Today marks our 10 year blogiversary! And it’s a Tuesday! (Will there be a Wednesday post? Probably not this week… Still fishing for compliments…)
It started with a grumble.
Early posts had a lot of octopus and hot library guy memes (not together though!) We started with a lot of small frequent posts, posting daily or more!
Our deliberately controversial posts were especially popular.
We got a lot of readers from the Get Rich Slowly fora.
But times have changed… while we post regularly, it’s only on a M/W/F/Saturday schedule, and not daily. We still have Money Mondays . We used to alternate Fridays Ask the Grumpies with Google Questions, but we now get more Ask the Grumpies questions and Google has made it harder to find search terms from wordpress that come to our blog, so we mostly only do the advice column. Saturdays are for link love. Wednesdays are for everything else.
We used to be a bit more balanced with food and book etc. posts coming at regular intervals, but now we’re generally at most a week ahead of blogging instead of months, at least for Wednesday posts. That leads to a bit more bunching of posts, I think. Life has gotten busy!
Blogging is correlated with me adding too many parentheticals to my writing (like this one).
How long will we keep going? I don’t know! Occasionally it seems more like a chore than a hobby, but we’d miss our readers (especially you, yes YOU), and sometimes it’s really useful to be able to just ask the world something to see what falls out.
Do you have a favorite Grumpy Rumblings post? What do you hope to see in the future? Praise and congratulate us! We are totally fishing for compliments!
July 14, 2020 at 2:51 am
The two of you shld be very proud of yourselves for keeping this blogge going!!! You are definitely in rarefied company, as the overwhelmingly vast majority of bloggez started in the heyday of bloggeing have since petered out. I know I annoy you (altho I sense you actually quite enjoy the occasional opportunity I provide for you to righteously hate on Yale), but if I didn’t greatly enjoy & admire this blogge, I would’ve stopped reading long ago. Congrats!
July 14, 2020 at 6:50 am
It’s so weird because we have friends at Yale who don’t say such privileged things. It’s like they understand that most schools aren’t as well off.
Thanks for the congratulations!
July 14, 2020 at 3:27 am
I am one who arrived via Get Rich Slowly and I’ve learned tons from this blog over the years. Please don’t stop! Also, I often repost some of your “Link Love” links on my social media pages. Just mentioning in case it ever feels like you’re communicating into a void. You’re not! Thanks for all the work you do here.
July 14, 2020 at 6:51 am
Yay! Thank you for reading and reposting and commenting!
July 14, 2020 at 4:34 am
Hah! You guys are the reason I’m still blogging. I was about to stop in 2014, and you convinced me to keep going. Kudos to you — I really appreciate the posts and also the community you’ve maintained. Grumpeteers unite!
July 14, 2020 at 6:52 am
We have done some good in the world through this action alone! Also, we have the best community.
July 14, 2020 at 5:25 am
Re asking the world something: blog >>>>> Facebook. I have learned a lot from your blog, so thank you!
July 14, 2020 at 6:53 am
100% agree. Our blog readers have way better advice!
July 14, 2020 at 6:54 am
What a nice way to start the day! We should fish for compliments more often!
July 14, 2020 at 7:05 am
Congrats! I have been reading so long that I no longer think of this as reading a blog, rather catching up with my anonymous internet friends. Maybe that is weird, but oh well. I really appreciate hearing the perspectives of other academic women and I find the length of the posts to be long enough to feel substantial but not so long that I lose interest. I’d love an update on #2–I hope she’s doing well.
July 14, 2020 at 7:11 am
Yay internet friends!
#2 recommends the murderbot diaries.
July 14, 2020 at 7:19 am
Yay! Congrats! I think I’ve been following you for 8 years? Since my first year of grad school? (and now I’m a grumpy untentured one ;) ) I’m pretty sure I found you via Miser Mom, and I found Emily Nagoski through you, who was also life-changing.
I enjoy all your posts, but I love your book posts. I think I share a lot of book preferences with at least one of you, so your book recs have been pretty spot on for me. In particular, your post about Courtney Milan’s handling of race in her historical romances made me give romance novels a proper try – I started with her Brothers Sinister series and haven’t looked back.
Thanks for all the advice and entertaining morning reading over the years – here’s to many more!
July 14, 2020 at 7:27 am
Thank YOU! Hopefully one day you too will be formerly untenured!
The romance novel landscape has changed a lot since the days of bodice rippers. Courtney Milan is amazing!
July 14, 2020 at 8:18 am
I’m a biologist and yours is one of the few non-science blogs I read — it is great having your perspective. I don’t comment hardly at all but really would miss you if you didn’t post.
July 14, 2020 at 8:28 am
Awww thank you! You are definitely welcome to comment more!
July 14, 2020 at 8:53 am
You have been a lifesaver for me over the years! I started a tenure track job in 2012 and wrote in as Stacie with a question about a really terrible student. You helped and so did readers. I find that my colleagues don’t talk much about their critiques of academia – they more try to stay positive and talk about how much they work in a low key braggy way. I really need an outlet for my eye roll moments and you helped so much with that. So thank you for being there for me for the last 8 years!
