my big blogging news

Several days ago, I posted an announcement on my social media profiles.

The response I received was phenomenal. I was overwhelmed by my friends’ and family’s comments of excitement. After reading through them, I decided to dedicate a blog post solely to the process that led up to this announcement. Because it wasn’t a whimsical one – it was one that took me years to get out.

A Little Backstory

I started blogging in mid-2015 as a way to keep our family and friends in the loop of what was going on in our lives after recently moving across the country. It took a lot of courage for me at the time to even write a blog, so the fact that people were reading it (other than my mom haha) was exciting.

I knew people could blog and make money doing it, my favorite bloggers to follow did this, but I really didn’t know where to begin and enjoyed blogging as a hobby vs. trying to make it a job.

Throughout the years, my blog grew it’s audience and I gradually grew in boldness and vulnerability as I shared my family’s life online for the past 4 years. Blogging was, and still is, my thing. It’s my creative outlet and I absolutely love it!

As I expected, my time for blogging almost completely disappeared shortly after Paisley was born. I knew it was just a season and I was okay with the break to soak up my newborn and find my rhythm with 3 under 3.

At the beginning of November, I logged on to share Rylie’s 3rd birthday party and realized I had completely run out of photo space. Uh…. that’s not good haha. I did some research and the current platform I was using to blog, WordPress, charged hundreds of dollars just to get more photo space, which would eventually run out. Later that day, I passively told Aaron the situation and reluctantly ended with, “maybe my blog has run it’s course.”

“Uh, no! You just need to start making money with your blog so it can pay for itself.”

His comment surprised me. Never did I ever think my husband would want me to pursue those options. But I still needed more photo space, but I was convinced there had to be a cheaper option. So I waited until Black Friday / Cyber Monday in hopes there would be a substantial discount.

3 weeks later when those discount days came, I wasn’t seeing any savings for the platform I was using, but there were incredible sales on platforms I had never heard of.

Earlier this year I invested in an E-Course one of my favorite bloggers wrote. I reread a section of her course and saw that she used this platform that was offering a major Cyber Monday discount and lots of her blogger friends loved it.

This platform, BlueHost, charged half of what WordPress did and would give me unlimited space. Uh, YES PLEASE!!! Plus, they were a partner of WordPress so I could transfer my content over. Talk about the perfect deal for this photo junky haha. I ended up paying for it and after 4 hours of research, talking to 3 different customer service people and dinking around myself, I figured out how to transfer the past 4 years of posts. YAY!!!

So here I am, writing my first post on this new platform with a new drive and passion.

Blogging for Bucks

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I knew you could blog and get paid through sponsorship from companies and brands but I was content with it just being a hobby. I was overcoming a lot of fear just by pressing the “publish” button a couple times a week. One step at a time haha.

Back in 2018, I really considered taking the influencer route but was overran with new fears + doubts and obviously never pursued it.

But since being at home and Aaron’s encouragement, I really started to play around with the idea and I saw a lot of potential, but walked away every time.

I’ll be honest and admit that those 3 weeks of waiting for the best deal was when the enemy was constantly whispering into my ear, “you can’t do it,” amongst many other things including more fear + self-doubt and it brought me to the point that I almost (for probably the 50th time) considered shutting down everything. Social media, blog, YouTube, all of it.

I struggled with the thought of logging off though because while at a conference at the beginning of 2018, I heard God tell me my blog was my ministry. That it was a space where people would be encouraged, inspired and He would use my passion for His glory. He told me my job was to keep writing and He would take care of the rest. I was reminded of that when I asked the Lord what my next step was, so I decided to push aside the negativity and this endeavor was worth pursuing.

So Here We Are

Please let me reassure you my blog and the content I share is going to be very much the same as it has been. I have a couple companies/brands I’m dreaming of working with but I promise to stay very true to my style and morals.

Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.”

Ultimately, after prayer, research and thoughts, I’ve chosen to take this path with my blog. I am very excited but intentionally want to mention that I am fully dedicating everything I do through this blog to God. I want to honor Him in every way I can and I truly believe big things are in store.