The One Where Lindsay Started a Blog...

Happy Blogiversary to me!!

Actually my blogiversary was Monday, but I completely neglected to mention it since our weekend was a bit off-kilter.

Regardless, Lindsay’s Sweet World is officially one year old!  In some ways it seems like it was just yesterday that I started blogging, and in other ways, it’s hard to believe that it’s only been a year.

During this last year I’ve met so many other fantastic bloggers, I’ve established so many new friendships, and I’ve learned a lot.  A lot.  Like, a heap of stuff.  I can’t even begin tell you how much I’ve learned.  I mean, you guys, I designed my entire blog from header to footer, and I even learned some html along the way.  I mean, sure, it’s not the most professional looking blog you’ve ever seen, but – I did it all by myself.  You can file that under Things I Never Thought I Would Do.

The sole purpose for starting this baby of mine was to start keeping a journal again – to have a place where I could jot down my feelings and document the fleeting moments of motherhood.  A place to discuss my fears and my insecurities.  A place to discuss my shortcomings and a place to celebrate my accomplishments.  A place to share the things that I love. 

I kept a journal from the ages of 6 to 21 – that’s almost half of my life in old diaries, notebooks, and binders all carefully lining the bookshelves in my office – and I thought that it was high time to come back to what I love after a decade-long hiatus.

I feel like I have found my passion and I feel like I am home.  I feel like I was meant to be a blogger.  My only regret is not starting sooner.

I love every bit of it – the writing, the picture taking, the brainstorming of ideas, and honestly, just keeping it all organized.  I love making lists, I love carefully curating all of the pictures and links for each post, and I love sharing our lives with you.  And let’s not forget the networking.  You ladies are all amazing!

It seems like just yesterday that I nervously pushed “publish” on my very first post, but I’m so glad that I did.

A few things that I’ve learned along the way:

• You can pretty much teach yourself how to do anything with a little bit of Google and a whole lot of patience.  Removing grey shadows around pictures in Blogger?  No problem.  Centering sidebar widgets?  Check!  Installing Google Analytics to your blog?  Checked it off the list ages ago!  Verifying your Pinterest account?  Piece of cake.
• Writer’s block is a real thing.  There are some days where the words just won’t come out right.
• Be yourself.  There are soooo many bloggers out there, but there’s only one you!  Stay true to yourself and make sure that you enjoy what you’re doing.  Otherwise, why are you even doing it?

Finally, just for fun, here are the blog stats as of today, March 9, 2016.  It should be fun to look back on this to see how much my baby grows!

Monthly Pageviews – 11,134 (Jan 2016 stats)

Subscribers – 18

Google Friend Connect Followers – 28

Bloglovin’ Followers – 34

Google+ Followers – 11

Instagram Followers – 1,005

Facebook Followers – 12

Pinterest Followers – 351

Twitter Followers – 553

Most popular post – Olivia Cate's Pink & Gold First Birthday with 22,984 views

I have joked around with Brian that my dream is to quit my day job and to somehow make money blogging.  Maybe it’ll happen, maybe it won’t.  But either way I will continue doing it because it's what I love.  

Enjoy your Wednesday, friends!  And as always, thanks so much for following along on our sometimes crazy, sometimes stressful, but mostly sweet journey!

*Linking up with Jessi's Design and Going the Distance for What's Hap-"Pinning" Wednesday.