This week, WordPress gave me a notification that it was my 7-year anniversary of signing up for an account.  I’ve only been blogging consistently since summer 2016, but still, I started this blog in summer 2012.  That’s a long dang time.

In honor of that, I’m going to do some shameless self-promotion.  There’s a lot of stuff on this blog I now cringe at, but there’s a lot of good stuff, too.  Below, I’ve linked some of my own favorite posts.  (I only skimmed them as I was choosing them, so I hope there’s nothing too cringey there.)  Plus there’s some fun stats, too.

Before we get to all that, though, I just want to say a gigantic THANK YOU to everyone who has ever read this blog.  It’s so nice to know that other people value what I have to say, and I adore the community that I’ve built up through WordPress.  Y’all are just as great as real-life friends (actually maybe better because I don’t have to leave my house).

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All-time views: 9,564

All-time visitors: 5,242

Viewers from 109 countries have clicked on this blog:

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I Love Books

Books=Home — This was written in my sophomore year of college, when I was living in my first apartment and had my own room all to myself for the first time in my life.  I didn’t read much freshman year because there was just so much going on.  But sophomore year came with more space to collect things I love and more time to reflect on them.

10 Books From My Childhood I’d Like to Revisit — My first and best post for the Top Ten Tuesday meme (which all good book bloggers know about).  It was only downhill from here.

I Want More Spanish Books Everywhere — We have a ton of Spanish-speaking people in this country, and I want that for them, but also I’m selfish and want an introverted way to keep up my Spanish.

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I Speak Spanish

Spanish and American Girl (or, How My Spanish Obsession Began) — Here’s a hint: it involves books.

Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica — I spent a month here as part of my Spanish degree, took some bad iPhone pics, and wrote about it.

Spanish: More Than a Language — When I realized that Spanish is a luxury for me.

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Relationships

Murphy 313 — Written sophomore year after I moved out of a dorm and into an apartment, this was a tribute to the way freshman year changed me.

This Post is About My Sister — In which I talk about that amazing person.

And This One is About My Brother — Enough said.

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Christianity

5 Reasons Why I Don’t Pray Anymore — This was the first time I acknowledged openly that I’d given Christianity up.  I wrote this sophomore year, even though I first thought about it freshman year, and it continues to get occasional views.

In Response to the Very Worst Missionary — The first time I wrote about Jaime Wright, because her words impacted me way back in 2015.  Reading back through this post was eerie because it’s pretty much the epitome of real-life foreshadowing.

Discussion: Lifeway’s Decision to Pull Jen Hatmaker’s Products — I didn’t call myself a Christian at this point, but I still had my opinions.

Revisiting Christianity — This is when I started to look back into it again.

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If you made it this far, thanks again for reading!  I really do appreciate you.