Behind The Scenes Of This Blog
I have had the privilege of working with Wayfair for a couple of years now. In July, I had the opportunity to be featured in their Blogger Spotlight and decided to share with YOU why I blog and what motivates me each day! Enjoy…
Homemaker Blogger Spotlight: Only By Grace
I am a 32-year-old semi-stay-at-home-mom, I’ve been married to my husband and best friend for 10 years, and we have a one-year-old daughter. We live in a very small town in rural Minnesota; I work part-time as an elementary secretary and enjoy the simple things in life – the things money can’t buy. Becoming a parent and living the life we do has only been because of grace, and that is the very thing I love to blog about.
I started a personal blog about six years ago, to keep my family informed about our life, since miles separated us. After a move from Michigan to Minnesota, I decided to start an organizing website after realizing we had way too many possessions that did not fit in our moving truck. I had the urge to purge and figured blogging about it would be a great way to keep me motivated. After having a specific organizing blog for 2 ½ years, I decided to combine my personal and organizing blog into one, which is now www.kristinsterk.com. Plus, time was hard to come by after having a baby, so combining the two blogs and creating a new one was the best decision I could have made!
Time. Blogging is never-ending, in a good way! There is always something to tweak, something to enhance, and something to write. Finding quality and uninterrupted time to do those very things can be difficult. I would encourage anyone who wants to start blogging to realize that it is worth every minute, but it takes many many hours. It truly is worth it though.
Spending time with my family! Whether going on bike rides, walks, exploring new areas, or just sitting outside watching our daughter play in the dirt, we treasure that time together. I enjoy sports, purging and organizing our home, making cards, baking, and just being a homemaker. I also enjoy helping my husband in his position as a youth pastor, as we walk alongside youth as they navigate life.
Many of my post ideas come not from intentionally sitting down and trying to come up with something, but from living everyday life. For example, while on a walk, an idea will pop into my head, so I go home and quick jot some ideas down. During a given day, I may see something that needs organizing, make or bake something new, and want share it with my readers. I would encourage any blogger to just look at your life, look at your house, your kids, and ask, “Can any of this be transformed into a blog post?”
A genuine, real life experience. It is easy to fabricate a so-called perfect life through blogging, but that is not real life (at least not for me). I feel that being honest and forward about the mundane, the struggles, but also the simplest joys, are what an everyday life consists of. I may talk a lot about organizing, parenting, my faith, and our everyday life, but I hope that as people read my blog, that they feel they know me personally – not some fabricated person.
As a blogger, I think it is in our nature to constantly compare ourselves to other bloggers. In creating content, I have learned that the most detrimental thing I can do to myself and to my blog is to compare. Comparing only makes me someone I am not, so I really have been striving to just write about our life and not think about how our life compares to other’s lives.