Today my son turns 7, but there is another milestone I am celebrating as well. Today, I’ve been blogging for 15 years! Can you believe that? I started journaling on a website called Diaryland around 2002, but it wasn’t until I created {love, joleen: the blog} on Nov. 27, 2004, that I started writing for other people to read. I was 21 years old.
The technical URL and name was Joleen’s Artist Endeavors, and here is my unexciting first blog post.
As you can see, I really starting blogging to share my art and craft endeavors, but I quickly began to connect with complete strangers on a deeper level. I wrote about all sorts of things, from my new (first) marriage to my job as a nanny. One of the things I’m most proud about from that old blog (which honestly wasn’t anything to look at), was that I’ve always been authentic about living with depression and anxiety.
That first blog, if you care to cyber stalk me, can be found here. 😉 I like to refer to that time as the “Flickr days”. That was the social media platform du jour. I love that I still have so many of those same online friends now.
Love, Joleen is and always has been the umbrella over everything I do professionally. In 2005 I opened an online store, where I sold various crafts I’d made. This was before Etsy or Pinterest. When I started offering photography services, I aptly named my business Love, Joleen Photography. (When I remarried, I kept Love, Joleen for my blog and changed my business to Joleen Pete Photography).
I wrote in that original space until Jan. 2007, when I made a leap over to Typepad. For years I paid for the monthly service so that I could customize my site, but in the end I switched over to a free page, and so this is the Pepto Bismol-theme I’m left with for cyber-eternity. This blog was the first time I used Love, Joleen in my blog URL, although I called the actual blog Love, Joleen Photography Blog. This is when I really started getting into photography, and would post photos of my Blythe dolls and nanny charges.
I wrote on this blog through some really dark years, and after my divorce. I wrote about my relationships and even kept a daily log as I moved from California to Georgia in 2011. I started sharing gift guides, and posted a lot of scrapbooking for various design teams I was on. I wrote about the books I was reading and basically my life in my mid-20’s.
My last post on the blog was in Feb. 2012, literally days before I got pregnant with Benjamin. From there, I moved BACK to blogspot, but forwarded the URL so that it read www.lovejoleenphotography.com, which I still pay for to this day. *side eye* I wrote on this blog for just a year, but it covered a lot of life in that time. I shared a lot of design team projects, but mainly my pregnancy and most of Benjamin’s first year of life. I turned 30. I shared Benjamin’s birth story and wrote letters to him every month that first year.
In Sept. 2013, I made my final leap, and changed my blog to Love, Joleen once and for all. Here is my welcome post to this blog now. I was still using Blogspot until just this year when I made the move to WordPress. I am so happy with this new site. 15 years later, and I feel at home in this space.
These days I write mostly about my life now, as a wife and mom in my mid-30’s. I focus a lot on family travel, my love of Disney and good books, and life where I’m at today. I write about my faith, struggles with infertility and miscarriage, living with depression, anxiety and hope, and so much more. I work closely with my very dear friend, Heather. She and I met through a Yahoo group back in the day. We have collaborated on a ton of projects, and now she works as my virtual assistant and right-hand woman!
What I’ve Learned About Blogging
In no particular order, here are some things I’ve learned about blogging in the last 15 years.
- Being authentic to yourself is the most important thing. Write what you know. Write what you care about. Don’t be afraid to just be yourself.
- Your people will find you. I may have been blogging since Jesus walked the earth (haha, jk), seriously though… there are so many more “successful” bloggers than me, but I have an incredibly loyal reader/follower base. I cringe saying follower, because I think of so many of you as friends. Think about how many friends you have in “real life” for 10, 15+ years… that’s what this blog has done for me. I’ve been able to watch friends flourish and their families grow. I somehow grew a “mom group” on Instagram when I was pregnant, and now I get to see those same kids all turning 7 this year. It’s amazing!
- Blogging is what you make it out to be. I’ve taken off a year at a time before, when I was going through a major life transition. Your blog can be a hobby or it can be a business. What you put in, is typically what you get out.
- Blogging evolves, but yes “people still read blogs”. It may not be like it was in the old days, where you visited your favorite blogs every day, but blogs are still being read. You’ve just gotta get yourself out onto other social media platforms, and be diligent about writing with SEO.
- Blogging is about people!! I introvert SO HARD, but I have met 95 (plus?)% of my favorite people online. I’ve gone on to meet sooo many in person, and it’s incredibly special!
Thank you so much!
I wouldn’t even have a blog or try to share my voice if I didn’t feel I was connecting with other people through it. Thank you for reading over the years. Thank you for reaching out to me via email or on social media. Thank you for helping me to feel valuable through this space. I appreciate you so much. Here’s to the next 15 years?! Oh gosh, Love, Joleen at 50?! What will life look like for me then… 😉
