Family Blog to Army Wife Blog

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?

Don’t forget to enter my Army Wives Kindle Fire Giveaway.  Just a few more days left to enter 🙂