Self help
How to Start a Blog: Tips to Make it Happen
In today’s fast paced culture, one would think a blog is antiquated. However, blogs are a thriving mode for communicating with a mass audience covering any topic of interest. Read along as I share how to start a blog: tips to make it happen.
Family photo at Rosemary Beach 1. Select a niche.
I almost hate using this phrase for a subheading. If you spend any time at all online, you will hear the buzzword, “niche”. Honestly, sometimes it is stressful when I hear, “select a niche” or “niche down”. Take a deep breath and do not fear, selecting a niche might be easier than you think. What is it that you want to share? What perspective do you have that you want the world to know? For me, I like sharing about my home and family – our lifestyle. I have selected the niche of “Lifestyle Blogger”. When creating your own blog, select a niche ideal for you.
Much of my blog inspiration comes from what I share on my Instagram account. 2. Utilize a host site.
It is almost comical that I have a blog when being tech savvy is not my forte. The good news is, there are YouTube tutorials that can walk you through a step-by-step process for setting up your blog. These tutorials do a great job of helping you understand the ways to begin to monetize your blog. I decided to use WordPress to create my blog. WordPress has a wide range of templates to use when designing your blog.
Over and over again as I started my blogging journey, I saw information about bluehost.com. This is my host site for my blog. It allows me to own the name of my blog and its place on the internet. I pay an annual fee for the website name and site upkeep.
3. Determine a schedule.
Once you have hammered out the nitty gritty of a niche and have taken the time to set up and create the look of your blog, it is time to determine a schedule. Admittedly, this last one has been my weakness. For the 2024 year, one of my two goals for the year was to write 52 blog posts. I wanted to consistently show up on my blog in a way I had not previously done. Notice, I did not say I would post once a week – ha! I know myself too well and wanted to give myself grace in the event that something happened one week and I could not generate a blog post on a specific day of the week. Currently I am targeting releasing a new blog every week. A bulk of my blog posts have been released on Wednesdays with few exceptions. Determine a schedule that works for you and stick to it!
My hope is that these tips are just the motivation you need to start your own blog! Please let me know in the comments if you have a blog and what its name is. I would love to check it out!
How to Create a spring Capsule Wardrobe
I like the simplicity of a capsule wardrobe. I am not a big shopper and enjoy utilizing pieces that have more than one function. Read along for my ideas on how to create a spring capsule wardrobe.
1. Pull everything out.
While we did create a walk-in closet in our current home, it is still not a large space and I must utilize each square inch carefully. Having 2-3 times a year where I pull everything out, is beneficial for keeping an organized space. The benefit of pulling all items out of your closet serves as a visual reminder of what you do wear often and what you have forgotten about. Also, this is a perfect opportunity to seperate your clothing items by season. If you have available space, store your off-season items in another location. (Shhh! Don’t tell my husband, but I put my off-season clothes on the backside of his half of the closet 🙂 )
A closet organizer like this one makes seeing your wardrobe a breeze. This one has over 12,000 reviews! *As an Amazon Associate, I am eligible to earn a commission on any viable links.* 2. Cull unwanted or unused items.
In 2022, I attempted to wear a different outfit for every day of the year. You can read all about it , here. From that time on, I have really tried to focus on only keeping items that I enjoy or serve me well. Getting rid of unused or worn out items is essential to keeping a well curated wardrobe. Donate items you longer want or if you are like me and wear things until they fall apart, throw them away. Having a closet that is crammed with items tends to make you overlook what you actually have. A closet that allows you to easily see your clothing options creates an environment where you can choose your outfits with little complication.
3. Coordinate pieces and seek inspiration.
I happened upon Clothed in Grace on Instagram and am grateful for the guidance and inspiration she provides. Her site guides me in how to curate a seasonal collection. Below is her latest spring capsule wardrobe. When I have fewer items – tops, bottoms, dresses – then I am able to determine if what I have coordinates with my other clothing items. There is a cool website, combineclothes.com , that allows you to type in how many tops, bottoms, solo outfits, and extras you have then it will calculate how many possible outfits you can create from those items. With my current spring wardrobe capsule, I have enough items to create 1,450 outfits! I think that is plenty to get me through these warmer months.
