Sometime last week or this week MyIrony had its first birthday. (Happy birthday to MyIrony, happy birthday to MyIrony…) I’m not sure about the timing because I spent a couple of weeks just futzing around with preliminary designs on blogger.com before I moved everything over to makingchutney.com using MovableType’s free software.

I highly recommend MovableType for my fellow bloggers. But if the thought of getting your own web domain and installing stuff on it scares you, then its sibling (for-pay) product TypePad is an easier way to go. For keeping track of updates on other folks blogs, I use the $25 version of NewzCrawler–saves clicking on several dozen bookmarks every day. And for composing entries I use Zempt’s free software.

Traffic at MyIrony has been pretty steady the last few months. Homepage hits seem to come in around 400 to 600 a week depending on how often I’ve updated that week and whether anybody has linked to me. Unique visitors come in anywhere between 1100 and 1400 a week. That’s all according to the stats package that comes from the folks MyIrony rents server space from (fellow Okies, I might add, not far from my old neck of the woods as it turned out.). If Site Meter is any closer to the mark, however, my numbers are off by about half. According to Technorati, thirty-some-odd blogs are currently linking to MyIrony. If Blogshares or Daypop is right, though, it’s many less.

But as blogger Rebecca Blood argues, blogging is not about how much web traffic you get. It’s about writing, in a new genre that’s still being defined and explored. It’s a return of the personal letter, the political tract, the pastoral epistle, the photo album, the pointed aphorism, and the private diary, all at the same time. If nothing else, it represents an upsurge in the culture of writing, and that’s can’t be bad.

Over the year my blogging interests have shifted from snark to pop politics to selfcraft to god stuff. I suppose they’ll shift again before too long. Being able to shift around your writing style and interests is one of the great things about blogging. The most exciting development for me has been the continuing development of a community of Unitarian Univeralist bloggers. (Philocrites has a recent list.) Liberal spirituality is alive and well on the net! And my favorite sparring partner remains Happy Tutor & Co over at WealthBondage.com, who continues to best us all.

And for reading this far, I reward you with a gratuitous puppy photo (proof enough that this is a blog). We plan to adopt one of them next month. (Name suggestions are more than welcome.) Happy reading, writing, and blogging!