Jar of Goodness 3.9.25: Op Op Anniversary

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for this, the Opulent Opossum!

There have been sixteen years of the Op Op! If you want to start reading from the beginning, visit my humble first post.

Sixteen years. Looking back on that first year, goodness, I blogged a lot. Twenty-six posts in the first month alone! And in the first year, 206 posts!

The annual tally came down quite a bit starting in 2012, with annual posts equaling what I was posting weekly that first year.

From the start, my goal was to post something at least weekly. I had plenty of ideas. I was so enthusiastic. But these days, it’s hard to feel enthusiastic about anything. Okay: Coffee in the morning. The first truly warm days. Crocuses starting to bloom. Ibuprofen. . . . Things like that.

So, the Jar of Goodness concept keeps me plugging away, keeps the focus short and sweet. I guess I’ve gotten too lengthy in most of my recent posts. Too much to say on any subject. Too many tangents. But JOG keeps me on my toes.

But as always, I do have a list of things to write about and share here on the Op Op. I wonder if anybody really reads this. I don’t have a sense of my “audience,” because I don’t believe I actually have one anymore. Do I need to update my design, my masthead, my look? Do I need to animate the thing? Who cares about any of that? I don’t think my posts ever come up as results in Google searches; page titles and key word labels appear not to have any impact on that at all. Maybe it’s because I don’t “monetize” my blog? Do I really need to change the way I label my posts, to try to game the search engines? Look, I ain’t got time for that.

As I write this, it’s clear I’m experiencing another one of my “down” morning moods, so I’m going to stop while I’m ahead. Hooray for the Opulent Opossum! Sixteen years! Op Op Hooray!