Fire up your laser pointers and Bunsen burners — it’s time for our annual by-the-numbers roundup. Each year we tally up the stats that describe what this site looks like: some are wild, some are surprising, some are serious, and some are just for fun.
This year we added a handful of fun blog facts that might blow your mind (no guarantees — your mind may remain intact).
Fun Bloggy Fact #1: Our monthly hosting bill is higher than our mortgage payment — that’s what it takes to keep the site loading smoothly and avoid crashes.
Fun Bloggy Fact #2: In the past five years we’ve written over 2,311 posts. If each took an average of 2.5 hours to write, upload, and edit, that’s about 5,777.5 hours — more than 240 straight days of writing without sleep.
Fun Bloggy Fact #3: Internet rumors about us are a recurring and amusing phenomenon. The most common rumor is “Sherry is pregnant” (we joke that if those were true she’d have ten kids by now). Another memorable rumor reached us when John’s mom said her sister’s friend believed we were Mormon. There’s nothing wrong with that religion — it’s just not ours — so we found the rumor pretty funny. And in case you’re wondering: I’m not pregnant. Haha.
Fun Bloggy Fact #4: The total value of all the giveaways we’ve hosted over the past five years exceeds $55,000. In the last two months alone we gave away more than $15,000 worth of prizes — more than in the first two years combined.
Fun Bloggy Fact #5: Blogging is the longest job either of us has held — five full years (counting the entire run, not just the recent full-time period).
Fun Bloggy Fact #6: Actress Tori Spelling once called us personally about producing a TV show. True story — she was friendly and there was a goat and a chicken in the background. We’re far too awkward for TV anyway; we’re much happier working behind our laptops. The call happened right after Hurricane Irene while we were staying at John’s parents’ house for power, and we snapped a photo to remember it.
Fun Bloggy Fact #7: Last month the site received 5.5 million page views, and our all-time total is over 143 million page views. It’s funny because we still write like we’re speaking to ten people to avoid blog stage fright.
Now for a list of straight-up stats. We’ve included some last year’s numbers for context, and we’ve kept track of past blogiversary posts to see how things have changed over time.
1,043,621 – Total comments left by readers. That’s nearly double last year’s 570,314 and shows a huge increase in engagement over the past 12 months.
76,825 – Comment responses we’ve posted, which is nearly double last year’s 38,754.
Pamen – The default name our daughter Clara gives to anything when asked “hey, what’s that bear/doll/person’s name?” Aemon is her second favorite. We have no idea where those names came from.
4 – Our longest stretch without posting over the last 1,827 days (five years) — and that span included a baby, an earthquake, and a hurricane. We’re surprisingly consistent, like postal workers.
3 – Average number of weekly trips to Home Depot.
143 – Published posts to date on Young House Life (clearly fewer there compared to the 2,311 posts on YHL).
21 – Months we’ve lived in our current house.
27 – Clara’s weight in pounds, up from 21 lbs last year. She’s tall and skinny like her dad.
8 – Burger the dog’s weight in pounds, slightly down from 8.5 lbs last year.
198 – Total number of weekly giveaways held since we started them in November 2008 after readers requested them during our first blogiversary.
35 – Average number of posts per month.
4 – Number of soda-themed shirts in John’s closet (Dr. Pepper, Sprite, Pepsi, and a recently added Coke shirt).
303 – Instagram photos posted to date.
1,800 – Average number of words per post — we tend to be chatty.
14,400 – Average number of words written per week — yes, it’s a little insane.
629 – Total projects linked on our Projects page (we still have about 40 more to add when time allows).
70 – Number of Clara photos taken for her photo project (52 weekly photos, 17 monthly photos, and 1 birthday-card photo).
933,962 – Pinterest followers. This number still amazes us.
1 – Number of ears remaining on Clara’s Olivia doll for her dollhouse. It was a tragic accident; we try not to talk about it.
There you have it: the stats of the year. Do you track little things like average trips to the hardware store or how many themed shirts you own? Or are we the only ones who document these quirks?
Update – Many readers ask about professional blogging — how we built the site, grew traffic, and generated income — so we shared a detailed guide about how we started a blog, grew our audience, and turned it into a full-time job.