A Surprising Thirteenth Anniversary

I humbly write this post today.  It is one of more then 1700 posts that have been written in the last thirteen years.  No way would it ever have occurred to me that what started out as a way to let my
family know about my life in Mexico, would turn into something that expanded my life in a very
exciting and enriching way.

Many of you know that my dear friend Billie Mercer, a fellow blogger for many years, encouraged me to start this actually back in 2006.  I wrote one post on 9/11/06 but was intimidated by what I thought was a lack of technical knowledge on how to post photos etc.  But Billie said to keep it up and how wonderful that she did.

From that encouragement, not only have there been over 1700 posts, but there have now been one million readers!  I realize that to many important bloggers that is not that much but to me it is astounding. 

It started out slow with me expecting maybe twenty family members to read.  To this day I don't know if they do or not.  But, what happened, was people from all over the world started reading.  I presume it initially was because they were interested in San Miguel de Allende, although that is not in the name of the blog, so who knows?  I only guess.

Recently when I realized the above stats, a bit of research took place about how did the numbers increase?  When were they at their highest?  And what kind of posts garnered the most readers.

Initially the monthly readings were double digits of people daily.  But, within a couple of years the daily readings were over 500 a day.  For instance when I wrote about Day of the Dead in Patzcuaro, that one post garnered over 1000 readers. 

By 2013, when I did a series on Cost of Living in San Miguel and other issues for living in Mexico, it was not unusual to have 5000 reads per post.  For the next few years the numbers were staggering.  It was about 50,000 a month for many months.  Again, I realize to some that is not that high, but to me, it was unbelievable.

More then the numbers though, was the ability to meet many of these people who traveled to San Miguel to either just visit or came to look at a possible move.  Many took the time to contact me to meet and nothing was more fun then to meet them and over the years, to really develop a friendship.

Several rented the guest house or my house when I was traveling a lot, and what fun that was.  To get to know so many of them and their families!  It has enriched my life significantly.

Another unexpected gift of this blog was my being more aware of events, places, travels and taking photographs to share with all of you.  That awareness has led to a treasure trove of photos which are
fun to see again and reminisce with myself about the event.

This photo continues to make me giggle every time I see it!  It is a dog who used to come to the jardin and would plop down between the two rows of benches in the major walkway.  No one ever shooed the dog away or fussed at him.  They walked around him or stopped to rub his ears or touch his paws.  And, the dog let them.  Many a day I sat on the bench and marveled at this sight. 

I don't get to the jardin anymore but that memory of that old dog lying there is a treat in my mind's eye.

No, I haven't been as good at writing daily as I used to do.  I'm like that old dog, I have slowed down
and am enjoying the fact that I have no more "shoulds".  It is a wonderful way to live in this golden season of life.

My camera fell on the concrete on December 19th and I haven't taken a photo since then.  But, another dear friend has given me another camera that if I master it, ha, I will be able to take more
photos and it has an amazing zoom on it.  We'll see.  The manual is 166 pages.  Needless to say,
I'm intimidated, to put it mildly.  I'm determined though and will begin, one page at a time.  Surely
I will learn!  Right?

See you on down the road with a camera in my hand.  Thanks to all of you who have been with me since the beginning and to all of you who are still here from whenever you started reading.  There are no words to tell you how appreciative I am for your being here...........