I Did It! Go Me!

This calls for a celebration and a glass of wine...or two!

Three things:

1)  It's Friday!!!  That alone is wine-worthy!

2)  This post will conclude my first NaBloPoMo Challenge and although I technically did not "hit publish" once a day for 30 days, I still am ending up with 30 posts for the month, so that's an A+ in my book!

AND

3)  With all of your love and support (and putting up with harassing posts on Twitter and Facebook), I have accomplished my goal of being in the Circle Of Moms Top 25 Family Blogs By Moms of 2012!  It was a close call, because the margins were very tight for awhile, but after a good campaign and convincing myself that I shouldn't give up, I totally surpassed my goal of being #25 and placed in 16th!

Check out my shiny new badge!


Pretty cool huh?

So with that introduction, I'd like to actually write my post for today.  During this month, I had only used one other blog prompt to write about the last compliment I received.  Today, since it's so applicable, I am going to use the blog prompt for today and that is What Has Been The Hardest Part About Blogging Daily?

Well friends, there have been a few hard parts about blogging daily.

Time-  Where can you find time to blog everyday for 30 days straight? It's especially hard during a month with a big holiday, that includes dinner that you cooked and host it at your house.  It's extra especially hard with a 13 1/2 month old baby who just started walking and you now have to chase all over the house.    Oh and not to mention the difficulty having a husband who still suffers from frequent headaches and foot aches now that it's cold out (from a previous accident).  Even when he gets home there's not much that he can do lately other than give our daughter her nightly bath (along with many other things I appreciate so much) and relax on the couch until it's time for bed.  By the time I am able to sit down with my cup of hot tea and kick my feet up on the recliner, I am beat!  It was all I had some nights to get in a blog post and hit that publish button minutes before midnight.

Content-  What the heck do I write about?  I knew that finding something to write about for 30 days was going to be a challenge, but I didn't exactly realize how much of a challenge it was.  I tried very hard not to use the given blog prompts (mentioned above), and have all of them come from ideas in my head, but it was hard!  There were a few posts that I started to type out, thinking it was going to be a good and fairly lengthy post, but ended up deleting it because it didn't feel right.  I didn't feel passionate enough about one aspect of it and was scattered all over the place with my topic (which I tend to do often).  I accepted this challenge to try to become a better writer, not to repeat my already known mistakes.  Ugh!  So needless to say some posts were mainly of pictures or videos and I'm okay with that.  This is a "Foto Friendly Family" blog anyway.

Motivation-  I signed up for this challenge joined in virtual hands of my friend Sandra over at "Letters of Muse" where she participated in NaBloPoMo with me writing in her other blog "Promptly I Write".  We both have tried to keep up with reading and commenting on each other's daily posts and sending the occasional tweet for motivation, but most days it just didn't happen.  Like most adults do, we have lives.  We have kids.  We can't always be sucked into a computer for hours on end to come up with and write our own stuff...let alone try to be there for your blogging buddies as motivation and inspiration.  It's been very difficult and I feel as though I have let my readers down because I have not been reading or commenting on their blogs.  It's not that I don't enjoy them.  There's just never enough hours in the day.  Luckily Twitter was able to help us stay connected as we were all going through the same "suffering" and we were able to give words of encouragement to keep going and not give up.  As well as a little writing community called Studio 30 Plus where I have met some fellow writers who participated in this challenge and have fought tooth and nail to stay in the game just as I have.  Thank you, friends, for your words of encouragement and motivation!

With all of these reasons why blogging daily was difficult, I will say that this has been very rewarding for me. After falling into a slump of life where I didn't know which way I was going and how I was going to get there, I hadn't been blogging for weeks at a time.  This saddened me because I love blogging!  This is my out, my vent.  This is my little piece of the blogosphere that I can call my own.  This is where I discover myself as a person, as a mother and as a wife, every day.  This is where I meet new friends who are just like me and sometimes even have the same struggles as me.  It's very comforting to know you're not alone.  :)
I am so proud that I did this! It is very self rewarding and definitely boosted my confidence with writing. I think I did an awesome job for my first NaBloPoMo! Would you agree?

Now I'm taking a month off of blogging.....JUST KIDDING!  I'll be back soon!

***Be sure to check out Shareaholic's blog post for today.  One of their writers, Ginny, had reached out to me and has been in contact with me over the last couple of weeks and asked me to be featured in this post.  Of course I said yes!

Until next time NaBloPoMo... a LONG time from now ;)