Why I Blog

I sometimes get questions from people about why I blog or how I find the time to do it. I thought it might be worth spending a minute to revisit the purpose behind this blog.

I am not doing this to make money - I don't have any illusions that I'm the next famous mommy blogger or anything. I don't have any aspirations of creating a niche and focusing on any one particular topic. (How boring!) This isn't even a record of my life, because although this blog is sometimes personal, I'm not exactly comfortable making it too personal.

The purpose for my blog is simple: focusing on the positive and happy things in life. That's it. I've found that it is often easy to get pulled down in the routines of daily life and to forget to "stop and smell the roses". Particularly since I had a baby, I've also found it difficult to find quiet moments for myself. So this blog is my own little space where I can focus on things that make me happy. I also use it to document some of my efforts to organize and simplify my life, because feeling like I have a little control over things makes me happy.

It is easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you have to spend a lot of time on your blog. I made a promise to myself that if I ever felt pressure or stress related to the blog, I'd simply stop doing it. So far, I've kept the process simple enough so that it hasn't brought any stress - quite the opposite, in fact.

Some other keys to being a happy blogger include:

1. Don't spend a ton of time reading blogs. There are millions of blogs out there, and quite a few of them are very good. I've had fun finding other cool blogs, but I refuse to spend hours every day reading them. I have a few favorites that I check a couple times a week.

2. Don't compare. One of the keys to overall happiness in life is to be happy with yourself, and this means you should not compare yourself to others. This is true in the blogging world as well. I know I'm not a professional writer, I'm not a super-creative person, and I don't really have a fashion sense or style. I'm not going to try to be something I'm not. My blog is my own little space - if someone out there likes it, cool. If not, that's okay too.

3. Leave comments. One of the fun things about being a blogger is being a part of this amazing community of people. If I find an interesting blog or particularly like a post, I leave a comment. I know I like getting comments on mine, and I've made some fun connections this way.

*Image provided by Dawn's graphics