blogvember 30th

I did it!

I set out to post every single day this month, no matter what, and with one day off for my birthday (or so I decided), I did it.  I am so glad I stuck to it.

On this last day, it makes sense to reflect on my month of daily blogging. A few thoughts:

• It felt refreshingly normal and familiar.
• I maintained about the same readership (numbers-wise) throughout the month. I'd wondered if my readership would go up or down...but it's pretty much just been stable. That's fine with me.
• I feel much more in touch with what's going on inside me.
• I also feel more connected to my community out-there.
• I don't feel burned out or resentful toward blogging. I wondered if this would happen...but actually, I really look forward to it on most days. 
• I really appreciated the legalism most of the time. I was "forced" to write something, and usually I was very glad I did afterward. Things came out that I did not expect.
• I have rekindled my excitement for blogging - that feeling that says, "I can't wait to blog about this!" --Even though a lot of the things I've felt that about have yet to appear here. In time.)
• I've learned that my favorite time to blog is at the end of the day, right before bed. This is not always my husband's favorite time, however, and often my bedtime suffers. So we'll have to keep working on some kind of balance there.
• I've learned not to wait until that "perfect post" is done. I can keep working on those longer project-oriented or particularly reflective ones until they're done, and in the meantime, keep posting shorties.

All in all, I am super glad I did this and it was a completely positive thing for me. There were very few downsides. The late bedtimes and occasional neglect of my husband were probably the biggest ones. But those are things I can adjust going forward.

My intention from here out is to keep on blogging consistently, whatever that turns out to mean. One of the biggest things I've learned from this month is that some kind of legalistic standard is helpful for me, at least right now. Blogging is something I definitely want to do, and it has a really positive impact on my life. I value it highly enough and have a realistic enough understanding of myself to know that for now, I need an external standard helping me stay on track with my own goals.

So my commitment for December is going to be 3 posts a week, with an ideal goal of 5 per week. Anything beyond that is just super-bonus. But 3 will be my absolute minimum - a goal I'm setting for me, for what I want out of this blog. Not for you all...though I love and value you all very much, and my hope is always that my blog will be encouraging to you. But it's important in my head that my goal is for me, so that if I'm tempted to get resentful toward my legalistic rules, I can remember that the whole reason I'm doing this at all is because I want to and it's good for me. Not because anyone else expects it out of me. So that's that. 

Thanks to those of you who have been reading with me (though I don't even know who all of you are!). Here's looking forward to more Harknanigans to come!