Category: blogging

My First Year Blogging Meme

To celebrate my first blog birthday, Amy at Memories and Musing of a Mommy tagged me for this appropriate meme.

How long have you been blogging?

Exactly one year, in case you weren’t paying attention. duh. I started a little slow but picked up steam in the second half of 2007.

What inspired you to start your blog, and who are your mentors?

I started blogging as a way to keep family members up on our kids’ day to day happenings. I thought they would enjoy some funny stories. I really didn’t expect a wide audience to read it. Then Suburban Mommy started telling people about my blog, and I got a lot of positive reactions and requests for more stories. Through blog communities MyBlogLog and cre8Buzz, I found lots and lots of parent bloggers like me. Stay-at-home-dad Rebel Dad was one of my early reads. I also got ideas from The Blogfathers.

One of my motivations is that since everything we write online is kept for eternity, one day my kids will be able to read this blog. They will be able to relive my pain joy, and realize how much I went through, so they will feel compelled to take care of me in my old age.
Are you trying to make money online, or are you doing it just for fun?

I do have ads and some affiliate links, but I haven’t made more than a bit of pocket change. The fun for me has really been about watching my audience and traffic grow. I check Google Analytics daily to see how many visitors came the day before. I wouldn’t mind seeing if I could make more money, but I need way more readers first. Maybe by my second blog birthday.

What 3 things do you love about being online?

  1. Total strangers find my SuburbanDaddy blog and read it!
  2. The blog community. I’ve found many people, dad’s and mom’s, going through the same struggles with their kids. We get and give advice.
  3. I welcome the public tantrums and nerve racking episodes that happen on a regular basis, because then I get to write about them here. Well, usually I welcome them. I don’t think I ever welcome this.

What 3 things do you struggle with online?

  1. Finding the time to post. I’m usually too tired by the time the kids are in bed. And there’s only so much slacking off I can do at work.
  2. Time
  3. Did I mention time?

I’d like to pass this along to some of my fellow daddy blogger peeps…A Man Among Mommies, How To Be A Dad, and Toddler Daddy…Come on down. You’re the next contestant.

Blog Birthday

birthdaycake.jpg

Today is my 1st blog birthday! One year since my very first blog post. SuburbanDaddy started as an experiment, mainly as a way to share pictures and happenings in my kids lives with family who live across the country. I committed to sticking with it for a year to see how it goes. Here’s what I learned.

Blogging Is EASY– All you have to do is write about what happens to you every day. Like Seinfeld. Went to the store to buy new shoes? There’s a blog entry. Go on vacation with the family? Another entry.

Blogging Is HARD – Finding time to sit at the computer and write something is easier said than done sometimes. Then, even if I have a few minutes of quiet, do I really want to expend mental energy writing or would I rather watch some mindless television. That’s why I often go days or a week without writing. It isn’t from a lack of ideas. Just time and energy.

Blogging Is Fun – When I’m in the middle of a daddy episode, at my wits end, tantrums all around me, or in a major battle of wills, I actually start thinking This will make a great blog topic. And it makes the daddy episode easier. Fun even. I find I take pictures with my cell phone to write about it later. Kids out of control in McDonalds playland? Not to worry. Just take a picture (I’ll write about that one soon).

If You Write It They Will Come – When I first started, I had no idea people, complete strangers, would read my blog. People from all over the world. And write comments! Here are some of my blog buddies.