Blogger Award!

OH GOODNESS ME! Today I was nominated for a Blogger Award by this tiny blue house! For which I feel VERY honored. I have not been in this blogging game very long, so to be nominated really means a lot to me! I have loved keeping up with this tiny blue house, which is all about living a frugal, minimalist, humble life with her husband and daughter. She’s also been through some terrible losses and her strength really shows in her genuine, thoughtful blog posts.

Being nominated has also motivated me to dig my heels in and post. Last week I caught a terrible cold, and being 26 weeks pregnant with a head cold is pretty much the worst thing ever. I am past the worst of it, so I needed a little push to get myself to post a new blog update. Not that there isn’t plenty I want to say, I just haven’t found the words yet. Stay tuned for some thoughts on the happenings last weekend and the women’s march!

 

Rules:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
• Write a post to show your award.
• Give a brief story of how your blog started.
• Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
• Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
• Comment on each blog and let them know you have mentioned them and provide the link to the post you created.

How my blog started:

I’ve touched on this subject here and there in my blog posts, but the big reason I started a blog is that I was inspired by someone else’s blog! I started a blog was to share my infertility story. Infertility is awful and frustrating and I felt so discouraged and out of options other than IVF. Then I read someone’s blog and it gave me hope. It actually encouraged me to try a procedure that my doctor had said would probably not help me. So I went to a different doctor who thought we should give it a try, and voila! I got pregnant immediately! I felt that I needed to share my experience just in case there was one other person out there like me who felt that they were out of options. Just in case they stumbled on my experience and it gave them some hope and helped them achieve pregnancy. Now I am due with my first baby at the end of April, and so my blog is morphing a bit from the experience of trying to get pregnant, to now being pregnant, and eventually my adventures in motherhood. I am going through a lot of life changes and it’s fun to share those and find others who have gone before me to derive some knowledge from.

A couple of pieces of advice:

1. Be Genuine. Sometime I read a blog post and I can really tell that the person is writing from the heart. Those are the posts I love most. They aren’t shying away from feelings or trying to appeal to too many people with differing views. They are just true to themselves and what they want to say. This helps your readers really feel connected to you and want to get to know you better.
2. Read and Comment on Other Blogs. As a new blogger I get really excited when people ‘like’ or comment on a post I have written. It always makes me want to see who they are and what they are blogging about. This is how I’ve stumbled on some of my favorite blogs. It can also help inspire your writing to see what other people are saying.

My nominations:

Here are some of the blogs I follow, and links to a blog post of theirs that I enjoyed. I hope you will read through and find joy in them too!

• The Secret Life of Emily Maine – TTC Timeline (this is the blog that inspired me to blog!)
• Life in Lists – Women’s March Brings Unity, Passion, Inspiration, and…. Confusion? Part 1
• Becoming Mother –  Week 39: What We Learn From Pain
• The Corner Office Blog – Fully Commit to the Foolishness
• The Daily Norm –Paris By Night
• Southern Fried Ovaries –Muddle Through Somehow
• New Mum Club – 27 Weeks and a Wee Life Update
• A Little Lunch – Still Life
• Clearskies, Bluewater – The Revolution has Begun
• Our French Oasis– Cold Weather and January Days
• BeautifulSimpleMeaningful – PJ Disaster
• The Watts – Am I Doing Okay?
• An Accidental Anarchist –Case Dismissed; non-Judgemental Thinking
• French Girl in Seattle –Batignolles, Paris without the crowds (Part 1)
• WeightyWonder –Saturday Weigh-in 

 

A Big THANK YOU to anyone out there reading. Take a minute to check out these other blogs and drop me a comment on what you think!