Why I'm a Not-for-Profit Blogger/Writer

First of all, no I don't make any money off this blog nor do I intend to but I have had a lot of people volunteer ways I could.  It is as though people think since you have a blog, that you must be trying to make money off it.  Well, news flash!  I actually love writing and have since I was a child but back then I wrote in paper journals and no one ever read them (though I'm pretty sure my mom and sisters sneaked a peek at one time or another).  I wrote my first book, a children's book, in 8th grade for a class assignment.  I even illustrated it but it wasn't the illustrations that helped my book win LOL - I'm SO not an artist, you don't want to see my drawings!! I remember my 8th grade English teacher telling me I had a gift, though I didn't really know what to do with it at that time.

Since high school, I continued to write in journals and when the internet became common, I got an online journal.  That became popular and I was featured on AOL's front page one day and the response was intimidating to say the least.  I was writing about my passion back then, which was fitness, and I got a lot of questions and offers, some of which I did do - a magazine article that featured me and then I was a poster girl for a women's body-building nutrition program (NO I DID NOT SHOW MY BODY in a bathing suit - I stayed modest even in that arena in a skirt!).

After the fitness craze hit its peak and I realized I had even put it before God and was obsessed with it, I let go of that passion.  However, writing never left me, it is and probably always will be a love of mine and part of who I am.  It is like an appendage really, I feel like I can communicate my very soul in writing sometimes and articulate my points way better than I can in person.  My next venture was a homekeeping blog, which had a different name in the beginning but a few years later as it started growing, I became Christian Homekeeping.

I had this blog up before with a large readership but I also had a lot of issues happen in my personal life and with bullies on this blog, so I took it down thinking I would never pick it back up again.  However, for the 6 months I closed my blog down, I was depressed without writing. Sure, I could write but I wanted to write and have people READ what I wrote and enjoy it!  So, after a time of recovery from some things and building up a backbone, I brought this blog back up and have just now regained the readership that I once had.  I've been blogging on homekeeping for almost 9 years now and though I feel sometimes that I've shared all I could, I seem to keep coming up with things I want to write about.

I've had offers to have advertisers on this blog but I didn't want to make this a place where you would come and it would be cluttered with ads and things that I didn't truly want to promote.  I could easily make this venture into a money-making business but it would take away from what God has called me to do - be a wife and mother!  Those come first and any extra time I have leftover (other than the 5-10 minutes it takes to write a blog post), I would rather give it to my kids or husband, than try and earn money.  Time is valuable to those that depend on me and they need me, I'm a crucial part of this home to make it run smoothly and to raise up kids that are well-loved and well-instructed.  Money just can't buy that!!