Five years! Who knew we’d still be here five years after Dad offhandedly suggested Mom post photos of our cats somewhere as a way to honor those who had passed and because the Internet didn’t have enough cat photos?
Mom published the first Colehaus Cats post on January 19th 2012* using a free WordPress theme over the use of several other frustrating blogging software options. Seeing angel Maxx’s photo finally posted out to the world convinced her Dad’s comment was the best idea ever.
Maxx. © Colehaus Cats
The first blog post was titled “Meet the Colehaus Cats – Maxx, the Innocent.” That was an inside joke because Maxx was known more for being Maxx, the Troublesome Nipper Who Regularly Draws Blood and Who Doesn’t Understand the Physics of Possessing a Weighty Big Butt While Always Failing at Jumping Across Big Expanses of Empty Space and Therefore, Makes a Mess.
Thankfully, Mom shortened that post title.
Then, Mom tried to create a header. She cringes when she sees her original Colehaus Cats blog headers. Here’s a few of them from that first year in 2012.
Then, Mom got the bright idea that maybe one of the actual Colehaus Cats ought to be on the header, not some cute, but random cat photo stolen from the Internet. Yes, our Mom stole a photo once from the Internet without figuring out who created it. Ex-feral, angel Cameron was her first choice, followed by one featuring angel Zooot, and then angel Seth.
Original Colehaus Cats blog header with angel Cameron – © Colehauscats.com
Original Colehaus Cats blog header featuring angel Zooot – © Colehauscats.com
Original Colehaus Cats blog header featuring angel Seth – © Colehauscats.com
That last one was from when Mom was in her Peach phase. She was under the impression blog colors needed to change with the season, so the peach header was followed by a pale blue one, then soft pink, and finally, light green. You might remember those days. Eventually, she got over that.
All told, Mom posted three separate Meet the Colehaus Cats entries that first day introducing Maxx, Seth, Cameron, and Zooot. Later in the month, before Mom figured out a regular blog post schedule, she told an audience of one a little about each cat’s personality.
Where’s that rabbit? Maxx in a Hat. © Colehaus Cats.
She almost quit our blog a time or two, most notably after Zooot passed quickly followed by Cameron in April and June 2012. A first commenter, Baby Patches from Nip and Bones helped Mom feel she wasn’t posting to a big, black void. Jan from Jan’s Funny Farm was the second commenter following Mom’s discovery of the wonderful world of The Cat Blogosphere who brought so many commenters to welcome baby Pia.
The rest, well, most of you know how the rest of the years have gone. We’ve had a blast, we’ve laughed and cried, and we’ve vowed to find ways to help pets in need, inspired by the work of many of you.
Most of all, we’ll always cherish the memories how other pet-loving people found us and encouraged us to keep going via their own blogs by posting great, timely information and tips, a spectacular photo or set of photos, and hundreds of warm, from-the-heart posts. We continued to feel encouraged during a long questionable time after Mom was publicly shamed by a longtime friend at a science fiction convention in May 2014 for running a cat blog. Thank you for your supportive and positive emails.
The Stats
We still post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Some kitties have left us and more kitties have joined us. We care for and feed our development’s feral, stray, and abandoned kitties (and squirrels and raccoons, too). Since blogging, we’ve gone from four cats to six, then seven followed by eight and once for a few months, a high cat count of thirteen (with Zuzu and all Niblets). Some years we take in fosters, and we don’t mind admitting we’re suckers for adding fosters to our family. Who wouldn’t when presented with these faces?
Former fosters Tessa, Ruby, Zuzu, Viola, Sunny – © Colehauscats.com
For a while, we had a cat web cam and Mom sometimes misses it even though it wouldn’t stream live.
First Colehaus Cat webcam photo – © Colehaus Cats
Dad took over posting for four summer months in 2015 when Mom was going out of town to writing conventions a lot. We love our cats and are very much in tune with each other and the needs and desires of each Colehaus Cat so we hoped no one noticed the difference in posting styles from Mom to Dad.
We’ve published 903 posts over the past five years and received 19,376 comments total in that time frame. The most viewed post (1,169 views) was just after the birth of The Niblets. Our About page is the most viewed page (1,252 views).
Mom’s personal stats show the shortest amount of time she spent creating a blog post was four minutes. She might have been showing off. The longest time spent creating a post was seventy-three hours, give or take an hour. Obviously, this was not continuously working time otherwise, Mom would have gone bonkers. Wouldn’t have been the first time.
