I’m not sure what I thought would happen when I started my blog. In fact, for the first month I didn’t even tell anybody about it. I just spewed content into the blogosphere.
In the beginning, I was posting whenever I felt the need to say something. I had a need to let other Moms know… They weren’t alone. I needed to know that the isolation I felt as a new Mom in a new home was normal. By putting it out there and getting responses back I began to feel better. Sometimes I put out 4 posts a week! As I look back at that initial 4 months I can clearly see how many changes I have made. At first, I used a quote as the title of each post. I quickly found out how hard it was to look for a recipe when it isn’t in the title 😂. So, because I use my own recipes all the time I needed to change that.
My primary focus in those early days was recapping our new life for my friends and family out east. I had pictures of the Girls thrown in wherever and sometimes my post looked more like a journal entry than a blog post. No recipe, no craft, no trusted household tip, just our lives. I quickly found out that my life was definitely not exciting enough to warrant that many posts a week 😂.
Then I took a break.
It took me a while to begin writing again after my Mom died. I found that I was so sad that I couldn’t write. All of a sudden one day, writing felt like therapy and I couldn’t stop writing! Sometimes I would write for hours… Edit out all the craziness that would’ve worried my friends and family 😆 and put out the stuff that might help others in a similar situation.
I became more consistent in my posts. I made my font bigger and the pictures too. I tried to figure out my blog template to change things but it had been so long that I forgot how. My baby brain could not wrap my head around HTML coding and even the simplest formatting problems.
I added it to my to do list. Someday I would make my blog the way I truly wanted it.
I applied to be a member of the Yummy Mummy Club and Erica Ehm accepted me into her circle of Mommy bloggers! This was huge to me! If I could continue to get likes I could start monetizing my blog and hopefully bring a little extra money into my household!
At that point I realized I could never be a salesman 🙄😆 I have trouble pushing my product on people. My only advertising, if you want to call it that, was on Facebook. I would post it on my personal Facebook page once a week. I started a blog page and I asked my friends to like it. Once. I felt pushy asking people to share, comment, and like my page. I felt bad sharing my latest post on my blog Facebook page once a week as well because I didn’t want to clog up my friends and families feed with my blog all the time.
Then Ninja and I started the podcast. I realized that I rarely discuss my blog on there. Again, I wouldn’t want to be too pushy 😝. Through the podcast I have become a avid Twitter user and Instagramer. I now post the latest blog on each of those platforms… Once a week. I LOVE the interaction I have with people who listen to our podcast. I WISH I had the same with my blog readers. I ALWAYS comment on other people’s blogs. I share. I let the bloggers know someone is reading. I wondered how I could do the same?
I changed up my format again! A friend of mine kept on bugging me that she liked my recipes and my stories but didn’t like looking at my family every week 😆 I get that! However, this has been a blog of love for me and because I don’t get paid to do it, I like to use it as my journal/kids baby book/memory book. So I basically told her to mind her own business LOL but it got me thinking. I decided to change my format to the way it is now, my thoughts… My podcast… My recipe… My journal. Now, anybody that doesn’t want to read about my family can stop after they check out my latest recipe! Win-win! Or is it?
I have recently began listening to a couples podcast from Illinois called All Things Podcast. One of the cohosts, Kasey, has a mom/food blog called All Things Mamma. It is fabulous and you should definitely go check it out! Listening to her story about how she started off just like me but has made it into a brand really got me thinking. Maybe it is time to change up my template or my blog host or my formula?
The big question is… What do I want out of it? Perhaps the even bigger question is… What do YOU want out of it?
Over the years there are definitely things that I have noticed that I dislike about my blog. If I were scrolling through recipes and decided to use one of mine I probably wouldn’t once I got to the site. It is difficult to find a recipe on my blog. I would love to have a printable version of my recipe! Perhaps a separate page with the gallery of family photos would make it more inviting to strangers? Having links to all my social media accounts would probably help… And the reading screen! Oh my Gawd! I am so limited in my font, column size, and picture size that frankly it just makes me sad
😬. I have some posts that have 45 views and others that have over 90,000! I’m not even sure if my blog site has a subscription button!? 😬😳😂Anyways, I would love to hear from you! What would you like to see? What do you like about my blog? What do you dislike? I appreciate any and ALL feedback! Thank you to everyone for coming along with me on this journey
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In the past week the weather has taken a turn. The chill of fall is definitely in the air! This week I made a delicious Chicken Noodle Casserole that was a BIG hit in my household! It is a mixture of chicken noodle soup and chicken pot pie! I especially loved the bread chunks! It was comforting, warm and filling! A perfect fall dinner!
Chicken Noodle Casserole
Adapted from Half Baked Harvest
1 tablespoon oil
1 onion, chopped
3 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, pressed
2 carrots, chopped
2 tablespoons thyme leaves
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon flour
4 cups chicken broth, sodium reduced
1 cup milk
1/4 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped
2 eggs, beaten
4 whole grain buns, chopped into squares
2 cups uncooked egg noodles
1 rotisserie chicken, shredded
1 cup Miss Vickies original potato chips, crushed
Preheat the oven to 375. Lightly grease a 9×13 inch baking dish.
Add the oil to a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes, season with salt and pepper.
Sprinkle the flour over the veggies stir and cook for another minute.
Add the cubed bread, noodles, and chicken, tossing to combine.
This weekend was a catch up weekend. HBear was at her Gr4Besty’s for most of the weekend and we spent time hanging out together, family movie night was Labrynth and ummm resting lol.
While we were in Portland talking with RASBesty he reminded me of workbooks. Over the summer we got out of workbooks but now that we are in full school mode we have made a new rule, after chore chart is done the Girls need to do 2-3 pages of workbook before ANY electronics. So far so good! HBear is doing grade 6 books because she has finished every gr 5 book I could find but she is enjoying the challenge and I am remembering what I hated about geometry 😆.
Have a wonderful week everyone!