This is a great site for inspiration and guidance in creating your wardrobe capsules! The benefits of following these tips for how to create a spring capsule wardrobe are: ease of outfit selection, ability to identify what items need to be added to your wardrobe, and a streamlined closet! Enjoy and let me know if you put these tips to use.
Healthy Snack Ideas
When making choices that are healthier for you, I’m surprised at how much (or maybe I should say how often) food you should eat. It is best to keep your body fueled every 3 hours. That could add up to six meals a day: 3 meals and 3 snacks. Read along for ways to add healthy snack ideas to your day.
Quick and Easy Healthy Snack Ideas
I did not think that I would like hummus. In fact, I really only like one flavor thus far – roasted red pepper hummus but the single serve containers of hummus with some sliced or chopped veggies are an ideal snack. Another quick and easy snack is the Lesser Evil popcorn. (As an Amazon Associate, I may earn commission on any viable links. This is at no extra cost to you.) This popcorn is AH-mazing! It tastes wonderful and is popped using coconut oil. My kids make fun of me because I am a firm believer that coconut oil can do anything. Another quick and easy snack idea – fruit! Dark berries are really good for you but I think you can’t go wrong with fruit in general.
High in Protien Healthy Snack Ideas
Costco carries a great protien bar put out by Genius Gourmet. Their peanut butter and chocolate bar is my favorite. 000 Greek Yogurt by Oikos is also a great source of protein. Both of these snacks are super quick to grab and go! Including a bit of protein with every meal/snack is important to staying healthy.
Something Sweet
I LOVE sweets and cutting out sugar makes my sweet tooth ache! Lily’s Chocolate Bars are my salvation. (as an Amazon Associate, I may earn commission from any viable links at no extra cost to you) My favorite kind is any that have sea salt in them. Lily’s Chocolate Bars use stevia and erythritol to sweeten its bars. Lily’s Chocolate also produces chocolate chips for baking.
Another great sweets idea is smoothies. I love a good protein smoothie. One of my favorites I call the Big Mama. I got the recipe from the Trim Healthy Mama book and it calls the recipe Big Boy smoothie. For some reason I could only remember Big Mama and it’s stuck! Ha! Place one cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk in a blender. Add in a scoop of whey protein, Stevia to sweeten, a dash of vanilla, a cup of ice, a dash of salt, and a few frozen strawberries. Blend to the consistency you like. This hits the sweet spot for me! You can find the exact recipe here.
If you are trying to make healthier choices in your food selections, I hope these healthy snack ideas have been beneficial. This year I am focusing on making healthier choices myself and have shared some healthy habits I am working to implement in a blog post, here. Check it out and as always, please let me know what you think! Here’s to healthy eating!
How to Start a Daily Quiet Time
Craving a word from the Lord? Or simply wanting moments to center yourself? Let me share with you how to start a daily quiet time.
1. Designate a purpose.
This blog post is for individuals who feel a strong desire to center themselves and align their ideals with God in a daily manner . Practical tips for establishing this time will be given. From the inception of my blog, I would say my target audience would be women whose main role is the chief executive operators of their home. You can learn more about me and what my passion is here. As the chief excecutive operator of your home, quiet time can enhance the productivity of your home. When initiating a quiet time, designate your purpose for creating a time alone. Do you want to grow closer to God? Need a time to quiet the noise of the world and discover what drives you? Determining your purpose will motivate your plan.
2. Choose a platform
What do I mean by a platform? Any avenue to assist as a conduit of your time alone is considered a platform. A variety of platforms can assist with creating a quiet time: devotional book, Bible, or podcast. Here is a top selling Bible on Amazon. The beauty of study Bibles is you learn about the culture of the time of each particular scripture as well as context clues and background information. One platform I used this past year was a podcast, The Bible Recap. This podcast revealed so many aspects of the Bible that I simply did not know (and I have read through the Bible before). This podcast helped me to deepen my understanding of the Bible and God’s message. The appropriate platform can give you knowledge and knowledge is power.
