My Blogging Pitfall

I promised myself a year… a year of trying to “monetize my blog” (making money at it) …
I really used to LOVE blogging about my life as a  homeschooler, our adventures… I blogged much like a diary, it was a therapeutic for me but then March 2014, I decided to try to justify my time spent blogging and attempted to turn it into a “job.” I had heard of others doing it and they would bring in an extra couple hundred dollars a month (or more) just doing what they loved so I thought, “Surely I can do that!”

Lets get this strait right now, I can’t.

I brought in about $50 a month which includes the cash prize of $250 I scored in a contest. So basically my blogging profited me very little.

But hey, I got to stay at home doing what I love, right? …and made a little money, what is wrong with that?  What’s wrong with it?? I didn’t love it anymore. I found myself following the marketing crowd trying desperately to find the tricks of the trade that seemed to be working for everyone else. I would post on days that had high “hits”, I would link my affiliate links all through my posts. I would do “write ups” on the products I had the best luck with and promote my favorites, I tried all the social medias, tried many angles, but none of that really worked for me. I was not doing what I loved to do. And frankly, I hate being a pushy sales person, HATE IT! I am sure you all hate having products pushed down your throat too!

I have come to admit, I am not cut out to be a professional blogger. I am not the multi-tasker I thought I was, at least not at this point in my life when there are so many way more important things that require my attention. I found that I could not manage my time wisely and scheduling my time never has worked for me. I found myself rushing to make my self proclaimed “deadlines” and pushing out sub-par work. Quantity over quality just because that is what all the other bloggers were doing. I had always been a computer nut, spending way to much time in front of a screen but with blogging as a “job,” everything began to suffer…

My home suffered. I was so in the zone that the house work just didn’t get done most days. I can’t remember the last time I scrubbed my tub and it has been months since I scrubbed out my fridge and oven. The floors… they rarely got mopped. I could go on but honestly I am ashamed.

My weight suffered. I have gained 20-30 pound just this year and I KNOW it was because I was on this computer almost every waking moment. If I wasn’t  blogging, I was researching for a blog, making images for a blog, or reading blogs about blogging to be able to blog better. (Yes, it is as insane as it sounds!) All that sitting made me fatter and I am already a purty big ol girl… 20-30 pounds more, literally hurts.

My kids suffered. They were often told to go play so I can blog, or they were put “on hold” while doing school because I was busy blogging or reading when they needed help, they needed me at the most inopportune times, it was always “… just let me finish this last paragraph then…” I was so focused on doing my blog, that I lost sight of the whole point… I wanted to be home, so I could BE WITH MY KIDS! I noticed that our beloved adventures I enjoyed blogging about had stopped, we just didn’t go do things as much as we used too. The weight I had gained had made it less than appealing to jump up and go on a hike, I was tired and had “too much to do today” to drop everything and go on a bike ride… I would always just say “Just go outside and play kids..” I suddenly remembered that they will only be in my care for a short time and I need to give them my attention while I still can. If blogging ever becomes part of my life again in a serious manner, it will be once my children have grown up and begin their own lives, until then, I need to be a mom, present and accounted for!

My marriage suffered. I was always online, looking at a screen and not at my husband. A couple weeks ago, I looked up from my screen and noticed my hubby spent all his time online too. But he was no longer online to read my blog like he used to love to do when I wrote about our family adventures. He was getting sucked in to the addiction of Facebook and Pinterest right along with me. I realized what he had to see for the last year, someone that was more interested in the computer screen and all that the internet had to offer rather than the person vowed to cherish till death do us part. I rarely went outside with him anymore and so he rarely went outside anymore. He was wanting to be with me but I was to busy to be with him, so he settled with absorbing himself in the internet where I was. We were doing our own separate identical things five foot from each other, but never doing anything together. The simple fact is, that if I continued on this path there is a chance that one day I could look up and be all alone, even if he is still sitting five feet from me.

My faith suffered. Just when I felt I hit bottom on admitting my hubby & kids suffered so badly, I have to admit I also lost touch with God. I put out a blog post every week pointing people to a number of sites where they can find great commentaries and lessons on Bible studies but it has been a long time since I actually took time to visited those sites for my own personal nourishment. My prayer life had become almost non-existent, I would mostly just say an exhausted few words to my Creator, trying to remember to pray for the sick I had promised too and nod off.. because I had spent another late night blogging. I was (am) spiritually starving to death, but it is worse than that, I was being extremely selfish. I wanted to have something for me and only me. I wanted a career, something that made me feel like I was special and smart and talented and “somebody”… and I threw everyone out of my life to accomplish that goal, including God. I am ashamed but it is the truth. I had turned into this selfish person that I no longer recognized, all for bit of money and a hope for prestige, I  had chose mammon over YHVH.

Matthew 6:24

²⁴ “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

I didn’t even know I had fell pray to it until today. Mammon doesn’t have to be great wealth, it is simply the focus on obtaining material things. I was not wanting a large amount of money from blogging, more than anything I was wanting the distinction of being a blogger, and earning a little cash on the side, well that would have been great too.
OK, I admit, for a brief second in the beginning, I actually had a “pipe dream” of becoming some great blogger and traveling across the country blogging as my income. But as reality set in (that I just am not that great at blogging) I gave up that dream.

So with clarity of mind I have made a decision, I am going to quit my “job.” I will also take a short break from blogging and when I return I hope to have some great adventures in homeschooling to share or maybe a wonderful new revelation on scripture but I will no longer be a sales person, just a hobby blogger, sharing my heart with who ever chooses to read my posts… even if once again the only one who reads my posts is my dear sweet hubby, the man who loved it when I blogged about our lives and would sit and reflect about the great time we had doing this or that, giggling about the funny things the kids did on that adventure. If he is my only reader, then that is just perfectly enough to make me happy!

Peace, love, & happiness,

Becky