I’ve had a blog since 2005. That’s a long time in the Internet world, y’all.
I remember my first blog, which was on a LiveJournal-like platform, and I really can’t even remember the name. I used to blog about things that no one cared about: college classes, boys, discovering my independence, etc. I moved over to LiveJournal, because my friends were there. My LiveJournal is still online with a Christmas looking theme and an avatar with Will Ferrell from Elf, but I’m too embarrassed to share the link. I look back on it from time to time and laugh at the things I used to care about in the college days.
I wonder if I’ll ever look back on this blog and laugh at what I cared about in my 20s.
One thing I’ve noticed through the years, is that I carefully plan/care about my posts more. No more posts about the professor who embarrassed me in class or the fact that I had a faceplant in front of the student union. It’s rare that I post about a day in the life here, because, well, I doubt that readers would care about that.
When I started my food blog in 2008, all I cared about was finding good recipes and keeping a record of them, so when I was married, I could totally cook something up for us. My food adventures took place in my parents’ house for a good year or so. The pictures didn’t matter to me…it was the recipes that I cared about, obviously.
Example: One of my pictures from my first ever food blog post. I thought it was an excellent picture of bowtie pasta and meatballs, but I didn’t care to take 20 pictures of the food…I just wanted to eat.
A year later, at what would be my husband and I’s house (his house at the time), this is what I took a picture of. Oh yeah, Italian again. At least this time, I focused in on the food. At this point, I was getting a little better, and had a good steady following, so I wanted to give my readers fairly decent pictures of recipes.
Then, around April 2010, I bought a dSLR and moved to my own domain. I really started developing a passion for food blogging and decided my own URL was the next step, along with a fancy camera for great pictures.
When I got my camera, ultimately, I wanted to be able to play with settings and make my photos eventually drool-worthy. Right when I took it out of the box, I immediately put it in “manual” mode and got to work. It took me a while, but check out one of my favorite photos (which was taken in July 2010).
It’s funny how much I care now about blogging. It’s an everyday thing for me, and I love networking/talking with other bloggers about what works for them. I know I will never be Bakerella or Pioneer Woman, but it always gives me confidence when I see my hits rise and my readership increase. 🙂
Now, I know this is a post about my food blog, mainly, but I will say that this blog has also become important to me. I know this blog will never be as popular as the food blog, since there’s no real theme here (and themes usually mean a stronger readership), but I still love posting here about hobbies, housewife-ness and other topics that pop in my mind. I’m not sure if this blog will ever have a theme, like food, sewing or gardening. I like that it’s fairly random in its own way, and it offers me the freedom to blog about whatever. 🙂
i love hearing about your personal development in blogging! and the sequence in pictures is very telling. that cupcake photo is to die for, by the way.
I love seeing the sequence of photos, because it gives me a little hope that my blog photos are going to get better. And perhaps, many moons later, as lovely as your gorgeous cupcake shot.