Women’s NIV Study Bible. As an Amazon Associate, I am eligible for commission on any viable links. 3. Pick a consistent time.
Picking a consistent time is a habit I have been crafting for DECADES. I am in no way a morning person and for a L O N G time did my quiet time at night. In 2023, my first challenge for the year was to do a daily quiet time first thing in the morning. As a night owl, a little bit of preparation had to take place in order for this challenge to be a success. Getting sufficient sleep, purchasing a journal, keeping my devotional materials near my bed, making sure my coffee supplies are stocked and ready to go are necessary preparations for me to be successful.
4. Give yourself grace.
In my opinion, as long as you are making an effort to have a quiet time, the exact time of day it happens is not of top importance. Now, three decades into this habit and I can definitely see the benefits of starting the day out in quiet time. For me, a cup of coffee is tantemount to being able to pull of any successful moments of quiet reflection. Am I successful each day? No, but giving myself the grace to let go of my shortcomings and start again as soon as I can has been helpful.
Whatever your purpose for starting your own quiet time, I hope you have much success in your endeavor. My desire is for these tips to help motivate and guide you. Share with me in the comments any tips or tricks that have been beneficial to your own quiet time journey.
2024: What’s Hot, What’s Not
It’s the first week of a new year and so far, I am off to a great start. I’m already tackling one of my two goals: write 52 blog posts. This should be interesting considering last year’s blog posts topped out around 11. Read along as I outline what’s hot and what’s not in the world of creating New Year’s goals.
What’s Hot
Before I jump into the key features of what makes a goal “hot”, maybe I should share my second goal for the year: run a 5k. In revealing my second goal, I’m highlighting the first point of what’s hot: a simplified focus. In looking at an entire beautiful year of possibilities, determine a simplified focus for something (or things) you would like to accomplish. Having just two goals: writing 52 blog posts and running a 5k provide PLENTY of opportunities for me to hammer out some success in these areas.
Another hot item for 2024: a positive mindset. The older I become, the more aware I am of the power of a positive mindset. If I only had my power of observation as a resource than I can still readily provide examples of wonderful progression towards success from individuals with a positive mindset. Those that are willing to see the positive in each situation also seem to possess the ability to encourage others to see the positive outcome possibilities.
And lastly on my what’s hot list is inspiration. Being able to draw inspiration from others is a definite motivator when tackling your own goals. I’ve included one of my absolute favorite inspiration accounts on Instagram in the image below. For another of my all time favorite inspiration accounts, check Lauren out here.
A Bowl Full of Lemons is one account that consistently provides me with inspiration to tackle my goals. What’s Not
Too many goals is NOT a hot item to have in the new year. Admittedly, I fell victim to this last year. My idea was to target a different challenge each month and allow them to build on each other over the course of the year. In theory, I would arrive at the end of the year with 12 habits in my life. While I am still incorporating the habit I started with in January 2023 (daily devotional time), the other 11 challenges are spotty habits at best. Setting too many goals is too much for obvious reasons.
Another not hot feature is unreasonable timelines. In 2024, build in abundant time to hit your goals. For example, my goal for the entire year is to run a 5k not run a 5k every other month. A 5k is not a great distance but I want to do this well and feel like it is going to take months for me to build up the ability to run the entire 3.2 miles. And while 52 blog posts roughly translates into one blog post a week, the beauty of this goal is, I can write as many blog posts as I want in a week and schedule them to publish whenever I desire.
For my final what’s not hot about New Year’s goals is: a negative outlook. As I age, I am learning to avoid this whenever possible! I am finding a fascination with people who turn from the negative in order to focus on the positive and the results are amazing! There’s no room in your New Year’s goals for negativity.
Well, there you have it: what’s hot and what’s not when it comes to New Year’s goals. If you are curious about some of my past goals, you can read up on what I did in 2022 here.
