my blogging story: part 4

26 September 2013

need to catch up? Here is
blog-story-320-Sycamore6
So, I had discovered the world of blogs. The first blogs I was hooked on were: Nesting Place, Our Best Bites, and Simple Mom. I checked every morning to see if they had updated and I had their buttons on my sidebar. I loved the world of blogging, it was fairly small back then and I got to “know” other bloggers fairly quickly, but my blog was still mainly a family blog with my projects interspersed here and there.


We got a huge surprise in March of 2008: I was expecting baby #5.
I have to admit, I was nervous. I didn’t know if my radioactive iodine treatment the month before would have lingering effects on this baby, what the thyroid medication would do, and how my body would handle all of this. My doctors were awesome though, we adjusted my medication, everything looked normal with the baby, they asked me to please stop reading horror stories online, and life moved forward. My husband worked hard on finishing projects on the outside like the play area, front door, and fence.
We finished the main bathroom in June of 2008, and that was the last big projects we finished before I had my baby because I was too pregnant and tired.
bathroom after
I joined my first linky party with the Nester on window (mis)treatments at the end of the summer. It was so fun clicking around and meeting bloggers obsessed with the same things I was.
During the summer and fall, I began noticing that some bloggers had advertisements on the sides of their blogs. In September of 2008, I emailed the Nester to see if I could find out a little more about Blogher. I will love her forever for answering me back and I still have the email. She said: “Blog her has been worth it for me…they take a huge chunk out of the grocery bill and you can quit at any time.” So, my thoughts at that time were: if Nester can make a huge chunk of the grocery bill, maybe my blog could make $50 for Saturday morning yard sale-ing!
Blogher was taking applications, so I jumped on it and was accepted. I took my family blog private, and 320 Sycamore was born on October 6, 2008 with a little blog-warming and giveaway.  My first paycheck from Blogher was $18 and I was thrilled. When I finally made $50 a few months later, I was over the moon.That’s how it all began.
Landon came on December 29, 2008. He was perfect. It was like a gift from God to say “good job” on making it through a rough year.
The blog has just gone from there. I have all of you to thank, simply by sharing it with your friends.  In the spring of 2009, Rhoda from Southern Hospitality and Sarah from Thrifty Décor Chick featured our master bath makeover. My blog audience tripled from those features.
A few other noteable traffic boosts: Style at Home did a feature in May of 2010, and 320 Sycamore was featured in the Top 10 Real Life Renovating and Decorating Blogs. In August of 2010, I met a goal that was in the back of my mind since I began blogging. I don’t know why, but I just thought that if I ever made it to 5,000 subscribers, it would be incredible, so I took a screenshot on the day that it did. Kind of funny, but here it is.

5000 readers
Young House Love featured our bathroom makeover (note: do more bathroom makeovers!) in the summer of 2012 and again, readership doubled from that feature. In a nutshell, a lot of the blog growth is from time and hard work, and a lot is from the kindness of others in taking the time to read and share and feature. Mostly, I’m thankful to God who saw this girl that wanted to open up a shop in Lubbock, Texas and whispered to her to wait…there were better things ahead. This has been the perfect job for me: doing something I love while being home to take care of my family. On my 5 year blogiversary coming up in October, I’ll share some things I have learned while blogging!
Do you have any questions? What else do you want to know~what did I miss? Thanks for letting me look back, it’s been a fun ride.
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