Tag: Blog Statistics

Year in Review: 2024 Blog Stats and Recap

by pennypostcard • January 11, 2025 • 1 Comment

In 2024, when I wasn’t making the most of my time outdoors, I managed to publish 35 posts, conclude my fourth tour handling international parental child abductions in the Office of Children’s Issues, and begin long-term training for my next assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon, Burma.

I also wrote a series of posts chronicling Foreign Service-related topics, including the centennial anniversary of the Foreign Service, the machinations of retirement and sixth tour bidding planning, and my best tips for success during FSI language study.

Foreign Service

Happy 10th Birthday, Collecting Postcards Blog (Something Blog-Worthy…Definitely)

by pennypostcard • April 13, 2024 • 1 Comment

Ten years ago today, on Sunday, April 13, 2014, I sat down at my laptop in the guest room of our former northern Virginia apartment and typed out a post called Something Blog-Worthy…Maybe.

I had been a candidate for the Foreign Service on and off since 2011 and had decided to start sharing publicly about my journey to become a diplomat. I reflected that I hadn’t kept any public writing presence since around 2004 when I’d finished my Peace Corps Volunteer service and let the website I’d had at that time lapse. But I wondered if I might be able to pay forward some of the wonderful things I’d learned from others’ blogs as I navigated my FS candidacy and build upon them in my own writing. I like helping others, and writing helps me to process and understand my own experiences.

I didn’t have any way to know then that I was only three weeks and one day from receiving my invitation to join the Foreign Service.

Foreign Service

Be My Valentine: 300K Lifetime Blog Views

by pennypostcard • February 17, 2024 • 4 Comments

I noticed the day after Valentine’s Day that Collecting Postcards had just marked 300,000 lifetime views!

Foreign Service, Travel, U.S.

Year in Review: 2023 Blog Stats and Recap

by pennypostcard • February 12, 2024 • 0 Comments

In 2023, I met my goal of writing fewer words more often. I published 40 posts, several on Foreign Service-related topics. I wrote a series on bidding for and receiving my fifth assignment. I expanded a popular post about FS Housing into a series. I also wrote two new installments of ‘Your Questions Answered.’ In what turned out to be a very road trip and family-oriented year, I made four trips to the west coast and back – three by car – and my mom and dad each visited us on the east coast. In 2022, I’d received a promotion, meaning I wouldn’t be eligible to be promoted again for two years; I enjoyed the professional sweet spot where I didn’t have to PCS, learn a new job, or compete for promotion. The year ended on a sad note: my family faced the death of my stepmother and learned the hard way about the limitations of the Medicare-funded hospice program in the United States.

Foreign Service, Health, Leadership & Work Culture, Mexico, Travel, U.S.

Year in Review: 2022 Blog Stats and Recap

by pennypostcard • April 12, 2023 • 1 Comment

For me, 2022 was a profoundly strange year, filled with ups and downs. We finalized adopting our cat and moved from Mexico to Virginia, I succeeded in my 100-lb weight loss goal, took a road trip to Florida, started my fourth tour in Washington, DC, and visited the west coast three times in one year. I got promoted, saw my favorite band live, took fun beach trips with my husband, and took a family trip to Europe. But I also was knocked off-center by the traumatic death of an old friend, struggled at times to learn my new job, and dealt with illness – both my own and that of multiple family members.

Foreign Service, Health, Leadership & Work Culture, Mexico, Travel, U.S.

Year in Review: 2021 Blog Stats and Recap + Eight Years in Blogging

by pennypostcard • April 13, 2022 • 2 Comments

The post with a year-in-review and blog stats is usually the post I publish in January of a new calendar year. However, that didn’t happen this year for a few reasons. First and foremost, we packed out our house and departed our third diplomatic assignment before mid-January, so I was crazy busy with work and life transitions. Second, there were a lot of things in 2021 I hadn’t processed adequately by New Year’s or in a superficial way felt I didn’t want to reflect on or remember. And third, 2021 marked the first year the blog did not receive more page views than the year before. Every year since I started writing in 2014, the number of views and visitors have each steadily risen, making it something fun to announce the following year.

In January writing this post out of a sense of forced obligation – particularly at a time when I was honestly pretty down on a lot of aspects of this career as well as struggling with health and moving – didn’t seem like fun. So I decided to write about whatever was on my mind as it came to me, and shunt a blog stats post from last year off until a future date when I actually felt like doing it. And as the blog celebrates eight years today since its very first post, today seemed apropos.

Foreign Service, Mexico

Seven Years in Blogging + Recovery Continues

by pennypostcard • April 21, 2021 • 2 Comments

Last week marked seven years (lucky seven!) since I launched the Collecting Postcards Blog, and my (virtual) return to work following spinal surgery.

