A Gentle Push

Thanks again ,to Anita at Discovering Your Happiness, for nominating me for the Liebster Award.  I am still super excited about it.

I thought it would be easy to write my award post.  A piece of cake.  All I had to do was copy and drop the award picture and figure out what blogs I wanted to nominate and link their blogs to my post.

It wasn’t as easy as I thought.  It took me an hour to figure out how to copy and paste the award picture and I still haven’t figure out how to link.  Oh well.  Everything needs a starting point.

I am grateful for the award, but I think I am more grateful for the gentle push by Anita to get me out of my comfort zone.  I have wanted to update my picture for awhile now.  I don’t like to be a white ball when I like someones post.  My favorite picture is Anita’s.  I love how she has the words around the outside of the circle and the symbol in the middle.  Also, there’s couple of things I wanted to change on my blog to make it more me, but I kept putting it off and putting it off.

Until now.

Anita asked me two questions that really stuck a chord in me.   Her questions were:         Where I see myself in five years?  Where do I see my blog in the next five years?

My answer to myself in five years.  Geez.  I am 52.  I don’t even want to think about being 57.  Honestly, I don’t want to think about this.  It scares me.  I don’t feel 52.  I don’t act like I’m 52.  Although, I am starting to move like I’m 52.  Ladies, I know you know what I am talking about.  Trying to walk after you’ve been sitting awhile…it takes a couple to steps to get your legs and hips to do what you want them to do.

My answer to my blog in five years.   When I started my blog it was because I had to.  My blog kept calling me.   Ideas would pop out of nowhere.   It kept nudging me until I answered the call.   When I did, I didn’t really have any goals.  Honestly, I’ve been writing my blog for myself to see how many people would read it.  I’m not doing too bad considering I haven’t told anyone around me that I have a blog — not my husband, my family, my in-laws, my friends or my coworkers.  I’m happy with my progress.  My followers grow every week.  I almost have doubled my views from last month.  Yes, there will be a time I will tell the people around me, but right now I’m happy to be on this journey by myself.  I’m proud of myself for what I have accomplished so far, but winning the award made me realize that I’m not doing it for me anymore.  I need to take my blog to the next level – whatever that may be. In the next couple of months I need to learn about this basics of wordpress and look at other blogs to see what I can do to make my blog more user friendly and fun.   I want my blog to be a positive place.   I don’t know where I want to be in five years, but in a year I would like to have more followers. I would like to show more of my writing — essays and short fiction — that I’m working on. I would like to interview strong women or maybe have them guest post for me.  I would to monetize my blog, but I’m not sure how.  I have some ideas.

To be honest, the set up of my blog has stayed the same because I have been afraid to step out of my comfort zone.  My blog is growing and I need to step out of my comfort zone.  I don’t know why I’m afraid.  I love to learn new things, but when it comes to a computer i am like a fish out of water — flopping around trying to survive.  At this point in my life I don’t have a lot of patience.  It took me 45 minutes to download my antivirus software online.  Let’s not go there.  It’s not pretty.

I’m going to step out of my comfort zone a little at a time.  Now that camping season is almost over (there isn’t any wifi at the the campground) and fall is nipping out my heals, I will have my weekends free to learn new things.   I’m excited and scared.  I checked out a couple of books on wordpress and blogging — yes, the book for dummies 🙂   I’m taking that first step….

Thanks again, Anita, for the gentle push.

Peace and love.