We’ll return to our regularly scheduled “scraps” next week, but today we have a special!
One year ago today, my first post appeared in this space. At the time, I’m sure it was read by no one but me (and I doubt many other people have gone back to read it since then, either). But some folks have found their way here over time, and I’m glad you’re here to celebrate my first Blogoversary with me!

Taking a cue from the Franklin Avenue blog (which turned five this month – how long is that in blog years?), I’m inviting you to help me mark the occasion by de-lurking and leaving a comment on this post – or leaving a comment, period, if you do that here often. I’d like to know how you found the blog and whether you read often, if you wouldn’t mind sharing that too.

I thought that this might be an appropriate time to look back on the year, so I’m doing that though the “Five Favorite Posts” meme, which I picked up via MaryP. The rules are very simple: Go back through your archives and post the links to five favorite blog posts that you’ve written, then tag five other people. At least two of the people you tag must be newer acquaintances so that you get to know each other better.

(I don’t tag, so if you do this, just leave me a comment and let me know, please!)

Link one must be about family.
I’ve done a lot of posts on that general topic, but I’ll highlight this one, written for the thirteenth birthday of Tall Girl, my stepdaughter (now even taller and wearing a bigger shoe size).

Link two must be about friends.
I really don’t talk much about my “off-line” friends on the blog, but here’s a post about something we did with friends earlier this year.

Link three must be about yourself.
Hey, it’s my personal blog; at least indirectly, nearly every post is about myself! Here’s a post that takes the topic fairly literally, though, and it’s representative of my ongoing fascination with personality quizzes and tests.

Link four must be about something you love.
Can I make it about someONE I love instead? My blogoversary, my rules, so I say yes.

Link five can be about anything you choose.Decisions, decisions…OK, I can’t pick only one, but I’ll limit myself to three: one about books, one about music, and one just for fun, with my favorite occasional co-author.

A couple of the above links are relatively recent, although I tried to choose some older posts too.

This also seems like an appropriate time to look over some history and statistics. I don’t actually have tracking for the full year, since I didn’t get signed up for it until a few months into the blog, but I can find out a few things, which I’ll group in sets of five for consistency with the meme:

5 Most-used categories/tags (most posts get more than one tag): randomness, memes and blogger games, blogs elsewhere, reading, and thinking out loud. (‘Riting is in at #6. Nice to confirm that the title of the blog actually is well-represented in the content.)

5 Most-viewed posts:
The “responsible” child (?) – A parental perspective
Just finished: “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” (a book review post that I posted/linked on BlogHer, which probably helped, as did the fact it was a popular search – see the next item)
The American vacation – endangered species?
Factors for a successful marriage – the Pew Survey
Just finished: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”

5 Most popular keyword searches (excluding variations on blog title):

1. pennyworthbooks.com
2. florinda
3. office wife
4. shireen mitchell
5. memory keeper’s daughter

I was going to include some general visitor stats, but changed my mind; the numbers make me very happy, but most of y’all would probably just laugh at how cute and tiny they are, relatively speaking.

Thank you for being part of The 3 R’s: Reading, ‘Riting, and Randomness‘ first year; hope you’ll stick around for the next one, because I certainly plan to be here! (Maybe a little less often, though…slow the pace down a bit, since I suspect I’ll hit 500 posts well before summer at my current rate.)

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