Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Blogging

Why I Started A Blog

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It was fall of 2009 and we were almost at the end of our 2nd deployment. I was in Germany with an almost three-year old and a five-year old.

I was stressed out and ready for my husband to get back home. I didn’t know too many other Army wives at the time. Only a handful I had met over the few years in Germany. I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt tired and worn down from deployments with no real end in sight.

Awifehad tried starting a similar blog before but I didn’t really do much with it. I also had a blog for just friends and family that I started when I was pregnant with my oldest. Now that Facebook was getting more and more popular, I didn’t think I needed a blog to update friends and family anymore.

So when I decided to make this new blog, I wanted it to be different.  I wanted to share my stories and connect with other Military spouses. I had no idea how big the Milspouse blogging community was.

I found myself on Twitter and met a few other spouses and started visiting their blogs.

Within a few months I had several followers and I loved where my blog was going.

It’s been almost five years since that time. My blog has changed names, remember when I was Julie the Army wife? We have been through two more deployments, we left Germany and my husband got out of active duty and is now in the National Guard. We even had another baby.

Looking back over the changes in my life I am so glad I blogged through all of them. I can look back and read about it and remember those times.

When it comes to why I still blog, it is because I enjoy having a place to express myself. I also hope my readers can relate to what I am talking about whether it is something about having children or something about a deployment or a new book I read.

At this point I am not sure what the next three years will look like Military wise. Most likely we won’t be going through any deployments. Because we still live near Ft. Campbell, we still have a lot of Military in our lives. From the Commissary to the people I meet and hang out with. It will be interesting to see how my blog changes during these post Active duty years.

Do you have a blog? Why did you start it and what keeps you going?

Why I Blog

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IMG_4739My next post for Blue Star Families is about why I blog.

I had to think about this one for a while.

I think I have a couple of reasons why I blog. I started Julie the Army Wife (the blog I had before this one) during our 2nd deployment. It was hard and I figured there were other people out there just like me. I knew there were other wives out there trying to get through each day. At the time I had felt like I had gone through a lot of Military stress in the few years we had been a Military family. I knew that if I blogged about what I was going through it would make me feel better and help someone else not feel so alone.

It is now almost four years later and I think I blog for the exact same reasons. This deployment has been so stressful already and I need a place to talk about it. I need a place to post about what it is like. I also hope that if there are others out there that might feel alone, sad or upset about what they are going through they can read my posts and won’t feel so lonely anymore.

I also like to blog to share things in my life with others. This is why there are posts about my garden or trips that I take. I like to look back on those posts as a reminder of that time in my life.

Blogging for me is defiantly an outlet. I enjoy it and I enjoy where blogging has taken me. I have also enjoyed all the people I have met because I am a blogger. It has helped me not feel so alone in my circumstances. I plan to blog as long as I am able to. Whether it be about Military life or something completely different.

If you are a blogger, why do you blog?

Follow Blue Star Families on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ and build a support network so you can keep your family and personal community strong throughout the duration of the entire deployment life cycle.

Family Blog to Army Wife Blog

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Soldier and baby

Back in February 2004 I found out I was pregnant with my first child. I am not sure where I heard of blogging but thought it was a good time to start  a blog.  We lived about 9 hours from my family and figured it would be a good way to keep them updated.

Welcome to our Pregnancy Journal. Figured we would use this to keep our family and friends updated on our pregnancy. We got the pregnancy confirmed on Feb 4th, 2004. We think our due date is Oct 15th…so somewhere around then we are going to have a baby. We plan on giving birth at the Women’s Health and Birth Center ….which is about 5 minutes from our house. We have our first appointment with the Midwife tomorrow and we are very excited about it.- This was my very first blog post ever!

I blogged at this blog for a while. My family saw the posts. My friends saw the posts. That was it. I was not aware of any type of blog community. I don’t even know who was blogging in the Milspouse community in 2004. Let me know if you were 🙂 In 2005 when Ben left for Germany I started a new blog mostly just for him. He was going to be away from us for a while so I figured it was a smart thing to do. Easier for him to look at a blog post then deal with pictures in an email. When I moved to Germany and had to say goodbye to my Lexington friends I was glad to have the blog. Some of them had blogs too so that was nice.

Around 2007 was when Myspace got popular and then in 2008 I really started to use Facebook more and more. I felt like I was repeating myself. I would post a status on Facebook and then went to blog and felt like I was just repeating myself. Blogging was no longer fun for me. I pretty much gave it up.

Then in 2009 I had this awesome idea to start an Army Wife blog. I think I had come across Bohemian Transplant’s original blog and loved how she was blogging about her life and how she was connecting with other spouses as well. After three failed attempts and a Twitter account I had finally found the Milspouse Blogging community.   I wanted a place to share about what we had been through with the Military.  I knew when Ben first joined I would have really enjoyed reading blogs about the Army life.  I started commenting on other blogs, they came back and commented on mine and things started to change. I was no longer blogging for my friends and family. I was blogging for anyone out there who wanted to read about our lives in the Military, our deployments or anything else I decided to blog about.

These days I look at Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family in other parts of the world but I have my Army Wife Blog to talk all about our lives as a Military family. I can connect with others and it has been such a great experience for me. But how does one get from blogging just for friends and family to something more? How do you make that jump?

I really think the key is the Milspouse Blogging community or really any blogging community that fits with your blog. Just started commenting on other blogs that are similar to yours or that you really enjoy.  Become active on Twitter.  I know Twitter seems a little weird and scary at first but I promise it isn’t. I am Armywifejulie on Twitter and would love to connect with you if you join 🙂

Blogging can be such a great thing.  Especially if you are dealing with a stressful situation.  You learn quickly that you are not alone and this make life a little easier.  Plus who doesn’t love finding more friends?

Do you have a blog? Do you want to start one? What is holding you back?

 

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