Foreign Service

Year in Review: 2020 Blog Stats and Recap

by pennypostcard • January 31, 2021 • 7 Comments

As longtime readers of this blog know, since I launched in April 2014 I have never missed a month. Sure, there were a couple of times where I posted on the last day of the month, but I have never gone a month without posting something. And I was not going to start 2021 by messing that up! I don’t know why it matters to me; it is not as if missing a month means I can never come back. People who know me would not be surprised by me adhering to this all-or-nothing mentality though. I guess it’s just the way I am. Lest you think I need rules to govern me entirely, I actually do still very much enjoy writing for this blog; it’s just that the last two months have passed in a blur of work and one crisis after another that have left me simultaneously exhilarated and wiped out, which are stories for another day. So here I am at the eleventh hour with a short recap of 2020 and blog stats for the year.

Foreign Service

Year in Review: 2019 Blog Stats and Recap

by pennypostcard • January 24, 2020

Between the winter blues, studying Spanish, working on my New Year’s resolutions, and despairing over wildlife affected by the Australian bushfires, it has taken me a few weeks to get my act together enough to write this post, a post I would normally write in the first couple of days of the new year. But I didn’t want to skip it because there was some interesting data to reflect upon and it’s also a tradition, so finally…here it is!

In 2019, I wrote more posts and content than in any prior year, and the blog received – by far – its greatest number of both views and visitors to date. I also traveled thousands of miles across Australia, finished my role as a political officer in Canberra, and returned to Virginia to prepare for our next assignment to México. I also spent two weeks in Ecuador on a Spanish language immersion trip and visited eight U.S. states. In summary, 2019 was a year filled with movement, and a lot of change.

Foreign Service

Collecting Postcards Turns Five

by pennypostcard • April 13, 2019 • 1 Comment

I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that five years have passed since I first launched the Collecting Postcards blog on April 13, 2014. Some parts of the last five years are easy to quantify. Two agencies, five job assignments. Three cars. Homes on three continents. Travel in 14 countries. Five hospitalizations. Two pets. I’ve written 180 blog posts which 33,000 visitors from over 165 countries have viewed nearly 105,000 times. Everything else that’s harder to quantify? Well, that’s where you’ll have to read more deeply.

Foreign Service

Year in Review: 2018 Blog Stats & Recap

by pennypostcard • January 3, 2019 • 0 Comments

In 2018, I didn’t once set foot outside Australia. Although I have lived abroad four times (for periods ranging between 13 months and 25 months), previously the only country I had spent the entire calendar year from start to finish in without ever leaving was the United States. This past year, I focused on exploring Australia through domestic travel, recovering my health, and gaining a deeper understanding of work as a political officer. I also made some changes to the blog that boosted its visibility and attracted some new audiences. Here I take a look back at where we’ve been in 2018.

Foreign Service, Travel

Four Years in Blogging

by pennypostcard • April 13, 2018 • 7 Comments

It was on this day in 2014 that I published my first post on the Collecting Postcards blog. I started the blog because I wanted to talk about my journey to the Foreign Service; little could I have known that only 22 days later I would receive the invitation to my dream job for which I’d tried so hard and waited so long. Collecting Postcards has been there through it all, and with 25,000 visitors from 165 different countries and 76,000+ unique page views to date, the blog is just getting started.

Australia, Foreign Service, Travel, U.S., Uzbekistan

Year in Review: 2017 Blog Stats & Recap

by pennypostcard • January 2, 2018 • 0 Comments

In my 2016 yearly review and blog statistics recap, I bid 2016 adieu while commenting that it wasn’t my favorite year. I’m not mad at 2017, but I am excited to say goodbye to it. In 2017 I made some fond memories, experienced perhaps my greatest professional challenges and growth yet, and as usual, took recreating pretty seriously. While 2017 brought me a chance to pull out my passport on four continents, it also brought me tedious, ongoing health problems, some of which unfortunately I must carry forward into 2018. As I welcome the new year with a hopeful heart and mind, I’m thinking about where I’ve been and what I have to look forward to in 2018.

Australia, Foreign Service, Travel, U.S., Uzbekistan

Year in Review: 2016 Blog Stats & Recap

by pennypostcard • January 10, 2017 • 2 Comments

I admit it: 2016 was not my favorite year. It was professionally and personally challenging. It felt like I was battling one problem after another in a difficult environment, in disintegrating health, and with my main support network of family and friends a dozen time zones away. In 2016 many things were lacking in my life: good health, human respect in civil discourse, and tacos. I noticed these deficiencies, got pissed off and disappointed and sad over them, and tried to move on. However, 2016 was awesome for my passport, the blog, and my ability to adapt and learn new skills.

Foreign Service, Uzbekistan

Year in Review: 2015 Blog Stats

by pennypostcard • January 5, 2016 • 2 Comments

With each new year comes a period, however brief, of looking back and seeing where we’ve been.

I established the Collecting Postcards blog on WordPress in April 2014, and one year later I discussed blog stats in One Year in Blogging. Now that 2015 has ended, I have my first full calendar year to analyze. I’m always curious to know how readers find the blog, which posts get the most views, and from which countries do readers visit?

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