It’s official! My blog is now exactly three years old. I’m excited! I still have a lot of ideas for things to write about and there are always new entomological discoveries and adventures to feature. I feel like the blog is going strong! So, today please indulge me as I take a moment to review where I’ve been and where I’d like to go with this whole blogging thing.

When I started this blog, I was excited when I got 30 views a day.  Getting 100 views made me ecstatic!  I get more than that now, but it still seems crazy to me that people actually want to read what I write.  I am around so many entomologists that I sometimes forget that many other people do in fact enjoy learning about insects, that we’re not always strange outsiders that no one understands.  I love that so many of you enjoy hearing about the things that get me excited.  It makes the blogging experience fun and I keep at it because it warms my heart to think that so many people are interested in learning about the insects I love.  Yay for the many bug lovers of the world!  You guys rock.  You rock hard.

I think the most exciting part of my blogging experience has been the success of my dragonfly swarm project.  I’ve said it before, but I had absolutely no idea that so many people would participate in this project and I am beyond thrilled at how well it has worked!  I’ve started presenting the results of the project to other scientists and the project has gained the attention of several writers and scientific organizations.  Thank you all, from the depths of my heart, for making my quest for knowledge such a huge success!

One of my goals last year was to have several contests.  I had 3 when I intended to have 4, so I’m feeling pretty good about that.  I haven’t had a contest for a while, and I sadly don’t have time to do one now, but I have a plan for the next one! I’m getting close to 400 posts, so I’ll do another contest when I reach that milestone in about a month.  Don’t know what it will entail just yet, but there’s definitely another contest coming soon.  You’ve all rewarded me with your comments and support, so I want to give something back.

The one goal that I didn’t accomplish at all from last year was moving my blog onto my own website.  I had wanted to do it largely because collecting my dragonfly swarm data was taking so long as I manually moved the data from blog comments or e mailed forms to my database.  Happily, WordPress offered Google Docs support last summer right when I needed it. Problem solved!  Now all the data is magically dumped into a database for me.  That means I’m spending more time doing data analysis and developing new blog posts/educational materials than I spend copying and pasting data.  Woo!  That’s exactly what I needed and it didn’t even involve moving my blog to a new site.  Gotta love it when things just work like that.

My goals for next year are simple.  I’d like to get back to a regular four days a week posting schedule.  It’s not going to happen right away as it’s about all I can do to keep up with my three post per week schedule recently, but I think I can manage four a week after all the craziness dies down.  I also want to review more papers because it gives me an excuse to read them, but it (more importantly) fulfills my goal of spreading the joy of science with non-scientists.  It seems like I get a lot of good feedback when I review papers, so it’s definitely on my to-do list for the coming year because you all seem to like it.  I might also add another semi-regular feature, but I’m going to keep that to myself for now and reveal it if and when it happens.

All in all, I feel like it’s been a good year and I can’t thank you all enough for the support you’ve all shown me.  Hopefully I can keep you entertained for another year – and beyond!

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