. If you are in the US, happy Black Friday, if you are not, happy Regular Friday (or weird pseudo Black Friday where you are trying to work but are maybe, just maybe, a little distracted by the online deals…)!

I wasn’t planning on blogging today, but I woke up this morning craving some “Man vs. Toddler”, one of my all-time favourite youtube videos. So I decided why not share it with my blog friends. If this is new to you, enjoy. If not, take 45 seconds and watch it again… you won’t regret it!

Enjoy!

November 25, 2011 1 comment Read More
so organized!

so organized!

[Editor's Note: I just found this draft way, way back in my archives! Woohoo! Free post! Funny timing, given that we are moving and I'm packing up all my jewelry, but hey, what can you do?]

Earlier today [AS: originally written in the spring.] my friend posted her new jewelry organizer on facebook. It was the world’s most awesome jewelry drawer made out of an antique printer drawer. I have been swooning over for months on etsy (it’s by by bluebirdheaven). But alas, I’m much too cheap to spend $128 on a jewelry organizer. Although it is really a piece of art as well.

Anyway. I actually have a pretty good jewelry organization thing going on. I like the tabs, I like the earrings. But the drawer. Wow. It needed some work.

110529 Organizer 001-2 copy

Enter Winners. And $10.

110529 Organizer 001

110529 Organizer 002

In case you can’t tell… that is a two level organizer thing-y. With a slider. I’m in the big-time, now.

110529 Organizer 003

Organized, right?

110529 Organizer 005

It’s actually a super sweet solution. Pretty to look at. Easy to get at things (the things I use the least are in the bottom, back half. The things I use the most are in the top slider. In all honesty, the things I use the most live on the wall (the long necklaces and the earrings).

For now, feast your eyes on my awesome solution. And find $10, run out to Winners and cross your fingers you can get a two-layer slider organizer thing-y for your life too!

110529 Organizer 004

110529 Organizer 006

110529 Organizer 007

[AS: It's been awesome. I love this solution and am keeping the dual layer slider forever.]

November 24, 2011 1 comment Read More
dark chocolate pom drops

dark chocolate pom drops

pom-1

Several years ago I was searching for a dessert that combined the flavours of pomegranate and dark chocolate. Little did I know at the time, the most perfect recipe required only those two ingredients.

I can’t remember where I found the recipe, and it is so simple that it now lives in my brain. So, thank you to someone on the internet for this awesome recipe!

This recipe is literally made out of dark or semi-sweet chocolate and pomegranate arils. It takes minutes to prepare, can chill while you are eating dinner, and won’t last very long!

Now, in making any pomegranate recipe, the first thing to do is get to the delicious arils (the fruit). Melissa has the a great tutorial on her blog, so I’m going to send you over there if you don’t know how to do it already!

pom-2

Making the drops is easy, you first melt your chocolate (I would recommend a semi-sweet or dark chocolate, otherwise you might be in for a sweet explosion!) over a double boiler (or, if you are in the middle of packing like me, in a saucepan) and once it is almost melted mix in your pomegrante arils.

pom-3

You can tell from the next picture that I overheated my chocolate – likely because I used a saucepan instead of a double boiler. If you are using a double boiler, melt your chocolate over simmering (not boiling) water and you avoid chunky chocolate.

Once your arils are mixed in, arrange in drop form on parchment paper and chill in the fridge. Again, if you don’t overheat your chocolate the drops will be smooth, not crumbly.

pom-4

Once they are cold, enjoy (you can also enjoy at room temperature, but I prefer them cold.) Printable recipe below.

pom-5

November 23, 2011 2 comments Read More