A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

As you may have noticed, I’ve slowed way down on my blogging over the past several months. But I’m certainly not the only one. I’ve noticed a huge decrease in blogging activity during that time frame. Quite a few of the personal blogs I once read no longer exist, and many of the ones that are still around are rarely (if ever) updated. I even found a blog a few days ago that was once a fairly big deal that seems to have been a victim of domain sniping and content theft some time ago. Either that or the blogger threw in the towel and sold the domain name and the rights to the content.

All this got me to thinking: Why aren’t people keeping up personal blogs any more? I know that blogs come and go, and sometimes it’s simply because life happens. Health or other responsibilities make it difficult or impossible to blog on a regular basis, so it falls by the wayside. Or money gets tight and you have to let a domain that isn’t bringing in enough revenue to break even go. In both cases, I’ve been there. But blogging was once all the rage, and now it seems to be used more as a business tool and less as a way for people to be heard.

I think the rise of Facebook and Twitter have had a lot to do with it. It’s much easier to post your rantings and ravings on there than it is to maintain a blog, not to mention that you don’t have to pay for hosting and domain fees and such. You can’t write elaborate, long-winded posts (like this one) there, but it kind of seems like nobody’s interested in doing that any more anyway.

As for me, my lack of blogging activity has had a lot more to do with depression and lack of time than Facebook or Twitter. I like Twitter, but I have a hard time coming up with anything to say that contains 140 characters or less. As for Facebook, I use it daily as a source of funny pictures, to play games, and occasionally to check up on old friends, but otherwise I’m not a fan.

What do you think about the decline in personal blogging? Are you relieved that the Internet as a whole has become less about navel gazing and more about business and entertainment? Or do you miss being able to read the thoughts and perspectives of bloggers that you have a lot (or absolutely nothing) in common with?

I was browsing my RSS feeds this morning and I ran across something on the Freelance Switch blog that I thought might be of interest to my readers.

If you’re a blogger (even if you don’t consider yourself a freelancer), it’s important to know about legal issues that might apply to you. Freelance Switch just posted the first of a series entitled 8 Legal Issues for Bloggers. It’s definitely worth a read, whether you have a low-traffic blog or one that is a household name. Check it out and let me know what you think!

I hate being spammed. I have spam filters not only on my email program, but also set up on my web hosting for my domain email addresses. Most of the time, they do a pretty good job of catching all the crap. But sometimes some gets through.

For the past week or so I’ve had a bunch of spam, not about penny stocks or the best diet pills, but from people wanting to exchange links. It’s coming through my contact form, so I’m assuming that someone has put my blog on one of those lists of people to contact about such things. Probably some pseudo-guru that’s selling a product that’s supposed to help bloggers and webmasters get better search engine rankings.

These haven’t been the form letters that I’ve gotten in the past, but they all follow pretty much the same formula. “I visited your site, found it useful, and have linked/am considered linking to it. Please consider linking to mine.” And in most cases, it’s from sites whose subject matter is not even remotely related to mine.

Anyway, I’m just here to say that if you found out about my blog from someone who is trying to help you up your pagerank, don’t bother writing me. You won’t hear back, because I don’t respond to such emails due to the fact that if I did, the author would then have my email address. And how do I know that you’re not just a serial spammer?

On the other hand, if you ran across my blog on your own and have a relevant proposition you’d like me to consider, I’m willing to hear you out. I am also open to placing advertising in the sidebar and doing honest, fully disclosed product and site reviews. I’m not against helping out fellow bloggers and webmasters, but my time is valuable and I don’t want to waste it reading messages from people who just want links no matter where they come from.

It appears that I still haven’t recovered from the whole writer’s block thing I had last month. Self-doubt is creeping in, and it’s really driving me nuts. Not to mention that I’m behind on my work yet again.

I’ve seriously considered going back to a regular job, and that’s not improving my mental state at all. I hate the thought of going back to working on someone else’s schedule, to make money for some faceless corporation. But even more than that, I hate the idea of no longer being able to call myself a writer. I truly love writing (at least when I’m not fighting tooth and nail to formulate a sentence), and when someone asks me what I do for a living, I’m proud to tell them. I couldn’t say that when I was flipping burgers, or running a machine, or even overseeing customer service.

