Again, it has been a month since I have blogged. I sincerely apologize for my absence. There are many reasons why I have not written for so long, but in the end, they're all mostly excuses, aren't they?
I used to love writing about my job and searching through pictures that I had taken. I think part of the fun has been taken out due to all of the computer problems I've been having lately. Just getting photos from my phone to my computer is a nightmare, much less sorting through them. Still, more excuses, right?
My depression has certainly been a factor for several months now, but I have been trying to force myself to do the things I used to love. Why haven't I been able to force myself to do this, when I have been able to force myself to do other things (like going dancing)?
I have been much busier than usual for the last three or four weeks (which is certainly a good thing), but I have still had some time where I could have written a blog post.
So what is the answer? What is the solution? I don't know. For today, the solution is to write about myself (again) rather than about grooming.
As I sit here and think, I am supposing that the extraordinarily slow growth of this blog may be a factor. For quite a while, I spent hours every week writing for or managing or promoting this blog. I worked and I worked and I promoted - and in the end, less than 100 people were reading my blog on any given day. I knew this would be a slow process, but I think my depression may have made growing this blog any farther seem like a monumental task. So I think I need to re-evaluate why I am even writing this blog.
I think at first I just wanted to express myself, but then I discovered that I could make money with advertising, so my blog became my ticket out of grooming. They say it takes 2 years to actually be profitable with a blog, and most bloggers quit before that. I think I got a little distracted by the money - I've "earned" $34 since about August - but Google doesn't write you a check until you've earned at least $100. So of course I really wanted to hit that $100 mark.
Maybe the answer is for me to stop caring about the money. And really, now that I haven't been blogging much, I only check my earnings report once a week or so, simply out of curiosity. Maybe I need to just write whatever I want, whether or not it relates to grooming, and if nobody reads it, that's just fine. Because the other reason I started the blog was to get in the habit of writing every day. So if I'm avoiding writing because I can't find passion for the subject that day - it should be more important for my long-term goals just to make sure I am writing a blog post about something, anything.
Hm. So maybe I need to allow myself more freedom about writing topics in order to write more, and care less about my audience or profit.
Well, if you have read this far, you deserve a dog picture, so here is a pic of Hailey and Dillin after their most recent grooming.
