Pretty Exciting For a SAHM!!

I've always loved to cook, but I really threw myself into it about four years ago.  I think it started when I was out of work for nine months- it filled the time and made me feel useful.  Boy did I send a lot of baked goods to work with my (now) husband during that stretch!  Since then a lot has changed...I've gone back to work, gotten married, gotten pregnant, had a son, quit my job to be a homemaker, gone from long-time user of Allrecipes.com (I've quite literally used the site since it's first inception as "cookierecipe.com" 16 years ago, though I didn't even register until that stretch of unemployment) to Allrecipes Allstar (a gig that even got me an amazing trip to Seattle last year!)... the past few years have been quite an adventure!

The Allrecipes Allstars program is something I have truly been blessed to get to be a part of.  It's just so much fun!  What a lovely community of (mostly) ladies I am a part of, working with them is a true delight.  Each month we receive "assignments" and goody packages and get to work- sometimes those assignments require that we write up a blog post and share our experiences with you guys.  For many of us this has been a struggle, certainly not something that comes naturally.  Personally, it has become a nice outlet for me.  I've been able to find a balance, I think, between sharing my assignments with you and other goings on in my life.  I get a little giggly when I have a post that really takes off and I can see my page views go nuts for a bit, or when another website with a larger following than my own shares one of my posts.

On it's own, that's been a silly little thrill for a lady whose days often consist of speech therapy appointments, dirty diapers, laundry, and never-ending house cleaning.

This week brought with it TWO silly little thrills for this mommy!

First, Allrecipes.com chose me as it's cook of the week!  I'll be honest, I have absolutely no idea what that means.  Is it picked at random?  Did I do something that garnered attention?  I dunno, lol and I really don't care.  It's still neat that the most popular recipe site in the ENTIRE WORLD, with over 16 million visitors a month, has me on it's front page this week.  I think that's pretty neat!  

Sidenote...why have I used the word "neat" a million times this week?  I'm not sure where that's coming from :-)

Look at that growth the past few months!!
My page views were so few before  December
of last year that they don't even show on the chart!

Secondly, as of last night my blog has had over 25,000 page views!!!  Woo-hoo!  That's pretty big...my blog has grown by leaps and bounds the past few months.  I used to average about 800 views a month...in the past 30 days I've had about 9 THOUSAND!  The past few months have been fun for my little blog, and I hope to keep up the momentum :-)

Anyway, if you're here reading this, thanks for being here.  :-) It's certainly fun for this mommy to know you're out there!