My first post were about the Bats, BirdZirk! and the opening day of the Creation Museum outside of Cincy (the latter remains one of my favorite posts despite the epic levels of snark involved).
It's been four years since the birth of my logo. John Wurth at Hatch Creative made it. I told him I wanted something retro-y, happy, with an acorn and a fleur de lis.
My tag line is: "Neither here, nor there" because I am from the North and spent most of my adult life in the South and Louisville is... neither here, nor there.
The acorn? There are all kinds of reasons behind that.
My last name is Chipman, frequently, lovingly bastardized to Chipmunk. Chipmunks eat?
I lived in New England and New Orleans and oak trees are ubiquitous throughout.
And when I was a wee lass, I discovered that the Vanderbilts had a special affinity for the saying "Great Oaks from Tiny Acorns grow." I, myself, am not a particularly big person. I come from humble means. The aspirational message behind that aphorism felt particularly meaningful to me.
I don't "do" analytics, and I have never tried to sell ads. I've never been compensated for or charged for posts.
This has always been a labor of love.
That doesn't mean that it's not without significant rewards.
In 2011, I gave a speech at the Louisville Free Public Library called "Social Media Is Social" and it outlined just what blogging and tweeting had brought to my life.
90% of my friends in Louisville met me through the blog or twitter. Media passes afforded to me because of my blog have allowed me to do probably thousands of dollars worth of activities. I got my first Louisville print media job with The Louisville Paper because of my blog. And I am now employed full time as an online journalist at Insider Louisville, in part because of the work that I did with Loueyville.
There are close to 750 posts on this blog. Thank you to every single one of you who's read even one of these posts. You've changed my life.
I know things have slowed to a trickle here since I started working at Insider Louisville. I hope you've followed me there– 80% of the stories I cover for IL are stories I would have covered for Loueyville. It's a dream to be paid for what I've been doing for six years for free. And I am grateful for all the Insider folks for this opportunity.
I'll continue to do my best to fill in the cracks in my reporting for IL here.
Happy sixth anniversary to Loueyville! And thank you for your continued support.
