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(Why I’m behind; number of followers and hits; etc.)
I’m more than a hundred emails behind this weekend. That means I’ve not been reading all the posts of blogs I’m subscribed to and I haven’t been answering all the comments on my blog that I’ve wanted to. (I don’t ever answer all of them, though I read each one and am extremely grateful to get them.) I’m also behind in accepting the awards I’ve been nominated for and doing several other things I’ve wanted to do.
So, an explanation might be in order.
Four months ago, I decided to live in one home 4 days a week and my home with the view above (in the header of the blog) only 3 days a week. I’ve been literally “living out of a suitcase” during that time. The 4-day home is my childhood home. My father is 93 and my mother is 86. He’s very weak and needs help in virtually all he does. My mother has some severe back pain even on many occasions when she’s just standing, much less when she’s helping to lift him up from a chair. So, I went to help.
This past week was even more stressful since a perfect storm of problems pushed us into what we were avoiding as long as possible – putting my father in a rest home. I won’t go into all the details, but I was the “leg man” in getting a lot of things done. Thus, I fell behind on blogging, email, and a number of other issues. He went into the nursing home on Friday (you’ll see a haiku chronicle of that soon, perhaps today). That, of course, was stressful to all involved, though it went better than might be expected.
I’ve “moved back” home. But, I’ll be away two days this week helping my mother find a house in town so she’ll be closer to the nursing home to make visits. Then, the next week, she’ll be having surgery to implant a device in her back that sends electrical impulses to the brain that will hopefully help alleviate some of her pain. I’ll be there for the surgery and for several days as she recuperates.
On another note:
I was asked about the number of hits and followers of my blog. First, I don’t have the number of followers that my stats indicate. Some of you will know since WordPress did the same to you weeks ago. WordPress suddenly started listing all my followers on Twitter as followers of my blog. I get an average of a hit a day from more than 1400 Twitter followers. Most of them follow to be followed, not to read my blog. I thus have fewer than 200 blog followers.
I started blogging in May and limped along several months. Here are some of the factors that helped me to increase my number of blog followers and my hits:
(1) I did the things WordPress suggested to increase subscribers.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-more-site-traffic/
I skim through a lot of the first part of posts that have just been published under “poetry”. http://en.wordpress.com/tag/poetry/
If I like what I see at all, I click on the blog to read more. If I like what I read there, I then click “like” and sometimes leave a comment. Sometimes I will leave a comment with a link to my blog where I’ve written a poem on the same subject.
(2) I have a variety of types of poems and subjects – poems by the great poets, great poems by poets who aren’t well-known, my poems (and a write on a variety of subjects – anything that comes to mind as poem), and my haiku.
(3) The third thing, and I am grateful to all who have done this, is that several other bloggers have put links to my blog on the front page of their blog, leading others to me. It’s something that I’ve also planned to do for a long time, but I’m waaaay behind. Again, thanks to all who have done that.
(4) I set up a Twitter account for the express purpose of advertising my blog. Again, the results aren’t that great, but I’ve had fun with it in other ways, too. I set up a Facebook account for two reasons – to see the latest pictures of my granddaughters and to advertise my blog. I have more readership through Facebook than through Twitter.
When Maggie Mendus ( http://maggiemendus.wordpress.com/ ) asked me in a comment about my subscribers and hits, I started to answer there. But I then thought my fairly long answer might be beneficial to others. So, I’ve made it a post.
I’ll have a bit more time this week. Perhaps I’ll get caught up on some of my emails and blog reading. Maybe I’ll even catch up on some other things later in March. One thing I’ve tried not to do was slow down on writing poetry. I’ve had a good month of that. It seems like a lot of poems come to me when I’m driving. You’ve seen some of them already and will see more.
Thanks to all of you who are my faithful reading subscribers and to all who come by and happen to read. Hope you come by again.
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The Bard on the Hill 