Category: blog

It took me awhile, but I was finally able to sit down and sort through the answers to my first ever reader survey. Today I want to share the results with you, what I’ve learned, and how it will affect my blogging in the future.

First of all, I want to sincerely thank those of you who took the time to do this for me. I think the main thing I took away from the whole thing is that although I may have a small-ish number of readers, you are loyal and awesome and constructive and sweet. Many of you took the time to leave me encouragement and there wasn’t a single harsh or rude word written. Yay!

So, duh – we are mostly women around here! I am actually pretty sure that the only men who read my blog are my dad and my brother-in-law. Maaaybe my brothers every once in awhile and my husband even more rarely than that. :) Almost all of you are within the ages of 26-44 which makes sense because I fall in the middle at 32.

Most of you are married with 1-2 kids, but a good chunk aren’t parents yet. Hopefully there is enough non-kiddo stuff around here to keep you interested!

I’m not surprised to see Texas represented so heavily in my readers, because I have a lot of offline friends that read. And I was happy to see readers from all over the nation and some other countries represented as well! So fun.

Most of you identify as Christian, as I do. Lately I have felt pulled to write more about my faith and I hope, for those of you who don’t share it, that you will enjoy getting to know this side of me and that something may resonate with you.

Now let’s talk blogging!

Almost half of you are bloggers yourself, and most of you discovered my site through a link from another blogger. Thanks bloggers! You’re awesome. Most of you use a feed reader, but a lot of you just come straight to the site.

I was happily surprised at how often you all visit! I post six times per week now, and many of you read each post or at least visit at least a few times a week. That’s so nice to see. I consider reading even once a week to be often, with all that is going on in our busy lives!

Okay, so this was the part that was most interesting to me. I asked you to choose your one favorite type of post, and by far the most common answer was family & motherhood. I don’t know why I was so surprised by this; I guess I thought that no one cared that much about our family life or that those kinds of posts are boring for people who aren’t me. But now that I think about it, that is our biggest shared experience and I do love reading about other people’s daily lives. So I will definitely continue writing about mine!

Goal setting was another popular choice (yay! I love goals and goal-oriented projects), as was reflection & inspiration. I’ve been making an effort to do more “real” writing here so I’m glad you like reading that kind of thing.

And finally, these are the other types of posts you enjoy. Project Life updates are the least popular, which I understand. My spreads have all been very similar recently. Since some of you like them, I plan to continue posting them for now, but I’m going to rethink my process going forward next year (maybe monthly updates?).

The two other categories that stood out to me were Things I Love and Books & Reading. These were highly rated, but I haven’t been posting about them very often! I’m excited to throw more posts into the mix about this stuff.

That’s the data, but y’all also left me some super sweet comments. The most common sentiments were that you love the variety of post types, and you appreciate me being authentic. Every time I read a comment saying those things it warmed my heart because I love posting all different types of things (and those are my favorite types of blogs to read, too) and it’s very important to me to be able to share my real self here. I’m a very open person and I love finding points of connection with other women. I believe we should celebrate each other’s successes and help bear burdens. I’ve made real, true friends through this space and so it’s more than just a hobby I love or something that can make me a few bucks every now and then.

Anyway, I’m the kind of person that is constantly re-evaluating and tweaking things, and I’m always trying to make my blog better. Again, thank you so much for your input; this has been incredibly helpful to me as I plan the future of my blog!

If you are reading via email or in a feed reader, please click through to the site today! Thank you!

Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us. –1 Thessalonians 2:8

It may sound strange, but when I read those words in my Bible study this week I thought about this blog. Sometimes blogging feels like such a solitary activity, a lot of work for little return, at low points even a waste of time. Sometimes it is hard to open up and be vulnerable. It can be scary to share life. But that is what I’ve decided to do, and for me it is worth it.

It’s worth it because of the connections I’ve made; I consider many of you real friends. It’s worth it because sometimes when you talk about the hard things, you help another person who must face a similar situation. It’s worth it because of the mutual support and encouragement and inspiration we bring to each other in spaces like this.

What I’m meaning to say is that those of you who keep reading: you have become very dear to me.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about and behind-the-scenes work on my blog lately. It’s a big part of my life, and since I’ve decided to keep it that way and I have the support of my family, I want to do the best job I can with it. I don’t know if you’ll notice any huge changes (yet) but I want to get to know you better for sure.

It will mean so much to me if you take a few minutes to fill out the reader survey below. The results will help me immensely to improve my content and direction here. I will also be thrilled if you leave a comment – especially if you never have before. Connecting with people is my favorite!

Thank you so much, friends.

Update: the survey is now closed. Thank you to all who participated!

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve been blogging regularly, and it was a much needed break for me, but I’m ready to jump back into it. For better or for worse, blogging is a part of me and I have a connection to this space and to many of you that will stay with me forever.

The break served its purpose though – I fulfilled all of the goals I set out to accomplish with it. Yay! I also caught up on some crafting, read many books, started precepting a new hire at work, got a lot of sleep, spent some extra time with my family, and went on vacation for a week to visit some of my best friends.

If you haven’t checked out my new design yet, I’d love it if you click through and look around. My goal with this redesign was to above all keep things simple and clean, navigable, and suited to my taste. I rewrote my “about” page, placed links to some of my most common categories in the sidebar, and included a page on motherhood with drop-down sub-categories on the top menu.

This will always be a personal blog, therefore what you can expect from it is stories and updates from my life (and motherhood is a big part of that), but also things that interest me. I intend to begin incorporating more craft & style posts, continue with periodic book reviews, and with the new year I want to get back into the habit of making monthly goals and start some personal challenges.

At the beginning of November I’m excited to kick off a monthly post series that combines paper crafting with list making, and I’m happy that a few blogging friends are going to join me. It will be something that anyone can join, but if it sounds fun and you want to get in on it at the beginning, send me an email and I’ll give you the details. Full explanation to come in two weeks though.

It’s good to be back friends. I’ve been kind of MIA on social media as a whole, so I’m looking forward to getting caught up with you all. If I missed anything big in your life, please let me know. :)

Talk soon!