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.

Embrace

Life has been teaching me to embrace lately. Embrace the changes that are happening in our lives. Embrace that everything doesn't always go according to plans, and it's ok.

Embrace that Ava no longer wants to sit and smile for the camera, she'd much rather move around and play. It's teaching me to catch those small moments with her and to drink them in like never before. Her littleness is fleeting, and everyday she's becoming even more of a "big girl."



Life is teaching me to embrace that things are sometimes out of my control and that's ok, because God has it all under control. So I can let myself off the hook for a lot of things. Because it's HIS job to take care of that stuff anyway.

Embracing all the blessings that God has given us, even though I don't always know or understand what he's doing in the inner workings of our lives I'm so thankful for all he's given us. I'm learning to embrace the feelings that I have and work through them instead of just writing them off because I think things can't or won't change. Maybe God wants to change me instead of my circumstances. Maybe just maybe he'll transform me during this time of embracing.



Because that really when I sit down and think about it, is what I want. I want God to change me, to grow deeper in Him and know Him more. I don't just want to stay the same, never growing, never getting better, nope I want to embrace what He has for me. 


Today, my friends I'm wondering what are you embracing in your own lives too? What are you accepting more, and letting it change you instead of you changing "it?"


Happy Weekending friends.