27.
That is the number of blog posts that I have written in 2023. In a way, it’s pretty impressive. My posts probably average 1,500 words or so, which means I’d be shocked if I had published less than 30,000 words. There have been several series to work on and a few weekend trips completed along the way. Many photos, quotes, and memories are preserved here on my domain.
58. That is the number of posts that I wrote in all of 2022. Now, I have 5 months left to go here in 2023, so I’ll make up a good chunk of that 31-post deficit, but it’s pretty clear that some productivity has dropped off on the blogging front.
And, well, duh. I’m a full-time employee now, which I wasn’t for like half of 2022 (everyone say congratulations on finishing my first year in the Weather Service!). I have a busy life, a house that is never clean, and a dog that is never satisfied. If I was writing the same number of blog posts, I would not be as good at the many other things that I do in my life. And let’s not even get into the wedding-sized elephant in the room – not like that’s taken up any of my life.
So maybe on the backside of the wedding, as my life slowly gets back to normal, I’ll be able to write more than the 3 post minimum I assign to myself every month. That’d be pretty good. There’s a giant backlog of posts I want to write, and the rest of 2023 is going to hopefully be a catching-up time. This post is basically serving as an outline for me for what I think I can accomplish over the next 4.5 months. The major series’ I plan on writing:
- OU Football – The usual one or two posts I write each August as I’m looking forward to the season starting. You’ll see that in the next week or two as the season starts very soon.
- Rehoboth Beach Diary? – I’ve tried this once or twice. Elizabeth and I head there for a short week from this Saturday night through this Tuesday night. Might be worth a try, given how late they all sleep at that condo.
- Pinnacles/Pacific Coast Highway – I have half of a post left that I didn’t finish before the wedding. Might as well knock this one out in the next week or two.
- Wedding Stuff – This one is tbd. I’d love to give a post to the drive we made up Old Fall River Road the day after the wedding. Other, more speculative posts – the rehearsal dinner, the group hike to Dream Lake, the first night at The Wheel Bar. Maybe an overarching timeline with bare facts and photos.
- Honeymoon Stuff – I will never again do a Grand Teton/Glacier-style blog series. But with the honeymoon, I think I’ll try to hit stuff in a series of about 8-12 posts that covers everything I want to. Detailed posts will cover: sightseeing at Snaefellsjokull National Park, snorkeling at Thingvellir National Park, touring the Katla Ice Cave, climbing up the Solheimajokull Glacier, and bathing at the Blue Lagoon (yeah, our honeymoon ruled). Then I’ll try to hit some others with less detail – a timeline post, a pictures post, maybe one for food, one for Reykjavik, etc.
- The Glacier series – I’m too deep to quit, right? I doubt this series ends in 2023, but if I could just get it closer to done that would be nice.
Okay. I think that’s the goal in the immediate term. The first four are all short-term posts or series that are very interchangeable with others that will be coming up – fun tailgate days, storm chases this fall, our trip to Oregon with my parents in October. So we’ll have some fun little sprinkles as I try to get this blog to also reflect my day-to-day life as well as the big events.
Look, it’s a lot of writing. Who knows if I can keep up with all of it. But each picture, each word, and each quote is one memory preserved forever for myself.
