Week 1: Bloggy Moms Guide to a Better Blog-Niche & Branding

For 2013, I am starting the Bloggy Moms Guide to a Better Blog 1 Year Plan. Each week focuses on tasks for me to build a better and more successful blog

What is the Bloggy Moms Guide to a Better Blog 1 Year Plan?

The Bloggy Moms Guide to a Better Blog 1 Year Plan will walk you through weekly tasks designed to give you a better focus on cultivating your unique blog.

At the end of each week, there are writing prompts from The Blog Dare to share with you guys and let you know more about me, my family, my blog, etc.

Week 1: Niche & Branding

This week I worked on defining my niche and working on finding my niche in this huge blogosphere. I think I have done a pretty good job of fitting into a very good one or two.

Military Families
Special Needs Parenting

Now for the Prompts:

If I could bring back…. my uterus I would in a second. I had a complete hysterectomy in 2012 following a cervical cancer scare. I had struggled with infertility and miscarriages in the previous decade. However, I was NOT ready to give up my fertility. I had my tubes tied in 2006 after a very dangerous, high risk pregnancy and delivery with Ginger. I was at the point I realized that having my tubes tied was an emotional reaction to labor and delivery with her. I was ready to begin considering a tubal reversal. That did not happen and when my OBGYN found cervical cancer he scheduled a complete hysterectomy asap. Now, I do grieve the loss of my “child-bearing” ability. I do wish I had a little baby boy, the third child I always really desired. So, now I accept that I have 2 gorgeous little miracles and that is all that God had planned for my life.
I would tell my younger self… so many things. Don’t goof the first semester of college, every boy DOES want the same thing regardless of what he says, save your virginity for marriage because it IS worth saving, do NOT smoke because it does not look cool it kills you, pregnancy doesn’t always “just happen” for everyone and that is OK, don’t do drugs because your friends do, there are GOOD guys and yours is closer than you think, you WILL be a mom and a good one, be nice to your mom because she had a hard life and she won’t be around forever.
Where I hope to vacation this year… the beach! The girls have NEVER been and we live within an hour of the beach. It is time to actually take a vacation for the first time in a decade.
A Moment I would return to and relive… I would go to June 24, 2006. It is the day my mother died suddenly of a heart failure. I did not have a chance to talk to her after she was taken into the ER. I would give anything to hug her, to tell her everything she means to me and what an example she was as a mother, military spouse and special needs advocate. I would love to be able to show her pictures of my daughters and to tell her how much she was right about parenting, to share my two little miracle daughters with her for one minute. That would be without a doubt the day I would want to go back and try again.
I take some things a little too seriously…I take everything too seriously. I may not appear to or express it to anyone. However, I overanalyze everything, re-think it all and stay up night with it on my mind. I am a serious person and need to lighten up in 2013!
I was without internet access… and I had no idea how to “normally” do things. Yes, every time I am without a signal I forget how to do things without the internet. You know things like text, make a phone call or just go over my friend’s house to talk. Yes, I forget that I can actually write out or type my blog posts and THEN actually post them when I get the internet back. I can actually shop in an actual store and not Amazon, Etsy or Ebay. There ARE actaul things called maps when I cannot call upon the Google Maps gods.
Life without… purpose or passion is boring. I found that out in 2012. I had been floating from year to year, job to job, working at home-working outside the home-SAHM. No passion, no drive but in desparate need to DO SOMETHING. I have to stay busy, I need a purpose, I need something that it ME and not mom or wife. I found it in 2012, my love of writing and crafts, and ran with it. I became that artsy, crafty, freelance writer and special needs advocate that I was MEANT to be and I am loving it. Bring it on 2013!