My Blog is 1!

Happy Birthday to the blog! Today is exactly 1 year since my first post on this blog. It's gone through a heck of a lot of changes along the way - title, objective, audience - and I don't anticipate that it will stay completely the same throughout this next year either. Changes are so fun and exciting. I have especially loved the changes that have morphed this blog into what I truly want it to be. I honestly knew nothing about blogging when I first started writing. I knew how to create a post and publish it, but that was pretty much it. Embarrassing... I know. I had no idea all the cool things the blogging world has to offer! Let's recap all that I've learned this year:

how to change colors, backgrounds, and fonts

how to edit HTML code so that links open in a new window (before they added the checkmark in the link box)

what Feedburner is

what an RSS feed is

how to create tabs and different pages/sections of my blog

how to label posts to make it easier for viewers to see related posts

how to join up with a link party on another blog

how to view all the blogs I follow in Google Reader, instead of on my dashboard

how to edit pictures to make them look better for posts (I use Picasa - not Photoshop but it really helps, especially since it's free!)

follow other blogs that I like and learn from them

That last one is probably the key to me learning so much. I have found so many blogs to follow that I truly love! (Check out those over on the right margin.) Looking at others' blogs has helped me figure out what I want my blog to be, and what I don't want it to be. Bear with me as I'm still figuring that out...

The cool thing is that in the past year I think I've really gotten direction on where I want this blog to go. It's great to look back and see how it's changed, and I feel like I have so much more direction since I have a history of posts. This sounds silly, but the key to blogging is simply posting! If you aren't sure about posting something, post it. If you don't think it'll be interesting to anyone, post it. If you don't know what to post about, pick something random and just post. The more you post, the more you'll think of what to post, and the more you'll have an idea of your favorite topics and more importantly you'll get writing experience.

Anyway, enough of my rambling! Check out some of my top viewed posts this past year:

the master bedroom post

the living room post

the retro post

the college post

the baby nursery inspiration post

the office project posts

and appropriately, last year's Christmas post

Have you been learning how to blog recently? What are some blogging tips you could give me? What are some ways I could improve my blog? Seriously, this is your opportuntity to criticize my blog - I'd love to hear your opinions!