Blogging: Not Always Easy but it can Change Your Life!

In Ethiopia with BritMums Jen Howze, supermodel Maya Haile and Cherry Friedmeyer, Director of Women at Risk

Having been blogging since 2008 it is now easy to see that the same things come up time and time again. Every 18 months or so you get a few bitchy people who are jealous of the opportunities that other bloggers have been offered and they start to stir up ill feeling. You see posts, tweets and general ill feeling towards a few, often the very successful few and sometimes the most vulnerable. It is so depressing.

The accusations of cliques (or more recently tribes) begin to flow and many bloggers start to question why they are doing it. 'Who needs this kind of controversy and animosity?', 'I only started my blog as a memory trove for my family' and 'thats it, I'm out of here' are the kind of statements you see shared. Sadly I've seen dozens of really decent bloggers stop writing and sharing because others have targeted them.

Yet here I am eight years on and the nasty trolls didn't manage to scare me away. I've had two particularly bad blogging times when I easily could have thrown the towel in, but no, I'm still here. I'm not sure what has made me so resilient, maybe it is my faith or maybe it is because I believe I am doing important work.

What does my blog say about me?

I made a bit of a decision a week or so ago that I would not be taking many sponsored posts on Mummy from the Heart any more. It is a strange time on the face of it to make that decision - I have finished my paid job, registered self-employed so I could do more blogging work and dh is earning less than he did fifteen years ago! It's a bit comical really but it feels right, I got the feeling that God did not want me constantly selling my blog to the highest bidder.

My blog started out as a way to record the great things my kids and our family are getting up to, it then progressed into a peek into the life of an average imperfect Christian. I knew that my blog was supposed to show people that we are not all freaks and that life is very normal as a Christian, we just know that God is on our side and this helps us to get through some immense times and to remember to live with intention and compassion.

Somewhere along this five year journey I feel like things got a bit lost and my blog became a money making machine instead of a beloved friend. I am of course very tempted when I get offered £80 or £100 to write a post but it just does not feel right any more, I don't really need that money. Yes I might want it but that is quite different and no one died happy because they were rich.

I found when I was taking sponsored posts that I would feel pressured and that might make me short with my kids or less inclined to sit down and have a game of monopoly or to read a book with them. I also know I lost readers because of this and I'm sad about that but you never know they might come back now things will be a bit more me and a lot less brand around here.

I took a look through my blog today and wondered if a stranger arrived here today what would they learn about me? What am I telling/ showing them are my values and the most important things in my life? Back in July they might have learnt that I was avidly trying to earn money as we had a mortgage and no wages to pay it!

Right now I believe they will look at my blog and learn that I live in a beautiful place in the countryside and that I'm really appreciating the land and space here. They will see me spending lots of time with my kids out and about and doing cooking and baking. It will be evident that I'm a Christian and live for Jesus and as a result of this I find joy in most things and choose to be grateful every day. They will also see that our family is very lucky and we get to review some great holidays, days out and products.

I'm pleased to say that they will see Mich. They will see what I'd like people to see, the real me. I sure hope it stays that way.

Have you ever viewed your last 20 or so posts and seen what a stranger would view if they landed on your blog? What impression would they get of you? and is it the one you want to be presenting?

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Are you still here reading?

I wish things could be easy, don't those big powers to be like Google understand I am busy? Busy with living real life - you know kids, family, house moves, earning a crust.  Blogging is something I have grown to love but it is still at the moment a minor part of my life, a hobby (that yes it is starting to turn into more) but I don't have the time or head space for it to be a full-time job. Especially one that does not pay a full-time wage.

This is why it drives me nuts that I have to keep learning new tricks and keeping up with all the changes that come along. Changes that can have major impacts on me and my blog.

This week Google took away their reader and this means that the 990 odd people who were subscribed to Mummy from the Heart by my feed may now need to be reading my blog another way.  I'm truly hoping most of them were more tech savvv than me and they have subscribed to my blog in some other way or ae using an alternate reader but realistically who knows?  I'll have to see if my reader stats go down, won't I? The signs seem fine these last few days.

