The Apples in My Orchard was started on February 23rd, 2017. I’ve been writing almost daily since! It is a reflective, personal blog that discusses some topics with passion and others with lightheartedness. Here you’ll find posts on education, travel, health, family life, nature, conservation, friendship, and lots of poems – some inspired and some not so well thought out. Hopefully, there is something for everyone!
Shortly after beginning the blog, I developed a post without words called Silent Sunday in which I feature another one of my long-standing hobbies – photography. Last year, I started writing food posts on Mondays inspired by a Keto diet I was on in 2020. Both of these types of posts have proven to be popular with my readers. On Tuesdays, I post to the Slice of Life writing community which consists mostly of teachers and authors. On Fridays, I post to the Poetry Friday group. Both groups, but especially the Poetry Friday group, have been instrumental in the support one needs to continue to write on a daily basis. I am grateful to those in these groups, as well as my local friends, who take the time to read and comment on my work.
Fortunately, my blog has continued to grow. In 2021, I surpassed 1600 posts! I continue to attract followers on a regular basis and am now up to 747 via WordPress and 12 via email for a total of 759 followers. This year I had 9,620 visitors to my blog and over 14,000 views. Wow! I am humbled by those numbers. Of course, in the world of blogging, the more followers the better!
Aside from my home page, my most-read posts of all time are as follows:
That most viewed post? It is entitled: Puff the Magic Dragon and the Land of Honali? Honahli? Hanalei? Honahlee? and was actually written in September of 2017. For some reason, it is read almost every day lately and on November 9, 2021, had 119 views. All I can think is that it was picked up by something that has better distribution than my blog. It was thrilling to have the post read that much in one day!
While my blog writing continues to give me a great deal of satisfaction, to grow as a writer, I began to stretch my limits in 2021. I took three writing courses from well-known authors. I also submitted poetry to six different publications. One was accepted, my poem entitled INVENT in the book Things We Do by Pomelo Books. It was released in October of 2021. And, while the poem was the result of a course I took on poetry anthologies hosted by Pomelo Books, none of the participants were guaranteed publication of their poem. It is special to me because it is my first publication and my poem is included in the book with many authors, some of whom – such as Jack Prelutsky – who are very famous and accomplished!
So my blog continues to grow but what about my goals for 2022?
You’ll have to stop back to read about those!
Happy New Year!
The Apples in My Orchard 