The Best Part of Being a Blogger

The best part of being a blogger is the amount of love that goes around the blogging community. Once you find your blogging niche and tribe, the support, friendship and love of fellow writers knows no bounds. When I started writing this post, I almost began with ‘What surprised me so much about blogging,’ but then I stopped and thought about whether I actually was surprised. You hear a lot about things like ‘Mommy Wars’, or casually cruel comments online and women trying to tear each other down. Maybe we have become so used to hearing about all this nastiness that we forget if you look at your own life, the women in it are most likely all loving, supportive and kind towards each other – am I right? (If they’re not, you might want to reassess those relationships).

The best part of being a blogger? It means I’m doubly lucky to have some amazing women in my real life, as well as my online life (and it’s the best when it spills over and you meet your blog friends in real life, like here and here and here). It’s also a difficult concept to explain to a non-blogger. I’m aware it sounds odd, for example, that I ‘know’ people through Instagram and feel invested in their life and chat with them back and forth through our pictures. I love searching hashtags on Twitter and sharing all my friends’ amazing articles. And don’t get me started on Pinterest, I love it and once I find a blogger I love, I pin with abandon (Hi, Lisa!). I should also point out that there are lots of amazing male bloggers, some of whom I love reading – I’m referring to women in this post because it’s overwhelmingly a female field, at least in our realm of healthy living and running.

Most of all though, it’s rewarding to read someone’s blog, to know what’s going on in their life, as well as learn from them and be inspired by them. And when that blogger reads your posts too, then that’s the start of a solid friendship right there.

 

{Okay, technically this quote is about hockey, but the point is love can overcome all the negative aspects of whatever it is you want to do. If you love it, it will be rewarding.}

So for today’s post, I wanted to share the love. Something that happens often in the blog world is a concept called Link Love. It’s pretty self-explanatory – a list of links to great articles you love. And really, that sums up what I’m expressing about what a gift blogging can be. That it’s about sharing your own content and point-of-view and life, yes, but also about sharing that of others in the community. Just because. Just out of love.

Some of the bloggers here are those I consider old friends. And some are new-to-me bloggers I’ve met recently through various online courses, or just from clicking on a comment in a friend’s blog. I hope you find some new favorites among the links:

is for Looking at beauty and strength through a new lens. I actually saw the ESPN picture of Olympic athlete Amanda Bingson on Nellie’s Facebook page. So I was excited to read more about why Bingson is Nellie’s Shero.

 is for ItzLinz and her new venture into being a representative for Ava Anderson Non-Toxic – a company that has created products with no harmful chemicals for your baby, body, face, home, pet, car and more. Lindsay has a baby boy at home and realized how many chemicals are in our everyday products, which inspired her new business. I love her passion!

 is for Not giving up when it gets hard. Right now, for me, running is hard. Not only is coming back postpartum hard, I also seem to have the beginning of a hamstring issue in my left leg, so I’ve sidelined myself again, so terrified that something small could turn into weeks of no running. So Wendy’s post about running being humbling struck a chord with me.

 is for Kids and the crazy things they think and say. I read this Q&A that Allie did with her twin boys and thought it was hysterical. I simultaneously desperately want to try this with Roman and am terrified to hear his responses. He asked me last week if I could take his photo to put on Instagram – he knows what his blogger-mama is up to!! 😉 K is also for kittens! Abby explains why she’s a foster mama to kitties – I love this idea, I have a couple of friends who foster animals. I love my cats so much and know they’ve gone through trauma with the addition of kids to our household that I don’t think I could put them through this as well, but it would be something I’d love to do when mine (earmuffs for my cats) ‘pass on’.

 is for Loving the brainchild of Sarah and Jesica – the inaugural Run. Rise. Retreat. I’m not going to lie, I hope I win (and am also hoping the fact that I entered every single one of the ten giveaways didn’t hurt my chances)! But you should enter too – entries close today, so check out any of the bloggers involved to win the final spot at a women runner’s retreat in Maine, to run the half marathon and be inspired by some amazing ladies.

 is for Om. On a Paddleboard. A couple of weeks ago, Brittany posted her original bucket list after baby post and inspired herself to cross something off the list: SUP yoga. Her photos are gorgeous, it looks amazing and I am so impressed she has dry hair in every picture – photographic evidence of excellent balance. Also, every time I see ‘SUP Yoga’ written, I think to myself , “Hey, ‘sup, yoga? How’ve you been?” And it makes me smile.

 is for varying your workout and trying one of these at-home workouts from Tamara. They’re minimal equipment and after checking out her videos, I realized I have all the equipment necessary for all three. Plus, they look challenging and fun and she uses a couple of exercises that are definitely my go-to, along with some I haven’t tried in forever.

 is for Enough. Carla Birnberg and Roni Noone wrote a book based on their concept of What You Can, When You Can. If I ever get to the point of reading anything other than my one book club book a month (plus blogs), I plan on reading it! (And there’s WYCWYC in action right there).

Two questions today:

Bloggers, do you agree that this positivity has overwhelmingly been your experience? (Leave a link to something you’ve read that you want to share if you want to carry on the link love).

Non-Bloggers, do you think bloggers are crazy when they talk about someone they know only online as a friend?