AAB's Top 5 Posts of 2015

As 2015 comes to a close, I thought I'd share AAB's five most popular posts for the year.  And by most popular, I mean most viewed. 

They are....

#5 Bathroom and Patience Renovation
The enthralling tale of the redo of our half bath off our bedroom and the workout it gave my patience.   As far as my own personal favorites, this one ranks right up there. 

Favorite excerpt: "And that's the thing.  I know he can, but everything takes so much time with a renovation project.  And it's so hard if you are patience-challenged, like me.  And I always forget.  It's like the pain you feel at childbirth.  Your brain protects you from remembering so that you might do it again some day.  This special brain-protecting mechanism is why everyone in the world is not an only child.  And it's also why people continue to do home improvement projects."

#4 The Volunteer
This was a piece I wrote when my brother launched his song The Volunteer online. 
His song is now available on iTunes.  Here's a link to The Volunteer if you want to give it a listen on YouTube.

Favorite Excerpt: "I'm a firm believer that things merge together in life to show us how everything is connected. We get the same lessons over and over again in different forms."

#3 What's Up, Wednesday?  Aug. 11, 2015 Edition
I'm pretty sure this one got a large number of views because I participated in a literature link up party with another blog, Modern Mrs. Darcy.  I also think it had a lot to do with this picture:

Sunflowers and Flannery O'Connor.  Who wouldn't take a look?

#2 What's Up, Wednesday?   Sep. 9, 2015 Edition
When I started the whole "What's Up, Wednesday?" feature, I had some trepidation.  These posts were lighter on text and heavier on pictures.  Up until trying to keep up with this regular post, my posting was erratic and heavier on writing. But as it turns out, not just one, but two What's Up, Wednesday? posts made it into the top five. That being said, this gimmick did help me regularly post and did bring more readers to AAB. So I think I'll be keeping it for now.

Flowers and books, two of my loves, were a recurring image in these posts.

#1 The DNA of My Story
I'm so glad this got the most reads of all my posts as I definitely would have picked it as one of my favorite posts of 2015, if not the favorite.  This was all about the Christmas gift my husband gave me: having my DNA analyzed by Ancestry.com to see what my heritage was.

Favorite Excerpt: "As I was putting out my decorations for St. Patrick's Day this year (and yes, I've always done this, and now it seems apparent why), I found myself wanting to know more about the country and its history.  So I plan to do some more reading about Ireland.  And Scandinavia.  And France.  They're all important to me now. I don't stand alone, no matter how badly I wanted to when I was younger. For better or worse, my story only came about because of hundreds of other stories."

Kim