Yesterday I posted a poll here on my blog. Lately I have been feeling very overwhelmed with blogging in general and have finally realized that I must let some things go in order to stop feeling so burned out. While I am NOT letting this blog go, there may be a few days between posts. I can no longer keep up with the 245 blogs in my feedreader and I can no longer review every product pitched to me through a PR rep. I do have a few more reviews to complete, but once these are done I will not be overextending myself to do more than I personally want to at a time.
My introduction to blogging a couple of years ago was simple. I read blogs I truly loved and appreciated for their content. Back then there were maybe a couple of major product review blogs (as opposed to the thousands you can find today) and being contacted by a PR rep wasn’t even in my blogging vocabulary. I could keep up with every blog I read because there were just a handful I loved and they were in my blogroll on my sidebar and I had no clue what a feedreader was. Blogging was deliciously simplistic, and I miss that.
I had no big plans when I first started blogging. I just knew wanted to write as well as those bloggers I admired. Not write exactly like them, but to have my content respected as much as theirs. Then there seemed to be a big push for advertising on blogs and link swapping was replaced with ads and I fell into that. We could make money from our blogs! We’d all be rich! And while I have made money from blogging, it is far from making me rich and being able to quit my day job. Then along came product reviews and I overextended myself even further. Quite simply, the effort to “market and brand” my blog just isn’t there for me. I don’t have time to “find my blogging tribe” and for all these many buzz words being pitched around in the mom blogosphere. I feel like my readers are my tribe, if anyone. It’s very humbling that people actually care enough to come in here and read on a daily basis and suddenly, this is enough. And it should have been enough from the very begining.
And also? The weather has been fantastic. I want to be outside playing with my son. I want to be taking walks with him and planting this garden he keeps talking about. There’s a bathroom that needs painting, a husband that will soon be on vacation, and books to be read. And I can’t enjoy all of those things sitting in front of a computer screen.
To sum it all up, I just want to read blogs for pleasure and I just want to write in mine when I have something to say.
I understand exactly what you are saying, Mandy. I have 146 blogs on my reader, and that is really a strain to keep up with. I should wittle it down a bit, and concentrate on those that strike a cord with me, to do them justice with having time to read and comment on a regular basis. I sometimes will go 2 weeks between posts, as I just don’t have the time to do it every day or every few days. I like to post when I feel like posting, not when I feel obligated somehow. You do what you gotta do, girl. The only person you need to make happy, is YOU!
XOXO
I haven’t been blogging for very long, but I’m with you! I can’t be like one thos “those” mom bloggers, and guess what? That’s ok! I’ve realized myself lately how askew the focus of my blog has become from what I first intended. I thought for a while the answer was to start still another blog, but perhaps the answer is to simply refocus what I have.
Thanks for the great post!
You rock. That’s all that needs to be said. Go do yo’ thang, girl! I’ll still be here readin’ ya! 😉
I agree! The blogs I love have great quality, not quantity. In the end, it’s the content that matters. Go with your heart and your blogging will be the joy that you intended it to be. I’ll definitely be here to read whenever you post!
First of all, I LOVE your blog. The posts I love best though? The good ‘ol family cracked posts! Those are what keep me coming back!
it is refreshing to refocus! go for it without any guilt! and enjoy the outside with little man!
Jenni likes this.
Well put…live your life, and blog for fun, because you want to. The blogosphere will be here when you want it to be. If you have good weather, go enjoy it:)
You go girl!
A demanding computer can really get you down. You’re doing the right thing! Ask not what you can do for Blogger, but what Blogger can do for you…
or something like that! Log on every week and do whatever the heck you want!
Sing it sister! I am so tired of reading blogs where people are writing mission statements and “branding” themselves. IT. DRIVES. ME. CRAZY.
I’m with you. Read what you what to read. And write when you want to write.
It would be nice if we could all get rich like Dooce or Pioneer Woman but I don’t see that happening for me.
I’ll still be looking out for new and exciting posts and giveaways from you. But I do hope you start to relax and have fun…Spring is right around the corner!
you girl! Live your life. We know that blogging isn’t your life, just something for spare time!!
huggggs:)
Leigh-nc
Oh, this is good stuff.
I’m glad you’re wrestling through this stuff, and looking for balance in it all.
Thanks for this 🙂
I read blogs for their content, and that is why I come to visit you.
While it is flattering to be approached by a company (I have just been contacted by 2) I don’t want my blogging to be about that.
Most product reviews are about products that aren’t available here, and I understand why most giveaways are only for US too.
So……there is a point here, I promise……I am looking forward to you having your life back, and I am sure you are too.
PS Can you give me the name of your PR rep? (LOL! – sort of!)