Littlemummy.com

This post is written by Mummyinahurry for the Great British Blog Festival

For years I have been boring friends and family senseless helpfully offering unsolicited advice to friends and family alike with my tips on cooking/cleaning and bargain hunting. In fact at work I used to carry the nickname ‘asknatalie.com’, and I was often approached for advice on a number of topics like present ideas, places to go to eat out and discount deals.

A year ago, I made the biggest decision of my life to give up my job (and the very attractive pay packet that went with it!) to spend time with my children. It was without doubt the best decision I have ever made. Of course I sometimes have days where I am exasperated, exhausted, and think it would be easier to go to work, but on the whole, the love, laughs and time spent with the children has been worth every moment.

I also decided that after years of devoting all my energies to a job that left almost no time for anything else, I wanted to spend a little time pursuing a hobby or two, just for me. One of those long-held wishes was that I had always wanted to write. No idea of topic of genre but just a general feeling. At first I took a couple of creative writing courses when I stopped work. I loved it, but we then decided to move house and take on a huge renovation project, so I decided that this was not going to be the year of the novel!

Then a friend of mine set up a blog. When I looked at it I was blown away, and was more than a little envious of her talent. Still I did nothing further because I thought it would be too tricky. In particular I am fairly hopeless at anything IT based.

In April, hubby was working late a lot, and one evening, I was on wordpress, reading my friends blog, when I saw the little button suggesting you set your own one up. Which got me thinking, what would I write about?

I had a think about this for a few days. I am passionate about cooking, but I like to break recipes down and make them simple quite and easy. Often I will write in the recipe books but if you asked me a month later I will have forgotten what I have done and when. In addition to all the cooking, I am a big fan of ‘getting a bargain’, and I also love picking up and trading household tips and shortcuts. So I decided that for the content of the blog, I wanted it to be a helping hand for the time pressed, mainly mummies, but really anyone that is interested in food, or getting a good deal, or getting housework done in half the time.

Thinking of a name that conveyed all of the above was not easy. Eventually after brainstorming and consulting with a few friends I settled on Mummyinahurry, as I felt it really just about sums me up (and many many others I am sure).

So after all that agonising, I just pressed the button, set up the blog and just started writing. I am still finding my feet with the technology. I have learned how to do photos and links, but that’s about it. Not sure if I am really settled on the format, and I want to get some graphics done for the header, but not really sure about how to go about that (any tips gratefully received)

I didn’t think too much about this being anything more than my personal database. After a few days, I decided to tell a few friends. Before I knew it they told a few friends and so it goes on.

After a couple of weeks I found a stats button and was amazed at the number of ‘views’. But when I spoke to my friends about the blog it turned out, they didn’t really look much at all. So I began to wonder who it was out there looking at my blog and how did they find it?

I started mid-April. The first month I had over 500 views. I thought that would be the initial interest from friends and family, but it was still wildly beyond my expectations. I was fully expecting it to drop a little in May, but by the end of the month there were over 1000 views and I am (almost) speechless. And more than a little thrilled to be honest

I also started looking at other blogs, primarily to admire their layout and formatting (!) and just to get an idea of what was out there. I have to confess I stayed up far too late on many a night reading other peoples blogs. I was amazed at the community that there is amongst bloggers, and the warm welcome and encouragement I have had from others. One kind bloggee (you know who you are YummyMummyNo1) even encouraged me join in the 24/7 party that is twitter, and i have found and made a whole host of new friends through that.

So, overall, I am delighted that I can share a bit of my life with the rest of you out there in the blogosphere, and that I get to look through the window of your lives on your blogs too. I am such a ‘road to Damascus’ convert, I have persuaded a couple of my friends to set up blogs too!.

I think there is one word that sums it all up nicely. Blogtastic!

Now I am off to have a glass of wine (bought on a special offer, obviously!) Cheers!!