What's the point

of blogging.

I've been thinking about this lately.  Why am I blogging?  Why do people blog?

I've been looking over my blog and the blogs of those bloggers I "follow."  It gives me pause.  When I started my blog it was to record my thoughts and my journey to a positive mental attitude.  I looked back and I could see I've made great strides in that direction.  Yeah, I'm feeling much happier.  I'm happier at work.  I'm no longer so fearful about making mistakes and "getting in trouble" at work.  I mean, really, what can they do to me?  They could fire me or kill me, but they can't eat me.  I'm pretty sure someone would put a stop to that.  I'm happy with my marriage.  But I don't really think this has been an issue since I started blogging.  My sweetie and I have found our "happy place" and life is good.  I worked through a painful issue with some women I was in a bible study with.  I've forgiven them and have really put it behind me.  I'm not saying it doesn't sting when I think about it, but I don't think about it too much anymore.  I'm working on my relationship with my son, but I hesitate working it out on this blog.  It's private and I really CAN set SOME boundaries.  :)

Surprisingly, I started dabbling in poetry or verse or whatever you want to call it.  I found some blogs about Christian living and they just so happened to have poetry in them.  Not only was there poetry, but there was a "link up with me" day.  So I started linking to Emily's blog.  She was so encouraging of my writing.  I started with haikus.  I started there because of the form.  They were short and relatively easy to do.  And, they made me stretch myself in my writing.  Granted, the stretch wasn't very far, but for me it was a start.  Then a funny thing happened.  By linking to Emily's blog folks started coming to my blog and leaving comments.  And then following my blog.  I was so surprised.  I should have known it would happen, but I still didn't expect it.  And, I liked it.  A lot.

I still like it.  Maybe too much.  I've started getting a bit addicted to seeing if folks are looking at my blog and seeing if they are leaving comments.  I've started getting addicted to noticing if more people look at what I've written this month than last month.  I'll tell you, the little stats portion of the blogger dashboard can be addicting.  I don't think this is good for me.  I've even started feeling competitive about it.  I know this sounds a little crazy, but it's true.  I look at the blog that gave me an interest in blogging.  I remember when that blog put up ads and the blogger declared they were going to start "making money" off their blog.  I remember seeing how many followers she had.  Not many.  I remember seeing how often she blogged.  Not often.  I started investigating making money on my blog.  I had more followers and I blogged more often.  I read articles like this.  And, I decided not to do the Amazon monetizing thing.  I wasn't going to make money and it was going to look tacky, in my humble opinion.  I always wonder if she makes any money?  I've decided my blog isn't about making money.  I'm no Pioneer Woman or Flylady.  (Btw, I knew Flylady when she was just Marla and hadn't given herself the handle yet.  Those were back in the Slob Sister chat board days.  Long long ago.)  :)

Another blogger I follow has parlayed her blog into writing an actual ebook.  She no longer blogs about her family adventures.  She now blogs as a life coach.  Sure, she's trying to drum up business for herself in the life coaching department, but why not?  It's as good a "talk therapy" as anything.  She is also VERY involved in sustainable living.  (she uses reusable tp, ... 'nuff said)  I don't think this is a direction I want to go.

What do I want my blog to be?  What is the point of writing my thoughts every day or so?  I'm going to stay with the initial premise of having it be a journal of my thoughts about various subjects and a tool to steer me in my journey to a positive view on life.  I'm going to work on my obsession of looking at the stats.  I need to ration the views of the stats WAY DOWN.  Looking at this isn't doing me any good.  I'm going to keep trying my hand at poetry and different writing styles.  I don't think I'll be a writer, but it will help me improve my writing without having to spend the money to take a writing class.  I'm not saying I'd never take a class, I just don't want to do that now.  I thought I'd like to add posts about cooking, but I don't think I can do that half as well as some of the REAL food bloggers.  AND, I don't have a cool camera.

I'm sure I'll review my motives for blogging again throughout this process.  I haven't been blogging very long and I still consider myself new to the blogosphere.  There are TONS of blogs out there and I'm happy to have the readers I have.  I have the MOST encouraging readers.  :)

Thanks