Forget that my current writing streak is the highest it’s ever been by a wide margin that is increasing, and marvel that I thought it might be possible to do 500 additional views in November and December combined once we crossed 8,000 on Halloween night, and now I’m nearly there after fourteen days. Incredible. I’m awestruck. I am still solid in my thinking that 10K is too high an estimate for 11:59 pm on December 31st, 2026 but is 9K a suitable guess given the high & lows I’ve experienced with viewership numbers this year. I had some month(s) plural where I could do 250 views in a week consecutively and it just went on and on. So I could potentially add another 1,500 if the trend lasts, but I’ve also had weeks this year where we struggled to hit fifty! I don’t like to hope for more and actually get less, I’d prefer to think we’ll go low and end up higher. Call it a character flaw of mine, a weakness, a failure to believe. I don’t much care. I’d rather have conservative estimates and ever so slightly beat them, than wish for the stars and get handed fireflies thinking I’ve done well for myself.
It’s Saturday, we made it through — again. Thankfully. Much appreciated. And I have some climbing on the docket for today, and some chauffeur duties to shuttle my eldest about town as she attends some friends birthdays. Lots of them going on now as the year winds down. I can tell the kids are getting older because the default gifts now are gift cards, and Sephora gift cards at that! Which I mean, I don’t mind. Doesn’t bother me. It’s a nice enough chain store. My one gripe is, well my two gripes are; one, it is expensive and that sucks because $50.00 or $100.00 doesn’t really go that far for pre-teens, and teens looking to spend gift cards. Two, the heavily scented air makes my eyes, nose and throat itch upon entering, and continue to do so until several moments after I exit the store. But, Lush the bath bomb/soap place does the same thing to me. My body is easily irritated by scents it would seem. So it’s not limited to just Sephora.
I have split quite a bit of wood this year, and I think we need to host a bonfire at the farm to be rid of the waste wood piles. Not only that but we have some massive stumps we want to burn away and could use the I split log segments to reach deep down into the soil and cut away those stumps without having to dig or grind our way through them. Solves both problems with one action. That being fire. A hot fire. A large, hot, intense fire that slowly incorporates the stump and consumes it almost entirely. At least to the point where the remnants are deep underground and we can push the earth over top and forget the tree was ever there to begin with. Now this tree that came down was nearly four or five feet across in diameter, so it might take a fair few infernos to make it disappear, but I’m willing to try! Ha.
Funny thing happened last night, both kids fell asleep and the dog put himself to bed in my room where he rarely goes at night without coercion because he prefers my wife’s pillow top mattress and duvets for all their softness and warm. I didn’t lead him down to bed nor tell him to go to sleep, he just waddled down to bed of his own volition. Wild. He’s nearly three, so is the schedule finally clicking, or is that just a once off? I don’t know. We will see what he does tonight, or any other night moving forward.
Now given what you’ve just read can you imagine this blog doing 10K views this year? Thankfully my collected short stories and their individual posts seem to do the bulk of that heavy lifting. Funny thing is every so often I get this idea and I mull them over for a bit but rarely these days does that materialize into something I could put into words. I was really on a roll back in 2020 through 2022, since Covid had pretty much everything else in lock down mode. Now I occupy myself differently, and I have outside interactions with friends, so I’m not isolated, lonely, or looking for a creative outlet. Now I chop wood! Is that an upgrade? Not per se, but if the world goes to shit somebody in our extended family has access to a bunch of fire wood to see them through this winter anyway. Writing made my brain hurt on the days I did more than a few thousand words. Chopping makes my shoulders, back and hands hurt. Same-same, but different.
I also add far more photography to my posts than ever before. Not today ironically enough, but a good number of posts this year had one or more images to supplement the written portion. I wonder if that played any part in doing better viewer numbers this year? This Pixel 9 takes nice photos so I’m not afraid to take on one if I can get something appealing in the frame.
Have an illustrious weekend. May your festive season be joyful. Ciao Bella.
