Hundredth Post!

I’ll be doing a giveaway shortly to thank all of my four awesome readers. Lol, just kidding. No but seriously, thank you, all of you, for reading. I love your comments, your likes, your shares, your +1s, your tweets and retweets, but most importantly your set of eyes on my posts. You make me feel like I’m not talking to myself. You keep me motivated. You inspire me.

Don’t worry, I’ll have something for you soon.

But right now, I’d like to dedicate this hundredth post to this here blog. This might seem a bit self-indulgent. But hey, that’s one of the benefits of being a blogger.

I started blogging back in July. Previously I’d only been on the reader side of this blogging business. It took about a week from deciding to blog to posting my first post. Everything looked pretty sketchy back then – I hadn’t even worked out how to add photos yet. But I did a lot of Googling, a lot of experimenting, a lot of learning along the way.

I found out about memes. I didn’t even know what these were, let alone how to pronounce this word at first. For the uninitiated, these are also known as linky parties, where you can link up your post to like-minded ones on other peoples blogs, and help potential readers to “find” you. Oh, and it rhymes with teams.

I’ve discovered blogging communities who are funny, informative, supportive, helpful, collaborative. A huge thank you to all of you, who have helped me to feel welcome within this blogosphere. Bloggers whom I would call friends, but have never met in person. Bloggers who I’d be a little star struck if I did ever meet in person. You know who you are. And you rock.

I’m learning about how much time it takes to maintain a blog. It’s not just writing the content. It’s taking the photos, then editing, shrinking and watermarking, or finding copyright friendly ones. Then publishing to various social media. Then linking up to memes, including visiting and commenting on other blogs that have also linked up (as per blogging ettiquite). And reading and responding to any comments that my post may have received (which, by the way, I am always tickled pink to see). And that’s for every single post.

And then there’s all the things you have to consider outside of the actual posts – blog design, social media presence (on my to-do list), SEO (which I’m hopeless at), and lots lots lots more. I’m not complaining – I love it. I love thinking about it, I love learning about it, I love doing it. Just that it is so time consuming…

This last month has been really tricky to find time. Bee’s night-time feeding session are now each only ten minutes. And JJ’s dropped her day nap. So both of my “me times” have disappeared. Combine this with an increase in our social life due to the summer / Christmas break. Well, you can see for yourself how much blogging I have been able to fit in. But this is only a temporary thing – I spend my whole day (and night) giving all of myself to my kids, I’m determined to eek out a tiny bit of time to be able to do this one thing that is for me. Just how, I’m not sure. But I will. It keeps me sane….

So what are my blogging plans for 2013?

I don’t have blogging resolutions as such. Except to continue of course. But I do have ideas, plans, goals. I’d like to do a write a few guest posts – I’ve just sent out my first two for consideration (eek!). I’d like to learn GIMP or Photoshop. Perhaps move over to wordpress, I’ve heard self-hosted is where it’s at. I’d like to take more time over my posts, improve my writing style. I’d like to write some more opinion pieces, actually get down the ones I draft over and over in my head at 4am. I’d like to re-jig my blog design, add a few more pages, get a new favicon and a new Gravatar. I’d like to create a button. I’d like to print some business cards and write a Media Kit. I’d like to create a much bigger Pinterest presence, and spend more time connecting via Facebook, Twitter and Google+. I’d like to see both my stats and my sense of community grow. I’d love to attend a blogging conference. It would be wonderful to learn from the pros. And it would be even more wonderful to put some faces to the names of other bloggers who have helped me forge this space. (There’s a Digital Parents conference in March that I have my eye on, pending babysitting…)

But realistically, I’m probably not going to be able to achieve all this, or even most of this. Not and be a full time mum at the same time. Not the fun, intentional, present type of mum that I want to be. But I’m ok with that. I can still dream, still plan. And you know what. Some of it might happen. Some other stuff might happen too. That’s one of the awesome things about blogging. It evolves. It grows with you. It’s never finished. There is no destination.

xx
Danya