July 14, 2020 at 8:55 am
Omg! I’m so glad we could help! Our readers do give really great advice. Grumpy nation is the best!
July 15, 2020 at 4:01 pm
P.s. did getting grey hair help? (Or are you not quite there yet?)
July 14, 2020 at 9:09 am
You’re one of the blogs that I enjoy checking every weekday. (Weekends are habitually too busy for me for much internet time.) I like your thoughtfulness, your activism, and your general approaches to life. If I knew you both in real life, I’d probably enjoy hanging out with you with some frequency… you know, in non-pandemic times. As it is, I’d miss your posts if you quit. I’m glad you’ve made it to 10 years and hope that you continue for many more.
July 14, 2020 at 9:55 am
Awww shucks, thanks! We’d probably enjoy hanging out with you too!
July 14, 2020 at 9:55 am
I’ve been following since the crusty old days of non-tenuredness! I probably found you through GRS but I don’t read it anymore for the most part. I keep coming back here for the mix of money and book talk! Also to peek into academia which was never a goal or path of mine, but it’s always fun to catch a glimpse of another world.
I hope you get to come to Portland some day!
July 14, 2020 at 9:56 am
We were supposed to go to Portland this year!!! (#2 has been to Portland a lot, but #1 has never been. Stupid pandemic.)
Yay money and books!
July 14, 2020 at 11:54 am
Congrats on 10 years! I think Retire by 40 or Done by 40 said he will stop blogging once he hits regular retirement age. It is strange to be part of a virtual community because so many bloggers disappear. You can’t keep it up forever but it is nice to have a more neutral forum for discourse not related to only personal life.
July 14, 2020 at 12:55 pm
There are definitely people who used to be regulars that we really miss and wish we had updates from. I guess that’s one of those things about blogging… sometimes people just move on.
July 14, 2020 at 1:50 pm
Gabillions of thanks for writing and continuing to write. You are a such a resource, I always learn from you and you brighten my days.
July 14, 2020 at 1:57 pm
Awwww, thanks! You brighten days too!
July 14, 2020 at 3:36 pm
Congratulations, Grumpies! Happy big one-oh and many happy returns! You guys and I started around the same time (I think my foray into blogging was in May of 2010 back as geekmommyprof (the world’s most awful pseud), then shortly thereafter moved to academic jungle as GMP, and since January 2014 at xykademiqz). So many great blogs from the heyday are now defunct. :-( I’m very happy your is alive and kicking!
July 14, 2020 at 4:22 pm
I had completely forgotten that GMP stood for that! We still get plenty of hits from your academic-jungle blogroll. We’re glad yours is alive and kicking as well!
July 14, 2020 at 6:35 pm
Yaaaay! Congrats for lasting so long and for putting out some great content.
Ten more years?
July 14, 2020 at 6:37 pm
Who knows!
Thanks! And thanks for having such a great blogroll. ;)
July 14, 2020 at 8:42 pm
Yay for nicoleandmaggie!
Anon in mass
July 15, 2020 at 5:55 am
Yay for Anon in mass!
July 14, 2020 at 9:27 pm
Happy blogiversary and many more! Sorry it took me all day to say this. The link to your first post took me down memory lane, and I spent awhile in your archives and to others’ old posts that you linked to, while taking part in a tedious webinar that had j-u-s-t enough useful bits not to leave it. So thank you for that as well as the last great ten years.
July 15, 2020 at 5:55 am
Aww, we can’t complain for people spending time on our archives. There’s a lot of really good stuff in there! Probably some of our best work!
Thank you for a great 10 years as well!
July 15, 2020 at 12:18 am
Congratulations on doing this for 10 years! I’m not sure when I found you but you were both still grumpily untenured then. I hardly ever comment but I check in several times a week. I’m not in academia, but am on the fringes of it as a clinical psychologist who supervises students in a training clinic, so I enjoy the glimpses of a road not travelled.
I also love the perspective you provide on politics and activism in the US. Provides a nice contrast to the soundbites we get on the news down here in NZ! Thanks too for the book posts, I have found so many cool authors to add to my Kindle wishlist.
PS commiserations on your stand mixer, mine also recently bit the dust :-( Currently experimenting with no-knead bread instead.
July 15, 2020 at 5:56 am
Feel free to comment more!
US politics, not currently so awesome, but books are definitely awesome!
No-knead bread is delish.
July 15, 2020 at 6:58 am
Congratulations! You guys are awesome!
July 15, 2020 at 7:26 am
You are awesome too!
July 15, 2020 at 8:35 am
Happy 10 years! I actually think I found you sometime in 2010/2011. We have a cobalt blue kitchen aid too. I’m glad you were able to fix it!
I love your blog because it is you two being yourselves. I especially loved the italy honeymoon food photos.
July 15, 2020 at 8:55 am
Your blog was great too!
