What fun it was to read your comments on last week’s “Wonder” post! Collectively we expressed wonder for the delicate beauty of flowers and amazement at creatures as tiny as hummingbirds and ants and as large as polar bears. We only need to look at God’s creation to find wonder. Beyond the things we can see and touch, the kindness of generous people and the soul-touching power of music were called wondrous. Wasn’t it good to focus on the beauty in life and tell someone else about it?
I saw this beauty on a recent walk.
I enjoyed celebrating the 1-year anniversary of Thoughts Collected By Lisa with a giveaway. The recipient of the Ollie’s Bargain Outlet gift card is Barbara Repan. She is a fellow blogger who inspired me to give writing for the internet a try. Congratulations, Barbara!
As I pick up my pencil and begin the second year of writing, I’m taking a look back and sharing not just thoughts and words, but numbers with you today.
One. That is the number of opportunities that I had to write for someone else’s blog, and that is one more than I anticipated. Thank you, Bethany Eicher!
Four to Six. The hours between beginning writing a post and hitting publish. Those hours may be spread over a couple of days and include an initial draft, looking up relevant information, a frequent re-write, getting photos inserted, and several proof readings. It’s not a small task, but it is immensely rewarding.
Seventeen. The number of countries where someone has viewed Thoughts Collected. Every continent except Antarctica is included! By far, most of the views are in the United States, with Canada, China, and Australia holding very distant second, third, and fourth places for views.
Twenty-three. The number of posts that fell into the FAITH category of my blog. The FAMILY category was a close second with twenty-two entries, some of which overlap with FAITH.
One hundred. The number of Facebook readers who have liked and/or commented on Thoughts Collected at least once. This is so encouraging to me. Thank you.
Five hundred. The number of words that I initially set as a limit for each post. I held to it for a while. Then it increased to six hundred, then eight hundred. I just LOVE words!
Nine hundred forty-eight. Number of words in my longest post, which happens to be the One I wrote as a guest blogger. Summing up 32 years of parenting and how to deal with getting older in one post was quite an undertaking!
While I’m still under 500 words, I’ll publish this 52nd post and look forward to sharing more collected thoughts with you in the coming months and maybe years. Many of them will likely relate to faith and family. My prayer is that all of them will bless you and give glory to God.
Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Proverbs 16:24