The Life of Bon: Ten Reasons I Love Blogging

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Ten Reasons I Love Blogging

September marks four years that I have been regularly blogging.  Four years!  Four years, fifty two weeks a year, five posts a week.  That's a lot of blogging.  And a lot of writing.  I feel like the whole blogging game has changed and then changed again since I've been here and we've rolled with it, this little blog and me.  Like any pursuit in this world, blogging has its ups and downs, but in general there are a lot more ups, and as I reflect back and think on four years of this little blog I can't help but feel overwhelmingly grateful.  Blogging has given me much more than I ever would have imagined when I embarked on it. And so, without further ado...

TEN REASONS I LOVE BLOGGING



1.  I get to meet cool friends.  One of the perks of blogging that I never in a million years thought of was all the cool new friends I would meet.  Blogging is this awesome tight knit community and I have met some of the most amazing girls through blogging.  Utah is a hot spot for bloggers so I have gotten to meet almost all of my Utah blogger friends.  We go to dinner, watch Bachelor, hit up the gym together. Who am I kidding, I never go to the gym.

Once you are married and done with college it's exponentially more difficult to make friends, and I am grateful that blogging has given me that outlet to make friends post marriage and post baby.  These are amazing girls and I am lucky to know them. (It's also awesome that we can share in the weirdness that is blogging.) (I also have blogging friends who I have never met IRL and they are equally awesome.)

Blogging Friends
Miss you Deidre!

2.  I have a record of my life.  One of the greatest things about blogging is the history that it is keeping of my life.  I still keep a journal (some stuff will always be too personal for a blog) but I love how a blog keeps track of so much of my life for me.  One of my favorite things to do on any given day is go back and see what I wrote a year ago on this date, two years ago on this date, three years ago on this date.  On June's birthday last month I went back and read all of my blog posts in the days approaching her birth and in the month or two after her birth.  They were such sweet memories and pictures to recall, and I was so grateful to have that easily accessible record.

3.  I get to make a side income for my family.  For the past two years blogging has provided a side income for us.  At this point I look at it as my job- my job that I get to do at home on the hours that I decide and in the way I want.   I still dream about making enough blogging one day that it could be a full time gig for me, but then I would have to quit teaching and, for now at least, I am not ready to leave the classroom.  So the teaching/blogging mix of a career is awesome for me and I feel so grateful for this blog.  The days that I am home I try to do all my blogging stuff while June naps and then I get to play with her the rest of the day... I make as much from my blog in two-three hours on my days home as I do in eight-nine hours at school the other days.   Pretty awesome job, right? (That being said it took a ridiculous amount of free labor to get to the point where I can consistently make money now.)

4.  I get to try all the things!  I know sponsored posts get a bad rap, but I really enjoy doing most of my sponsored campaigns. To start with, I get to try all the new cool stuff that brands are coming out with and I get the stuff for free!  Right now I am doing a campaign for this product and as weird as it seems, I have really really enjoyed it.  (The highlight was when I asked for creative uses of the product on my facebook page.  People really blew it out of the water!)  I have tried out new cleaning products, face washes, clothes, jewelry, and all sorts of foods and drinks.  Once I was even sent a robot to clean my floors!  That might have been the coolest thing that has ever happened in the history of my blog life.



5.  Blogging forces me to get out and do things.  Working at a high school and taking care of my babe sometimes doesn't leave me with a lot of spare energy.  But the cool thing about blogging is that it forces me to get out and experience life.  One Saturday Greg and I were supposed to go to the Tulip Festival here in our city. (as that was my pitch to promote TreeTop AppleSauce for this post.)  I remember that Saturday was kind of gloomy and rainy and I was unexplainably feeling kind of nauseous.  Under normal circumstances we definitely would have just bagged it and stayed in, but I was grateful that we had a reason why we HAD to go because it got us out to see the beautiful flowers and we had a great time.



6.  I get opportunities to help people.  I mentioned earlier today that my childhood friend has been suffering terribly from an auto immune disease and I shared this link where you can go to help her.  I feel so grateful to have a space like this with an audience to help share important things like this.  I am humbled and honored when people ask me to use my blog to help them.

7.  I understand myself and my experiences better through this blog.  Writing is very cathartic for me and in many ways I feel healed by my writing.  Some of the blogs that have been most important for me to write have been the posts about my dad, my posts about marriage, and my posts about motherhood.  This blog forces me to sit down and think about my experiences and in a way face and understand the things that I am going through.

8.  I have an excuse to constantly practice writing.  One of my life's goals is to write a book.  I ain't nowhere close to this yet, but in the meantime my blog gives me practice practice practice.  I am so grateful that I am in the habit of writing regularly.  It  is beneficial to me as I teach too; I feel like I can "practice what I preach" a little bit to my students as I actively continue to read and write in my own life.  I want to be an example to them of a "life long learner" and this blog helps me to do that.

9.  I have been forced to learn some basic photography skills.  I will be the first to admit that I do not love photography and I held out for a long time on getting a DSLR or learning how to edit pictures.  I still do a minimal amount compared to most bloggers, but I am very grateful for a small knowledge of photography and cameras and mostly I am grateful that I have high quality pictures of my family, our baby, our adventures together.  This means the world to me.


10.  Blogging gives me a way to keep in touch with people.  All social media has the benefit of allowing people to stay in our lives, but blogging has allowed me to do this on an even grander scale.  I am constantly surprised by friends, neighbors, or family who ask about things I mentioned on my blog.  The way they care about my life is very touching to me.  I always love it when I see an old friend from high school or a cousin I rarely see comment on a blog post.  I feel honored and happy to have a way to connect with so many loved ones.

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