Happy 10th Anniversary To The Blog — Moms Running It

This past week, I’ve been revamping the blog. I’m making sure links work, finding the original site, and forwarding it, things that should have been done years ago, that I just didn’t realize could be done or weren’t being done. I took a blogging course and when I did I realized I could make some minor tweaks that could create bigger changes, so I jumped right in. You don’t know what you don’t know — until you do and then you can take action. This week has been a fun education and the dialing-in of a blog I’ve loved for years.

As I was doing “IT genius stuff”, and getting things working more specifically, I didn’t realize my anniversary was coming up. Today, October 19th, 2011 was the day I pushed “PUBLISH” for the very first time, so it’s even more apt that I am working on this little blog being the best it can be.

I was encouraged by a woman I looked up to and respected, who had a successful blog of her own, to begin mine. She told me I have a story that should be shared, and her suggestion prompted me to move forward. Mom’s Running It was named by my daughter Olivia. She said, “Mom you run everything!”. From races to a family, work, home, friends, etc… it was quite a compliment that at the age of 15 she saw that I was indeed “running” everything and the blog was born.

A few years ago, Wordpress lost my blog. It disappeared completely for over 18 months. Periodically, I would try to log in with no luck until one day — there it was! I immediately enlisted assistance from an IT friend to move the bog and save it and jumped back into writing — although not as consistently and not on a platform that gave me exposure, or allowed people to sign up and comment. At that point, I was just glad I hadn’t lost years of work and memories.

Just over a year ago, I went through all 960 blog posts. I thought it would be an arduous task, however, it ended up being cathartic and an amazing walk down memory lane. In the early days, I posted about running mostly, with lots of fashion thrown in and posts about having such a large family. I deleted over 550 posts. Broken links, poor writing, information that was outdated — it all had to go.

I’ve never stopped writing, even when the blog was down. I’ve been published on several sites and have been hired to write for companies and writing platforms. I post my blogs on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Medium. My writing has gotten less “fluffy” and more specifically about sharing the toughest parts of my life — losing my son for example. It’s grown to discuss minimalism, RV renovations, gratitude practices, my coaching platform teachings, relationships, health, time management, career, homeschool, and my strong desire for Wanderlust while maintaining family, running, and fashion topics, and I’d love to learn what you want to read more about.

One thing I loved in the early years were the companies that sent me swag to try out and — if I liked it — I would blog about “gear reviews” which was an absolute blast. Receiving comments from posts years old that still touch someone makes me light up and I’m ecstatic that with all the tweaks and adjustments I”m making now, it will be easier to find the blog, subscribe, and comment. Those changes are coming soon — and you will be the first to know.

More changes moving forward…

I’ve now begun to incorporate videos into the blog content — for those of you who prefer to watch and listen over reading. I realize that my blog, video content, and coaching are all intertwined, so it made sense to me that they should all be connected to offer the best information in more than one modality.

I will also be moving the blog to a better — more visible platform that will be more interactive and less clunky, with all the forwarding, redirecting, commenting abilities, and all things blog. On this decade anniversary, I’d like to say thank you to those of you who read what I write. It’s been sometimes difficult to write about topics I have been struggling with, and being completely raw and vulnerable is a challenge to maintain. It’s my goal that when your time is spent here, you will get value and that propels me to dig deep and also to have fun.

Cheers!