hitting the pause button on blogging for a sec.

The past few weeks I've been feeling a stirring in my heart about blogging, I'm constantly reevaluating what I'm putting out into the blogosphere, the words I write I want them to mean something not only to me first, but also to the person who reads this.

I remember the first blog I ever read and got hooked on, what hooked me wasn't the crafts, or pictures, it was the words. It was the way she told a story, and opened up even the smallest parts of her life. Showed you the beautiful along with the messy real life stuff. It's what inspired me to start my own blog and share life with each other.

To build a community. To connect to people.

I've been blogging for some time now, (5 years) this past February. Some really great friendships and connections have come from blogging, for that I am so thankful. Some of the purest moments and stories I've shared in this space.

I didn't even know what a sponsored post was until I was blogging for about 3 years, I didn't even know you could make money off your blog until around the same time. I didn't even make any money off my blog until just a year ago. Do I make money off my blog? Short answer, yes. Do I make a lot? No. Do I make a part time income? No.

There are sponsored posts written. There are ads on this blog, way at the bottom. Do I make enough to treat my family to dinner, yes. Do I make money and buy things for our home or pay my bills? Yes. Every time I've been approached to do this, I always run the opportunity through a check list in my mind.

Would it be something that I would normally like or write about on my blog?

Would I really do that in real life?

Do I even like the product/service, etc?

Does it fit with my readers?

I won't pretend that from time to time you might see sponsored content on this blog, because you will and you have. But I will make sure that it's authentic every time.

But more than sponsored content I want to share life with this online community. I still comment on every. single. blog I take the time to read.

I still read a lot of blogs with a lot of different content than my own.

I read this post today, and then this post which furthered in my heart what it was already stirring.

Everyone measures success in a different way, and so do bloggers. I don't know what your measure of success is but I'm thankful for the emails and comments from readers that I get that are so honest and encouraging.

More so than page views. I know I get passed up for a lot because I don't pull in the page views and numbers like others, but I'm honestly ok with that. I am thankful for the opportunities that have come my way, like writing for Modern Mom in which I got to write about something I'm passionate about.

I want blogging to be about sharing a story, even if I'm crafting in that post, or sharing pictures, or cooking. Whatever, there's a story behind it. There's a story that I want to share. I started the 5 Questions series because there's some amazing bloggers out there that I love and I wanted to share them with you.

I don't have awesome page views, and I don't have the thousands of followers like a lot of blogs I read. But I've gotten to the point where that doesn't matter. I want to write because I love it. I craft because I love it, and I love making my home and space to reflect myself and my family. I cook because I love doing it for my family, and every once in a while a recipe is worth sharing.

It's my desire for this space to be as authentic as it can be. That I reflects myself, and where I'm at in this season of life. At the end of the day I'm:

a Christ follower, wife, mother, creative thinker with a passion for family, friendship and people. I want to share that here.

My challenge for myself and for you today if you're a blogger is to remember why you started blogging in the first place, why you fell in love with it.

If you're a reader and don't have a blog, I challenge you to really jump in and be apart of a community. The true community that I believe this can be.