Basically if you are here reading this, I'd love to ask you to check your subscription to Mummy from the Heart and check you are still receiving my posts.  If not then why don't you -

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Readers, sincerely thanks so much for keep coming back.  It is such a joy to me to know that you are reading, commenting and connecting with me. I have made some wonderful friends via this blog.

Mich x

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If you like what you have read and want to stay up-to-date then subscribe by email for free and receive blog posts directly to your in-box - just click the link Subscribe to Mummy From The Heart... by Email or perhaps you like to keep all your blog reading in one place, if that is the case you can follow me on BlogLovin too!

For the Love of Blogging

Did you know that I have a really successful blog?

I often get told I am one of the 'big' bloggers and my rankings say I am a 'top' blogger and of course that makes me smile (and giggle a little too).

Shall I share with you why my blog is so successful? 

Yes, you fancy being let into my little secret?  Maybe you can duplicate it and you can have a successful blog too.  It really is a winning formula and it won't cost you any money.

I want to laugh at myself.... and some of you too!

Back in June when I was at the CyberMummy conference, I grouped with a load of other awesome bloggers and had my photo taken by the talented Jay. Well now Tara and Jay have gone and made a calendar of all the photos taken and I just know I am going to look truly awful!  Not because Jay will have made me so (I did ask her if she could skim off a few stone but she was not seeming too accommodating with that) but because that is what happens with me and photos and I am sorting of hoping there might be a few others who product cracking photos in this calendar, as boy I need a jolly good chuckle at the moment.  Aren't I mean?

Anyway mean or not, I am able to get my grubby mitts on a calendar by writing a post about my blogging inspiration and posting a photo that sums up my blog.  I did that once before for Tara's gallery and I have written a few posts around why I blog but basically I blog for many reasons.

Fundamentally, for me, my blog is Church, it is the place I share my faith and try to show people that Christians are pretty normal too, we have imperfect lives and we keep on failing but we pick ourselves up and try to do better the next time. Someone once left me a comment saying that they avoided my blog for a long time as my strap line advertises me as a a Christian and this put them off as they expected to get preached to and then once she started to visit she found she loved the warmth of my blog and kept coming back.  Perfect, that warmth is my faith.

My blog is also my personal therapist, all those things I would love to say to someone who would sort my head out get blurted out here and it makes me a tad vulnerable but it helps so much.  I just worry about giving my poor mum a heart attack.  I actually think the day anyone has to really worry about me is when I choose not to write it down and to push it under the carpet and hide.

My blog is also a personal account of my family life, I love to share my children's milestones here and to show photos to my family and friends who live far away. When I take the time to read back over posts from years ago it is amazing to find that I remember that Miss E used to refer to me as 'my darling' when she was 2.  Something I had forgotten and would have lost if it had not been for my treasured blog.

Then lastly my blog has opened up a whole new world for me, both in terms of new friends across the world (some I have met and see often and some I have never yet met but feel very comfortable and happy with) and in being paid for my writing skills and being seen as an inspiration to so many people.

Life has changed a lot since I started this blog back in February 2008, it was definitely one of the best decisions I have made....

Mum, The Boys at School Read Your Blog

Can you imagine, your 8 year old, year 3 child comes home from school and tells you that? My first thought 'Oh dear Lord, what is on the blog that I do not want children reading?'. I purposely do not make friends with children I know on facebook and I would not engage with children on Twitter as I believe that social media is for adults and I have control in those areas. But my blog, it is public and open, anyone can look at it.  JJ knows that it exists and what it is called, he has found my youtube channel and told friends about the reviews that he does for me. What is he opening himself up to inadvertently?

Image Credit

I do not want to find that JJ has become the brunt of anyones joke or a target for bullying because I shared too much on my blog about him, his emotions and what is going on in his life. Thankfully this scenario has not happened but I suppose what I should add there is yet...  it must only be a matter of time before some of his friends do find my blog. So I feel grateful that I stumbled upon a post the other day on Honest Mum's blog about over sharing and how it grates on her when bloggers feel the need to share too much.  Some of the comments then started to talk about the impact of sharing too much of your children's lives too and this really got me thinking about the fact that JJ is his own person and it is not for me to share his life online.

I seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking that because they are my children that I have a right to tell their story but actually our story belongs to each of us alone. I never bog about dh nor any tricky or challenging parts of our relationship as that is personal and not for public viewing.  As an adult I make a choice to blog about the difficult parts of my life, such as my miscarriage, troubles with food and childhood shame. Now I am making a choice to no longer blog about many parts of my children's lives.  Yes there will still be photos of them, updates, funny posts and parenting dilemmas but without sharing their personal reactions or anything that would be embarrassing to them if read by a peer.  I find it weird when people mention things to me and I wonder how on earth that know that, let alone one of my kids finding that someone knows something about them and they did not even make the choice to publish it.

Just last week I was writing a blog post about some difficult conversations JJ and I had been having and how they had effected him, when I stopped mid sentence and thought about it. If I was telling his friends this in the playground at school how would he feel?  It was enough for me not to press the publish button and to have an awakening.  In my endeavours to share my parenting difficulties with people and my desire to help others I could of actually been damaging my boy, so this has to stop.  He is far more important to me than anyone else reading my blog.  I can still continue to blog about the troubles of being a Mum but I must just do it from my perspective and not reveal anything too much about JJ and how he deals with things.

My beloved babies

This has been a real learning curve for me in the last week. JJ was just 4 when I started blogging and to be honest it did not matter what I said about him as no-one would have been using it as evidence to hurt him but now at age 8 and completely IT savvy, people could easily be looking for information that could put him in a vulnerable people.  I will not be giving them any ammunition.

How about you?  Was you a bit more prepared than I was when you started blogging and you actually thought these things through?  Or do you need to stop and think too and wonder if you are over sharing about your children and what is going on in their lives?

Saintly of Course!

I have been tagged by two lovely new bloggers, From Fun to Mum and Boo, Roo and Tigger too to take part in the 'Where do you Blog Meme'. The idea is that I am supposed to reveal a bit about myself in showing you where I blog and then you will know if I am Saintly or Slatternly (It's a real word, new to me!). So anyone who knows me will know I am bit OCD and I like things to be just so. I have learnt to relax and to realise that kids will make a mess but once they are in bed, how I love it to be tidy and just so.

So I give you my saintly sofa....  the blogging destination of choice.  That or the dining room table, where I am sat right now as the kids do craft or even occasionally in bed whilst watching TV.

Laptop, remote and sofa with pillow - it is all I need!  Ohh and the odd cup of tea every now and then. I'll show you the other side of the room (in the day when the kids are up, hence the bits of mess on the floor in the dining room and teddies on the other sofa!) just so you can see that the room is not as bare or minimalist as it looks in that first photo.



From Fun to Mum also asked the question of why we blog and I have a feeling I have probably posted on this before, so I'll dig back in some old posts and share this Gallery post with you, My Blog is..... That tells you about what my blog is and I know it is a tad different to most people's reasons for blogging!  What am I here for if it is not to glorify God in all I do? and I'll also share my 'Short 'n' Tweet' Journey of a Blog post which takes you from the first press of publish on 10th February 2008 to August 2011.

Are you MAD about me?

I decided that really I need a weekend off, one where my mind is not constantly on the blog, one where I fully focus on every word the kids say, I actually spend some time with my hubby, I stop and enjoy the world around me....  I bet you know what I mean?  We all feel a bit burned out at times.  Things have been on a high and we keep going and going and then.....   a rest is needed! 

So I am being kind to myself and not coming back onto my blog until at least Monday night or maybe even beyond this, as I have a post scheduled to go live on Tuesday anyway.

While I am not here I thought I better leave you with some reading material. You might be wondering about who to vote for in the MADS (Mummy and Daddy Blog Awards) and I would not be doing myself any favours if I did not give you an idea as to why I am in the final 6 for the Best MAD Blog for Family Life.