all about you (part 1)

Alright!  I've crunched the data (yeah right) and it's time to release the fascinating (not an exaggeration if you're me!) results of this week's Reader Demographic Survey! Haven't you always wondered who else all the other fabulous people reading my blog are? No? Weird. Well, at least now you can find out about 100 of them. As I explained yesterday- I can't see more than 100 responses, so...boo. (But thanks for all the advice-- I can't believe there's a way to make surveys using Google Docs! I will definitely investigate using that for my next scientific survey.)

I figured you'd get bored if I showed all the results today, so I won't. I'll just do two of them: one straightforward demographic, one 'fun.' 

Where do you live?

In summary: mostly in the southern U.S. Not terribly surprising. Whoever my two folks living in Awesome Vacation Places are...let's make sure we become best friends, okay? No particular reason why.

Five people left comments/clarifications in the 'other' box:

I stated this on Facebook the other day, but as I was setting up the survey I just knew that someone from Texas was going to feel that they couldn't be lumped with any other states and that they needed their own special box to check. I knew they would write it in!! And alas-- I was right! So thanks for being predictable, oddly-state-pride-filled people of Texas! I hadn't, however, anticipated it from a 'snobbish' (their words, not mine!) citizen of Seattle! You learn something every day!

Alright. So now we know where everyone's from. Now let's talk about something less cut-and-dried...and also something with no pretty graphs (since it was all text box responses).

What qualities/features increase your enjoyment of a blog/blogger? What kinds of things do you dislike?

(Before I get to your responses, I'm going to interject a pointless picture. But as you'll see, many of you emphatically and repeatedly stated that you really like pictures, and since I haven't used any pictures thus far in today's post...I wanted to remedy that. So here's a previously-unshared shot of my coworkers and I on my fancy birthday!)

Alright. Moving on to the responses! I thought about just retyping all these out...maybe organizing them into the likes/dislikes...then I decided to just stick with my MO of being super lazy and do a bunch of screen shots. So kick back and enjoy-- 61 of you had a lot to say about your blog likes and dislikes!

If you made it through all of that-- congratulations!! If you're wondering who is the suck-up who said "I like it when the blogger's name is Erika. I dislike when their name isn't Erika," you should know that Lauren has confessed to writing that nonsense (and I didn't pay her or anything). Were you surprised by anything here? I'll confess: I had no idea so many people disliked giveaways! That's actually pretty handy...now I don't have to feel guilty that I never do them, ha. I will feel guilty anytime I do a post without pictures, though. Yikes. Maybe I need to make a new survey: is it better to have a post with NO pictures or a post with a really lame selfie taken only for the purpose of having a picture on the post? If any of you pick B...you're weird. :) But we can still be friends.

Alright. That's a lot of info to digest, so I'll shut up. Feel free to defend your position, posit theories about other people's responses, or make fun of people from Texas in the comments-- I'll work on taking some extra-lame selfies to pad future posts with!! Have a good weekend- my parents are coming up tonight to stay for the weekend so that we can have Christmas (and my birthday, actually!) with them...last night my mom was like "what were you thinking for meals?"...and I was like...oh, I'm an adult now. Am I supposed to do things like plan meals when I have weekend visitors? Because in my mind, it was like "mom's coming, I'm freeeeeeeeeee!!!!!" and consequently I haven't grocery shopped in a week. Am I the only one still living in this mindset in my 30s?? Oops.