Sadly, it will be a long time before any more Italy trips, though #2 actually had one somewhat planned (more exciting than Portland!). :(
July 15, 2020 at 10:04 am
Happy 10 years! I’ve quit blogging regularly in the traditional sense, but keep my blog around for the purpose it severs for me.
My favorite post is probably this one: https://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/cleanliness-is-next-to-cleanser-in-the-dictionary/
Looks like I didn’t even comment on it! But, I think of it often when I see/hear people (women mainly) talk about housekeeping in depth. (There has been recent buzz around TOMM, which stands for The Organized Mom Method… :/ )
July 15, 2020 at 10:28 am
We enjoy your monthly updates!
Ah yes, that is a good post, one of our Deliberately Controversial series.
July 15, 2020 at 10:55 am
Thanks for blogging! I’ve been reading since close to the beginning — can’t remember how I found you, but it might have been through Female Science Professor? — even though I only started my occasional comments a few years ago. Love the books, the activism (though I’m in a different country), the cooking, the kid questions and the general awesomeness. Like many people above, I feel like you’re friends.
July 15, 2020 at 10:59 am
Oh man, FSP is a long time ago. We are old friends now!
Grumpy Nation is generally awesome!
July 15, 2020 at 12:08 pm
I think I followed a link from Wandering Scientist over to here…and have just stayed. I love blogs and wish I could manage to comment more…but often talk myself out of writing stuff. Not entirely sure why. I like your thoughts on money, link love usually makes me laugh and think, and RBOC is awesome. I’m impressed you’ve stuck to doing this for 10 years!
July 15, 2020 at 12:41 pm
You should totally stop talking yourself out of it. Think of poor Grumpy Nation, bereft of your wisdom!
Wandering Scientist also has a fantastic community. We’re glad you wandered over to us!
July 15, 2020 at 8:17 pm
Congratulations! Ten years is a long time. I’ve been reading for much longer than I’ve been commenting, but I can no longer remember how I got here in the first place. I find almost everything you post interesting but would like to give special thanks for Link Love, which introduced me to several other favorite sites (Whatever, Breaking Cat News) and always recommends interesting things to read. Also, your political activism posts encouraged me to get involved in the 2018 midterms (and my district flipped!).
July 15, 2020 at 9:11 pm
You helped make the world a better place! We’re glad we could contribute in some small part to that.
Keep reading and commenting!
July 15, 2020 at 9:52 pm
Happy blogiversary, nicoleandmaggie! I’ve been reading you since forever and have learned so much (especially financial stuff).
July 16, 2020 at 6:53 am
We’ve been reading you since forever too!
July 16, 2020 at 1:03 pm
I think we were reading the same blogs for a while and then started our own blogs when our comments Started getting way too long. Except I quit after my kid started sleeping through the night in year 3 and you guys kept chugging along for another 7 years.
I am so glad you are still blogging as it’s the only original blog I followed from back in the day that is still active and/or didn’t sell out with a bunch of sponsored posts. The very first PF blogs I read was frugal dad and the early days of get rich slowly (before sellout).
Congrats.
July 16, 2020 at 2:04 pm
Keep reading and commenting! (Also I have so many questions—is the home renovation finished? Any updates on your extended family? Etc.)
July 16, 2020 at 3:57 pm
I’m so glad you’re here!
Anyway, I kept meaning to dig out a particular favorite post, but it seems my pandemic brain finds that hard. But we’ll just go with that being directly due to so many being so great (yes, I was one of those kids who found it paralyzing to be asked my favorite book because I LOVED SO MANY).
*insert wild minion applause .gif*
July 16, 2020 at 3:59 pm
Glad you’re here as well!
Pandemic brain sucks. Though, if you’d like, instead of picking a favorite, you could pick a few posts you liked. ;)
July 16, 2020 at 4:46 pm
HEY!!!
July 16, 2020 at 4:37 pm
Happy blogiversary! Tho I don’t comment as much, your blog is one of the three things I check in the morning. I’m glad you are here.
I really loved following along vicariously with your mortgage payoff. I like posts about money decisions. I really enjoy hearing an educated take on current events. I enjoy the random bits of parenting knowledge.
July 16, 2020 at 4:47 pm
We need you this Friday for more Ask the Grumpies! Because you really do ask the BEST questions.
We are glad you are here all the time, but especially on Ask the Grumpies days. :D
July 16, 2020 at 7:32 pm
I forgot to mention favorite posts and give you both compliments! I like deliberately controversial posts and money stuff the most. I also like political stuff, RBOC and grumpy questions and your general views on life. I check in pretty much every day except weekends! Keep blogging forever!
July 17, 2020 at 8:00 am
Keep checking in! Maybe not forever, but for the foreseeable future. Keep up your blog too!
July 18, 2020 at 5:17 pm
Belatedly, HAPPY TEN YEARS! I’m so glad you’re around and hope you’ll be around much longer. I’d miss y’all a whole lot if you stopped.
(I normally am most up to date on your posts, it’s just been an extra hellish week.)
July 18, 2020 at 6:07 pm
We love your blog and twitter feed too! Hope you stick around and that future weeks are better!