20,000 and Counting

I have an announcement to make.  Somebody, somewhere (probably in Wyoming) just became my 20,000th hit.  20,000th!!!  WOW!!! I know some of you are saying 20,000???  What took you so long?  To all of you who are saying that I give you a royal.... :-P

To the rest of you... I'm not sure what took me so long. :)  10,000 of those are ME so I should have hit this number MUCH sooner.  Also, I have spent my life studying and researching what people want.  I have made spreadsheet after spreadsheet, charting and measuring what it will take to make sure I please the masses.  And apparently it's NOT working.  I really need to re-evaluate my methods of cultural wooing because I suck.  Maybe I should just offer money.  Then I would probably read my OWN blog instead of just clicking for the hits.

Maybe I should focus more on the ever-growing 62 - 68 year old female skateboarding Mercedes mechanics demographic.  That's what my magic computer program tells me anyway.  (I have been debating on getting another program to pick the right demos to appeal to.  This latest suggestion might have made my decision for me.)  But whatever it is, I really wasn't planning on hitting that particular number.  Especially when I found out that just because you write it doesn't mean people will read.  Apparently, that "Field of Dreams" logic only works in the movies.

I have chatted with a few bloggers who I think have GREAT sites and most took a while to reach 20,000 hits.  So I'm convinced it doesn't particularly have anything to do with my crappy content.  Because their content is WAY better than mine and it took them a while, too.  So, I'm leaning on the side of luck in this case.  Just consider me lucky.  I'll take it.  I would rather be lucky than good anyway.

I was going to end it with that but before I could post this I saw something else I consider noteworthy but wouldn't be enough to have a FULL blog about it.  But I just thought it was interesting.

Imagine this 2 times plus 4 more figures.

The other day I went grocery shopping. Of course that's not news.  I grocery shop every Sunday morning.  (Something that IS worth mentioning is that I actually found EVERYTHING on the list (including some "made for her" junk that was added while I was in the checkout line (grrr)).  This seldom happens and is almost more notable than 20,000 hits!)  But as I was leaving, I saw a car that had those cute little stickers on the back that show all of the members of the family.  You know the ones I'm talking about.  The ones where you know the dad is a businessman because his little figure has a briefcase and the daughter is a cheerleader because her little figure has pom poms.  Well... this car had 18 stickers!!!  (At first I thought it was my friend SPUDS but it would have to have at least 8 more figures.) I had to actually STOP to count all of the people in the family.  There was mom and dad.  Then there were 12 kids (their own little "Cheaper by the Dozen").   (Some of you are adding that up and saying, "DUDE that only equals 14!"  And your math would be correct.  But they also had stickers for their 2 cats and 2 dogs.  I actually laughed because the pets were stick figures too and with THAT many mouths to feed, those stickers were probably accurately showing what the pets looked like.)

Those stickers went ALL the way across the back window.  I had never seen anything like that.  It looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics!  (I couldn't quite translate it, though.  I narrowed it down to either it was telling me the world was going to end on New Years Day, 2012 or that Best Buy was having a 2 for 1 sale on big screen TVs next week.  I'm sure neither translation was accurate but I know which is more likely to happen.  So I'm going to party like it's 2011!)

I also couldn't help but think... Good thing the parents opted for the luggage rack package on that Nissan Quest they were driving or they wouldn't have ANY place for those extra kids.  If I were them, on my Sunday grocery trips, I would strap 4 car seats to the top of the car in the luggage rack with the actual kids names taped to the back of the seat.  That way, anyone reading that back of my car would really have to think if those car seats are really used this way or not.  (I would also embellish the joke if I saw people staring at the car when I came out of the store.  I would start calling for one of the kids whose name is on one of the car seats.  After a quick search, I would end it with, "I told Johnny to stay right there (pointing at the car seat) until I got back!  Oh, well... I have 11 more just like him at home.")

That would make ME laugh.  And I guess that's what really matters. (At least that's what my computer program tells me.) :)

For my latest blog post at Nashville Parent Magazine, 

CLICK HERE.