I really think I need some medication or some therapy or something. But I can’t afford to go to the doctor over it. I’m going to have to either dig out a letter I got months ago or see if they’ll accept a statement from the Medicaid office before I can get a discount at the doctor’s office again, and even if I do, I’ll have to pay full price for my prescriptions. If only I could find some low cost health insurance, that wouldn’t be a problem. But as it stands there’s not much I can do about the situation.

It looks like I’m going to have to postpone my Windows 7 party and cancel my other weekend plans so I can sit in front of the computer and wish I could write. I probably won’t get much more work done than if I had kept my plans, but I couldn’t live with not being able to at least say I tried to get everything done.

Beyond that, I’m totally at a loss for what to do. I know I have to do something to support my family, and I know how I want to accomplish that. But for some reason, the words are just out of reach. And even if I wasn’t so opposed to reentering the job market, there just aren’t many jobs to be had right now.

Well, I guess I’m done ranting and raving for now. At least I managed to write a somewhat coherent blog post. Maybe now I can work my way up to an article or two.

Have you heard about Blog Action Day? I heard about it in passing last year, but I didn’t give it much thought. But just this morning I stumbled upon a post about this year’s Blog Action Day, and saw that the subject is poverty. I quickly signed up.

As someone who has lived below the poverty line and is a resident of one of the poorer parts of this country, poverty is a subject that really hits home for me. But I’m not so blind as to not realize that a lot of people have it much, much worse than I ever did. Anyway, I felt compelled to put my two cents in on Blog Action Day this year.

I’m not exactly sure what I’ll write about yet, but I do know that I want to be a part of this important event. I believe that we bloggers can make a difference in the world, especially when we unite. So if you have a blog (or podcast or videocast), won’t you join me? It’s on October 15th, which gives us plenty of time to come up with something good.

I’m still busting butt trying to get my articles done. So there will be no home theme post today. Lucky for me, writing posts that have to do with the NaBloPoMo theme is not a requirement for participation. I didn’t even have to write this since I’ve already done one post today, but I thought I would explain for those of you eagerly awaiting the next installment.

Back to work now… I’ll pick up where I left off tomorrow.

I tried to get into the CPanel of my hosting account earlier, only to be greeted with a Page Not Found message. I tried again and got the same thing. So I decided to check on my blog and make sure it was okay.

I typed in the domain name, and a page bearing my template came up after a longer-than-usual wait. But what it said where my post should have been chilled me to the bone: “Sorry, but you’re looking for something that is not here.”

I proceeded to freak out. Had my all of my blogs and my website been wiped out by some mysterious, unknown force? I checked my web host’s forums, and that only freaked me out even further. There had been a fire at one of their data centers. Noooo!!!

As it turns out, the fire only affected dedicated hosting customers. My problem was just a hiccup, my sites are operational, and my blog didn’t get eaten by the Web Monster. Whew.

Still, I’m planning on doing some backups. That was scary.

I tried participating in NaBloPoMo last November, back when it was just a one-month deal. I made an effort, but I didn’t quite get a post in every day. I decided I wouldn’t bother participating again.

Now they’re doing it every month, but I still wasn’t going to bother. But I got an email about the theme for June, and I couldn’t help myself. I signed on, and maybe this time I’ll be able to follow through.

So what was this awesome theme, you ask? Home. It’s a subject that’s near and dear to my heart right now, considering all that we’ve been through over the past few months trying to make sure we would have a home. So I’m going to go for broke and give it a try once more.

I’m thinking I’ll start off with a post each day about all of the different places I’ve called home. I’m not sure yet where I’ll go from there, but I don’t think I’ll run out of things to say about the subject before the month’s out. Now if I can just find the time to post every day, all will be well.

There was an article in the New York Times last month about how bloggers are overworking themselves to the point of exhaustion. It was even insinuated that blogging might be to blame for some recent deaths. Who writes this stuff?

