About four years ago, as the world was still dealing with the effects of the COVID pandemic, I started a blog. I’ll be honest now. I wanted it to become “big.” I wanted it to be popular, similar to the food blogs I read and visit online often.
It didn’t take me long to realize that running and maintaining a food blog of that caliber is a full time job. And unless I was willing and able to put in the work, that it would be a long shot for me to achieve that goal. I guess I assumed that it would happen overnight. How delusional I was!
Blogging
Earlier today, I started working on what will become my first true baking related post since November of 2023. And writing that post got me thinking about this site and whether I wanted to continue it or not.
Do I still enjoy baking to do it often enough to create fresh content each month? Do I want to take the time to then write the posts and take the photos? (People don’t realize how much goes into writing these posts, even after the dishes are dried and the sweet treats eaten.)
I’ve gone back and forth over the last couple of days with these questions. The renewal for the site is just around the corner. While keeping this site up and running costs less than $10 per month, I’ve looked back on my writing this year and I realized that I haven’t really posted that often. In fact, this blog post is only the 7th for the year. 7 posts! And it’s practically October! 8 posts is a far cry from the nearly 150 I made in 2021 and the close to 80 in 2022.
I can now see in real-time my interest in this blog waxes and wanes. It changes with the seasons and the seasons of my life. I started working full time in June 2023, and lost my guaranteed day off each week. Add to how few Saturdays I had to work back then and it meant that I typically had a three day weekend each week. That all translates to a lot of time for baking and blogging and still time to do everything else I had or wanted to do.
I knew things would change once I started working full time. But I figured my love of baking would proceed and my love of sharing online for my small handful of devoted readers would continue. Less than a year later, I switched jobs again and now have a more consistent schedule. I’m still working full time, but I’m off every other Friday since I work every other Saturday.
I thought that consistency would help me maintain the baking bug. Up until recently, it hasn’t really happened.
As we settle into the colder, darker half of the year. I can almost promise that I’ll be spending more time indoors. I have dozens of cookbooks sitting on the shelves of one of my bookcases. In fact, some of the shelves are sinking under their weight. I think as autumn returns and slowly drifts into the days that feel ever-darker, I’ll be turning to my cookbooks–my old friends–for comfort and joy.
I’m giving the site one more year.
I have two goals over the next year. And it isn’t to make all of Ina Garten’s recipes or only make the recipes from a single cookbook. I’ve tried doing that. It was fun and sure, it would be a great accomplishment. But it isn’t for me.
So instead, my two goals are to post at least once per month. A meaningful, baking post like the one I did earlier this week.
The other goal is to enjoy the process.
And perhaps, next September when the blog turns 5, I’ll have more to say. I may fall back in love with blogging over the next twelve months and will be sitting here on September 30, 2025 with the thought of ending the blog far from my mind.
But for some reason, I don’t think that is going to happen.
