One year ago today I joined the ChicagoNow family of bloggers. As I celebrate this one year blogiversary, it’s important to remember that I’ve actually been writing Little Merry Sunshine for more than seven years.

Little Merry Sunshine began over on Blogger as a way for me to experiment with writing. I had no idea whether anyone would read it or not. Much to my surprise, I slowly built not only an audience, but a community of loyal readers. Yes, some of those readers included my mom, friends, and other relatives, but others joined in as well. And in time, I’m proud to say many of those people became friends, who are just as important as my real-life friends.

Little Merry Sunshine proved what we all learned in Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will come. I built it and you came.

Since joining ChicagoNow, the the LMS community has grown by leaps and bounds:

• In just the past 12 months, almost 48,000 different people have read Little Merry Sunshine. In internet speak, that’s “unique visitors,” so I suppose it could be one person visiting from 48,000 different IP addresses. If so, thanks dude, but let me encourage you to find another hobby.
• 97 people have signed up to receive email alerts whenever a new blog is published. What’s a girl gotta do to get to 100 subscribers? All the cool kids are doing it PLUS it’s 100% spam free and you can unsubscribe at any time (but why would you want to?). Just type your email address into the box at the bottom of this post, click “Create Subscription,” and you’ll be off to the races.
• Since joining ChicagoNow, 158 people have liked the Little Merry Sunshine Facebook page, bringing the total number of fans to 306. You read that right. It took 6 1/2 years for 148 people became fans on Facebook, but in the past 12 months, that number has more than doubled. Oh, you haven’t yet liked the LMS Facebook page? What’s stopping you? You can join right this moment. Not only do I share the posts over there, but I share other inspirational stories and blog posts from my fellow ChicagoNow bloggers that I think you might like. Let’s get to 400 fans by Christmas.
• I have published 100 posts. In fact, by sheer coincidence, this post is number 100.
• I have met some of the coolest damn writers ever. Seriously, I get to rub elbows with Nicole who writes Moms Who Drink and Swear and makes me grateful I regularly do kegels so I don’t wet myself while reading; Katy celebrates gratitude better than anyone I’ve ever met and authors I Got a Dumpster Family; Tara writes about all sorts of super cool stuff including sex and horror films (she watches so I don’t have to) at Red & Company; Sheila advocates for families of children with cancer and much more at Mary Tyler Mom; David celebrates his transformation from fat to fit in the past 11 months at The Quinn-tes-sen-tial; Meggan shares her journey of becoming a woman at Trans Girl at the Cross; Michael writes about running, house hunting, life in general, and his new twins at Mysteries of Life; Lyletta shares her stories of life in Woodlawn on I Hate My Developer and also happens to be my friend from our days at Lake Forest College; Jenna, one of the hippest, funniest moms of the most adorable little girls EVEH and writes High Gloss and Sauce; Kathy, a leading voice in ending puppy mills and other abuses of animals at Raining Cats and Dogs; Erin who keeps us all organized and speaks straight to my OCD heart at Organizing with Erin; and so many more incredibly talented writers.
• Jenn-Anne of Old Single Mom, let’s be clear, though she’s a single mom, she’s not old, has invited me to join a group of ChicagoNow bloggers in a super secret experiment this week that we’re hoping to turn into a regular thing. I think this makes me one of the cool kids.
• ChicagoNow is more than just a bunch of bloggers. These people are family. They celebrate each other’s accomplishments, never get into stupid pissing wars about who “owns” a topic (spoiler alert: no one does), and cheer each other onto success. We know that there’s room for all of us to be successful and that one person’s success doesn’t mean someone else must fail. We also circle the wagons when one of our own is having a tough time. I’ve seen this over and over again in just the past month and I’ve even been fortunate enough to be the recipient of it. Trust me, it’s priceless.

I’ve also had some pretty rad achievements this year. Achievements that would not have been possible without ChicagoNow.

• Little Merry Sunshine has appeared on the front page of the Chicago Tribune more than a few times, the front page of ChicagoNow more times than I can count (including yesterday), and I have been recognized as writing one of the best blog posts and gallery posts of the month twice.
• I was interviewed by Amy Guth on RedEye Remix on WGN to discuss my 100 new experiences. Listen here.
• I was interviewed by a Medill graduate student for a class project about my blog post, Why I Can’t Lean In to Ban Bossy. Read the blog post here about my interview.
• On April 11, 2014, I had 3,649 unique visitors, the most I’ve ever had. The post that brought in all that traffic? Happy National Siblings Day, a post a wrote celebrating my brother Dave, brought in 94% of my visitors that day.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the tireless leadership of Jimmy Greenfield. He is patient and kind, always willing to answer questions, even in non-office hours and when he’s answered the same question no fewer than 978,528,264 times. He tells us when we hit a home run, but also lets us know when we could have done better. Although he doesn’t read any posts in draft form, he will encourage us to go back and make some changes, if necessary, after we hit publish.

When I’ve felt discouraged or not written for a couple weeks, Jimmy is always willing to talk it out with me and everyone else, as well. He’s a wonderful mentor who has taught me more than I ever wanted to know about promoting my blog, building the Little Merry Sunshine brand, SEO (that’s search engine optimization, if you don’t know the lingo), and much more in his daily motivational and educational emails.

Thanks to ChicagoNow, I have grown as a writer, am more confident in my abilities, and have almost finished a first draft of a book.

Thank you for being one of my readers and for your comments, likes, and shares. I admire each and every one of you.

As we like to say over at ChicagoNow, blogging works, yo.

Here’s to many more years at ChicagoNow and the next 100 posts.

Oh, and because I’m sure you’re looking for the perfect gift for my blogiversary, I remind you that the traditional one year anniversary gift is paper. In that spirit, I’d like a publishing deal for the non-fiction book I’m writing.

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