Living a Life of Books: Reflections on a Year of Blogging: What I've Learned

It's a celebration of my 1st year blogging. This week I'll be posting some reflections and a look back at my first year on this trek.

It's time to reflect. Reflecting is a great way to see where we've been , how we've done, and what we've learned, but also to contemplate where we need to go and how to get there.

~How I Got Here~

I honestly don't know what made me want to sit down and start a blog. Actually, I started this blog back in the summer of 2014, intending to share it with my students--but only if I was able to keep it going. I was not able to do that--at all. I also wasn't too dedicated to doing so. It was simply one more thing I HAD to do.

Then last year in January I went back to school to get my administrator's certification. Long story short, after taking one class I decided that it was not the right choice for me to pursue that avenue. However I felt a little bit lost. I felt like I needed to do something. The first thing I did was read a book that I enjoyed (I had read one book in two months because I was reading for class and writing papers and there wasn't any time).

I read How to be a Heroine or What I've Learned from Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis and I

couldn't keep it to myself and decided that I would just post that review on my blog--that one I randomly happened to have--and be done with it. But I remembered how much I enjoyed writing essays and papers about books and so I wrote two more reviews and posted them a few weeks later. Then I jumped right in.

I think I needed something to help me feel grounded. Not only had I felt disconnected from reading at the time, I felt a little disconnected from myself. I've found that when I start to feel this way, if I can get myself into a really good book, I can find my way out of that feeling a little better.

~Where I've Been~

I tried a lot of different things at first. I posted weekly what I was reading what my current TBR list was. I started scouring through other blogs to see what they did. I added some of those ideas to my own. I read blogs about blogging and convinced myself that I needed at five posts a week if I wanted to be serious, and if I couldn't do that, well then forget it. It only took a month or two for that idea to wear itself out.

Over the summer I was able to try different weekly posts and try to settle myself into a good groove. I'll be honest, it took me until almost November to feel that I had a grip on this whole blogging thing. A loose grip, but a grip nonetheless.

I've come to a place where I feel like I have a pretty good rhythm and schedule that works for me. I'm also somewhat comfortable with the fact that I'm busy outside of blogging and there are times that I will be too busy to post anything--although it makes me anxious when I have nothing going out all week. I will be okay with it and will come back to it soon--when things calm down a bit.

~What I've Learned~

1) How to do some basic html. I mean that in the loosest of terms and basically that I can google the html and copy/paste it into my blog and then mess with it until I get it to do what I want.

2) How to use twitter. I had never tweeted before this. I had avoided it, in fact. Now I love it! Welcome to the year 2006, Meghan. You're a bit late, but welcome all the same.

3) That there's always going to more that I could do, if I had more time. Even if I magically got that time handed to me, I would then find something more to try and fit in.

4) I like writing. I missed writing. If this is the only way I can fit writing into my life, then so be it. I'll write for my blog.