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Have you had your 5 today?
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Last Friday night I installed a plugin on my other blog (here it is) so I could see what my visitors were searching for when they found my site, which will help me figure out what I should post about. I’m obsessed with looking at my stats now, and I noticed that today, two people arrived at my hardware blog via my personal blog. I find it hard to believe that someone who is reading posts about the kids, tadpoles, and my random thoughts, would actually click on a link to read (or at least glance at) a blog about door hardware.

Anyway, seeing the reference to this blog on the hardware blog stats, I decided to finally look at the stats for lockmommy. With the other blog, the counter started the day I installed the plugin, so I couldn’t see any history. With this blog, all I had to do was access Google Analytics and BAM…there was the history from Day 1 until now.

Lockmommy is not searchable, which means that if you go on Google or any other search engine and type in “tadpole”, “Lori Greene”, “piglet flu”, or any of the kids names, my site won’t be shown. You have to know the URL and access it directly, so the site is only accessed by my friends, family, and others who have heard about the site from friends and family. I set it up that way to keep away most of the pervs and other lowlifes.

In the last year, 423 unique users from 25 states (including Puerto Rico) have visited lockmommy 2,559 times with 5,028 pageviews. Almost all of the visitors came to the site and read the home page, which contains the last 10 posts, so the pageviews are relatively low because you basically get 10 posts with 1 pageview. But 423 users?!?! Who are you people?? I hope you’re not pervs or lowlifes!

Being the people-pleaser that I am, I immediately started obsessing about what I’m going to post in order to keep 423 people happy. It’s like having a crowd coming over and worrying about whether I have enough beverage options for everyone. I guess I’ll just keep posting about pee/poop, family outings, and stuff that happens to me. What else is there?
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Maybe this won’t seem amazing to non-hardware people, but I’m still amazed. In case you missed the short mention in one of my posts a couple of months ago, I now have another blog – for work – where I talk about…drum roll please…DOORS. Who would want to read a blog about doors, you ask? A lot of people!  It has had visitors from 16 countries already!  Here’s a link if you want to check it out.

Anyway, here’s the amazing part. I posted a photo of a mistake, basically showing “what not to do”. I got an email from the company that installed the “mistake”…in ISRAEL!!! What are the chances that they would log onto my brand new site and find a photo of a door closer they installed?? I’m still really blown away by the coincidence.
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A few months ago when I realized that my friends Marc and Gia (Salce) Jobin were from Keene, New Hampshire and knew my college roommate, Laurie Ray, I pulled these photos out of the archive to post but they never quite made it to the scanner. Well, thanks to Facebook, I got a reply from my old pal today. Since we were both Lori/Laurie and lived in the same 10′ x 13′ room, we became LO & LA. NOBODY called us Lori/Laurie. LA and I lost touch when she left me and VTC to go to Becker, and I’ve only seen her twice since then. The last time was when I saw her at the Big E in the sheep barn, but that had to be 6 or 7 years ago. I’m looking forward to seeing her again…maybe I should revive my old nickname!
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I knew the day would come when I would have to be more modest around my kids. It’s not like I lounge around in my birthday suit, but I’m not nearly as vigilant as Ben is about covering up. Well, the day has come.

This morning we were in a big rush to get to the research fair on time, and I hopped in the shower while the kids were brushing their teeth. Adlani looked at me, giggled, pointed, and said in his little sing-song voice, “Where’s your va-GI-na? I can’t SEE it!” I said, “How do you know about vaginas?” He said, “You told Norah that she doesn’t have a penis because girls have vaginas.” Wow. He’s actually listening to me. I’m shocked. In case you’re wondering, the reason I was discussing anatomy with a 2-year-old is because she was obsessed with trying to pee standing up.

As I got into the shower, Aliya chimed in, “Daddy said that they gave you that tattoo while you were in prison, so they could keep track of you.”

How is it possible that I, who can’t remember a damn thing, have 3 kids with memories like elephants? When Aliya was about 4 or 5, Ben told her that I had spent time in jail for hitting him, and that he went to the jail every day to bring me ice cream. Why would he say this? I don’t know, but I guarantee she didn’t keep it to herself. I can just see her out on the playground comparing notes with her friends.

Anyway, time for a bathrobe.
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