Since 2012, we’ve met five Cat Blogosphere bloggers in person and have heard from close to one hundred others. We’ve held four raffles and have won four raffles. That’s evened out nicely.
Here’s some of our favorite posts and photos over the years:
Dad’s Little Girl Newton. 2012 © Colehaus Cats.
Miss Newton and Seth – 2012 © Colehauscats.com
Seth and Green Apple. © Colehaus Cats.
Getting Her Spit All Over It – 2012 – 2016 © Colehaus Cats.
Pia relaying her side of the conversation. August 2012. © Colehaus Cats.
What Tessa wanted to do to the V-E-T’s fingers – – 2013 © Colehaus Cats
Don’t Just Get Mad; Get Tessa Mad!
Minding his own business – 2013 © Colehaus Cats
Shopping at Craft Warehouse for art supplies – 2013 © Colehaus Cats
Ruby’s Tower – 2014 © Colehaus Cats
First Niblet for Erinn Zuzu – 2013 © Colehaus Cats
BREAKING NEWS! It’s baby Niblet time!
“There’s no treats in here!” – 2014 © Colehaus Cats
Conversation with Dad – 2015 © Colehauscats.com
Spitty’s Place feral shelter – 2015-2016 © Colehauscats.com
Welcome Itty, a very special Ginger girl – 2016 © Colehauscats.com
We hope we’ve been good bloggers over the years. We always welcome comments and suggestions, and we love hearing directly from you.
Thank you for finding us, for reading us, and for sometimes commenting. We’re big blog lurkers ourselves from time-to-time and we don’t mind lurkers here.
Thank you for visiting us. It might seem that we say that a lot but we mean it from our hearts every single time.
Thank you for helping us celebrate today and for celebrating all the Colehaus Cats!
*we know we’re one day short of the official Blogoversary day. We’re cutting ourselves a bit of slack here.
The internet definitely doesn’t have enough cat photos, and yours are some of the most fun of the bunch. Happy gotcha day!
Ohhhh beautiful and happy 5th
Hugs Madi your bffff
Enough cat photos? NO WAY! There are NEVER enough cat photos. I’m a more recent reader of your blog so I’m glad I got a little history. You do a fantastic job of showcasing your special kitties and one can’t help but fall in love with them 🙂
Happy Blogoversary!
Happy Blogoversary! Can there EVER be enough cat photos????
The Florida Furkids
Happy Blogoversary!!! Viola in the coffee cup makes us laugh every time. We are glad you stuck it out and happy to call you friends!!
Happy 5th Blogoversary! What a great post and photos looking back over the past 5 years.
Love this blog, and you enjoy your 5th Blogoversary! Your photos and posts are an inspiration to me, and of course Quint’s art is a bonus. Colehaus Cats Rocks!
Parabéns pelos 5 anos de blogue!
Foi muito bom saber como você começou, ver os cabeçalhos e os gatinhos que já cruzaram a ponte.
Fico muito feliz que você superou os desafios e continuou com o blogue,
é sempre bom visita-los.
Happy Blogoversary! We just found you this year and are glad you posted a history
Happy blogoversary!
We just love you and your blog and wish you MANY, MANY more successful blogging years! Happy, Happy Fifth Blogoversary!!!
Wow, five years. Con-cat-ulations! Here’s to another five – ten – fifteen years!
Happy Blogoversary! We don’t comment often but we read every single one, keep up the pawsome posts.
Happy 5th Blogoversary! We so enjoy reading about all of the Colehaus Cats adventures. Bless you both for being the wonderful people you are and all you do for all the beautiful fur babies!!
Happy Blogaversary Colehaus Cats! You are always a joy; and I am so glad we found you. When Admiral stared her blog 10 years or so ago, she wrote to the void too, for probably 5 months. Nary a comment. Then one day, I don’t recall who, someone COMMENTED and mentioned an entity called the CB and that Admiral should bring her blog to their attention. I had to Google those initial, CB and then, I found all our furriends. I had no idea how to conduct myself..about how to comment, to whom. Nothing but I learned. I enjoy every post you all do. The pictures are always a joy. I miss seeing the camera on the cats too. xoxo
Happy blogoversary! I always love visiting your blog, and so happy to say that both me and my human have met you in person!
Happy Blogoversary. We sure like your blog and love visiting and seeing all the photos of the cats. We really enjoy it.
Happy 5th Blogoversary! That is a long time, I wish I had followed you all along, but I am sure glad I found you about 2 years ago. I love reading about your sweet kitties.
