This is Why I Blog

Last week was half term. We caught up with friends, we baked, we crafted, we read, we drew, we played and we lounged. Nothing special, all completely ordinary, and I loved it.

Here’s a little moment, completely average, but one that felt just so right…

half-term-play

As I say, ordinary. Boo absorbed with her books, Little Man playing with his own construction, both content in their own little worlds. Both ignoring me photographing them – I’m a blogger, I take LOADS of photos!

So what’s so special about this moment? Nothing. That’s kinda the point.

Let me explain by taking a step back, a look back to when I started blogging.

I started writing here in July 2013, a tentative step into a new world, completely unaware of where it might take me. At the time I enjoyed chatting on Twitter, back when Twitter was chatty, and I sort of fell into the blogging community so I decided to start my own. I wanted to use my blog to share tips with others of things that I had found useful as well as capturing my family life and my own thoughts. It remains all of those things today, though it’s fair to say that I have learned a lot along the way.

At some point, people started reading it. People started following me on various social media platforms. The blog began to grow. Within 6 months I was inside the top 100 of the Tots100 UK parenting blogs index. And that is where I have remained ever since, writing, sharing and growing steadily.

Nowadays this blog is my job. A job that I can do from home, whenever it suits me. I work around my family, I work for myself so can pick and choose the brands and campaigns that I work on and support, as well as being able to write pretty much anything that I want to share. I am fortunate enough to also receive products to test out and review here, from items for me and our home through to toys and books for the children. Coincidentally, in that photograph, my son is playing with his Playmags that I reviewed a few days ago and my daughter is reading her new books that I shared on Instagram last week. Because I sit here and type away, my kids actually get to receive things that they love. They get to have experiences, adventures and holidays that are memorable to them. I have even made some wonderful friends through it, an unexpected but brilliant bonus.

I did not start the blog with any of this in mind. Yet now I have a business of my own that I am both proud of and still love as much as I did when I started it. Probably more so. It’s hard work in that it takes a fair few hours, there’s a lot to learn, and it never really stops, as social media is always ‘on’, but I am not complaining. It’s not exactly hard graft, is it? It’s a fabulous job to have.

So back to that photo. It captured one of those moments, when I was completely present and so aware and grateful that I could always be at home with my kids. This is why I blog. This is why I treat this blog as work, and as such give it the attention it deserves and put the hours into it. I blog so that I can ensure I can afford to remain at home. I blog so that I can be there for every school holiday, so that I can be on every school run, so that I can be here for every ‘ordinary’ moment with my children. It may not have started out that way, but that is how it has grown and I cannot imagine doing anything else now.

As such, I want to say thanks for reading, thanks for listening to my wafflings, thanks for chatting to me on Twitter, thanks for subscribing to my YouTube channel, thanks for liking my Instagram snaps, thanks for every click through and share on Facebook. It all counts and it is all very much appreciated. It’s all keeping me right here writing, at home with my kids, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

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8 thoughts on “This is Why I Blog”

  1. That is such a gorgeous post and what a lovely way to think about it. I completely agree too, I love the amazing things I have achieved for us as a family through my blog. I couldn’t make a living out of it but it has massively improved our lives as a family and I never imagined that when I started all those years ago.

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