There’s no doubt that stress is a killer. But blogging in and of itself is not a cause of stress. Not unless you let it be. For me, blogging is a very positive thing. Let me tell you a little bit about why blogging makes me happy.

I started blogging in 2006. I hadn’t been online for a long time up until early that year, and I started browsing blogs. I thought about starting a blog, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to open up to the whole entire world like that. But it kept eating at me for some unknown reason, and it seemed like everyone else online was doing it, so I finally gave in. I opened an account at Blogger.com, and I got started.

It took me a while to get comfortable with it, but eventually I did. At the time I was working the night shift at a factory job, but I was trying to find a way to work at home. I wrote about my experiences in hopes of being an inspiration to other moms who wanted to do the same thing (even though I wasn’t having any luck).

I started blogging fairly regularly, because I was really beginning to love it. Then I found out I could make money blogging, and that made me ecstatic. I didn’t make enough to quit my job, but it helped me get some extra money to help with my quest to go into business for myself.

I started some more blogs, and I kept trying to find some way to work from home. I tried direct sales, but I really sucked at that. I bought a website, and started making a little money with that, but it wasn’t as much as I was making blogging. Then I got mad and quit my job, and I really began to feel the pressure to make something work.

Then it hit me why I hadn’t been able to say no to blogging in the first place: I love to write! Why not become a freelance writer?

I nearly talked myself out of pursuing that idea before I even tried it. After all, I didn’t have any formal education in writing or English. And I wasn’t that good of a writer… was I? But I finally decided that I had nothing to lose, so I started applying for online writing jobs.

Unfortunately, I got no responses. I ended up having to take a horrible job to help make ends meet, and I gave up on my dream of becoming a writer. I still blogged though, because I enjoyed it and it was helping me bring in money (and vent my frustrations about the whole situation).

Several months later, I got an email from a mailing list I had signed up for that included some information about a new company that was taking applications for ghostwriters. At first I dismissed it, but it kept eating at me in much the same way that the idea of starting a blog did. I trusted my instincts, and I applied. That very evening, I received an email- but not from the company I had just applied to. It was a lady I had written to when I first started applying for writing jobs, informing me that the project she was previously recruiting for had been shelved but she needed writers for a new project. I literally did a happy dance!

I also heard back from the other company the next week, and ended up getting that job. And somewhere in that time frame I got an ongoing blogging gig too! And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the beginning of my writing career.

I eventually was able to quit working outside the home, and now here I am working my own hours and enjoying life much more than I did before. Things are far from perfect, but I love what I do for a living, and that makes a big difference in one’s entire outlook. And it all started with blogging.

That’s not the only reason I like to blog, though. I still like being able to complain about the hideous color of my house (nope, haven’t gotten around to painting it yet) and brag about Pumpkin’s grades anytime I want to, even if nobody at home wants to hear it. And I still make a fair amount of money from it, which helps with the bills right now and will hopefully buy me and my family some nice things once our finances are looking better. So I can safely say that blogging is not killing me. It has made my life better in numerous ways, and I plan to be blogging until I’m old and gray. I might keel over in front of the computer, but I dare them to blame it on blogging.

Here’s a little video I made about why blogging makes me happy. It’s full of my favorite cheesy happy tunes, and it tells an abbreviated version of the above story in case you couldn’t make it through reading the whole thing. Enjoy!

I finally got around to updating my WordPress installation for this blog. Everything went fairly smoothly, except for one thing: Much to my dismay, the theme I was using started causing error messages to be displayed on each post.

I loved that theme, and I had no intention of changing it any time soon. But I decided to look for a new one. I might have been able to fix it had I done some research, but I just don’t have the time. I’m doing well to look for a new one right now.

Now I’m glad I did. I found this beautiful theme that you see here, and I love it. I can’t afford a custom theme, but if I could I don’t think I could have done any better than this.

If you like this theme, scroll down to the bottom for a link to where I got it. I would find it and add it to this post, but I’m feeling lazy tonight. Please forgive me.