Happy Blogoversary! We always love your images and stories. Please keep blogging even if we tend to lurk or visit sporaticly (sp?) and then play catch up on all the posts we missed.
guys…..a most happee 5th… N we due knot meen whiskee… two ewe all, we iz buzzed happee ta call everee one friendz….heerz two another 55; heerz 555 poundz oh fresh catch ta help ya sell a brate; we hope mom N dad buyz each oh ewe 5 pizza piez for dinner two nite; we look for werd ta de next five; and we think momz green catz header rockz !! ♥♥♥♥♥
OMG when we read your status of how many blogs you have written in such a few short years, we are feeling shameful that our number is so low. We really enjoy your blog, but don’t read it as often as we should, nor do we hardly ever comment. M’s back is always bothering her and she can’t sit in her office chair much anymore – at least not for longer than 45 minutes to 1 hour. Thus my blog never gets published either and we don’t get around as often as we should to visit. When we do visit tho, we always enjoy your blog and are so happy you kept going at it.
That was sure a fun look back! Happy Blogoversary from all of us!
Happy Blogoversary ! We enjoy reading your blog, and wish you many many more years blogging ! Purrs
Wow! It’s been quite the 5 years for you guys. Happy Blogoversary!
Happy, happy blogoversary! Woo hoo!!! And no… there will simply never be enough kitteh pics on the Internet.
Happy 5th Blogoversary! Thank you for the photo trip down memory lane. Colehaus Cats rock!
Angel Normie, Angel Mika, Sasha & Grady Lewis
Happy Blogoversary ! Irarely comment, but I read every post and enjoy them immensely !
Happy Blogoversary! Wonderful to read a little of your history! And glad you did not let that bully stop you from blogging! One thing I have learned is that a bully’s behavior says way more about them then you — and if they are spending energy picking on you it’s because you have something they want on some level …talent, happiness, cats? Keep up the great work! Hope you and the kitties all had some cake!!
Happy Blogaversary!!!
5 years is a great achievement! Wishing you many more years of blogging memories 🙂
Happy Blogoversary!!! We have absolutely loved following the adventures of all the Colehaus Cats. Each one is so special. We’re really glad we connected with all of you!
Hugs and purrs from Hemingway, Steinbeck and Pam
Happy Blogoversary! We love all of you and even though our commenting isn’t what it could be, we still appreciate all of you a lot!
the critters in the cottage xo
Happy Blogoversary. Glad you are here to enjoy the fun.
Happy Happy Happy 5th Blogoversary! Your blog is always a high point in our visits, even when we too forget to comment 🙂 And no, there are NEVER enough cat pics EVER! Thank you for sharing your special and fun family!
Marty, Mom and the Gang
Happy blogoversary, dear friends! You make our lives happier, and we are proud to know you. Thank you for sharing your lives with us. 🙂
Big hugs!
Happy 5th Blogoversary!!!! I’m so so happy to have found you! I love your blog, I love your cats, I love the love you have for every animal on earth. You have big kind hearts and that’s what we need in this world. You make my day, you make me smile!
Congratulations on your 5th Blogoversary! Thanks for all of your hard work and for the cat pictures and posts that always bring a smile (or a little fear reading your link to “Don’t Just Get Mad; Get Tessa Mad!”)!!
Happy blogoversary. Love your posts – really interesting and lots of pictures of pussycats. What’s not to like!
Congratulations! Many good wishes for many more Blogoversarys!
Thanks for all the smiles.
Happy Blogoversary!!! There can never be enough cat pictures. We love your blog, and have only been reading it for a year or so. We love seeing all your furbabies. Here’s to many more years to come.
Oh we are so late. Happy blogoversary sweeties. Nice to see throwback photos.
Emma and Buster
Happy Blogoversary!
We can’t believe anyone would have a problem with a cat blog. What a horrible person to bully your mom like that.
The best blogs are cat blogs and animal blogs 🙂
Purrs xx
Athena and Marie xx
Sorry to be late to celebrate, but we love you guys and look forward to much more Colehaus fun! Special kisses from a certain ginger prince to his princess… and much love from us all!
Happy 5th Blogoversary to you all! We adore you all and your blog, it is always inspiring to us! Keep rockin’ on!
Belated congrats on 5 years of blogging! It is allus outstanding ta learn how our friends’ blogs start and change through the years. What great pictures and details!
Happy 5th Blogoversary!! I just wanted to say I love reading your posts and look forward to them every week. You really make my day and make my heart smile. Thank you for sharing your beautiful furbabies with us!