Reactiviating this blog?
I'm posting for the first time in several years because I've been bitten by blogging fever again. But here's the deal. The only niche this blog is going to fill now is that it will be written from the perspective of a Christian woman. Because what has hit me is that "Christian" and "woman" are the two things that define me more than anything else. Close behind is wife, stepmother and grandmother.
But notice I said "step." That means I had a long life (38 years to be specific) where the mommy thing wasn't something that defined me, and when that changed these stepchildren were 17 and 19. Now they are 37 and 38. I've been a fifth grandparent to their children since the first one was born almost nine years ago. No doubt about it there. But motherhood itself has never been my passion the way it is for some Christian mothers and grandmothers in the blogosphere.
My own grandmother was still alive then, so that's why I started Grandmother, Granddaughter on a blog connected to my other email address. I recognized it as highly unusual to both have a granddaughter and be the granddaughter of a living woman. Since my stepdaughter and her baby were in Colorado then we didn't see much of them. My stories were more about my adventures with my Grandma, who only lived about four hours away from me. But she died just over a year after I became a grandmother. And I had very little to write about my experiences as either a granddaughter or a grandmother.
I eventually, without changing the name of that blog, transitioned it to a blog about my new passion, art journaling. I had been a scrapbooker before I started blogging, but scrapbooking requires you to pay for photo printing and in my mind, lots of new supplies. I felt (still do) that art journaling is more freeing, and I could use the mountain of scrapbooking supplies I already had to create new items of beauty without matching them to specific photographs. But I haven't blogged about that since 2014. I'm not sure why.
This blog is called Pen Porter (for now). It was previously entirely about my content writing service, Pen Porter. I tried to make a go at making that a self-supporting business for about four years from 2013 to 2017. But I had to accept it was just not going to happen, for a variety of reasons. I also have not written in this blog since 2014. I believe I may have had another blog when I had a penporter.com website, but that's ancient history now too.
I have another blog connected to my alternate email, just as Granddaughter, Grandmother is. That one, Good, Fresh and Cheap is about cooking. I've made a few more stabs at that one over the years, and my last posts on it are only from last year. Cooking remains a passion for me. So I could see some of what I want to blog about appearing on the other blog. But I don't see me diving in on that one anymore than I have in the past.
So why will this no niche in particular attempt at revising this former business blog work? Because I'm seeing something I haven't noticed before. And that is, as a woman who has been committed to Jesus Christ for well over 30 years now, I have a lot to say about Him.
And not to be arrogant, but I think my combination of life experiences will help me to say it well. When I accepted the Lord as my Savior in college, I was already a journalism major. I worked for almost 20 years in that field, and have also been a journalism teacher for a charter school, a media relations specialist for a public relations company and a marketing manager for a local non-profit organization. As well as trying to make my own content writing business work. And I've occasionally served as a writer and editor for my current church, Sandals Church of Riverside, as well as in the past, two others.
Plus I've been a Christian for 36 years. I've been married to a man who has a Masters in Divinity for almost 20 years. So I've learned quite a bit about theological issues from him as well as from my own study and life observations. Why am I keeping all this knowledge to myself?
I've even had two Christians, one recently, one longer ago ask me to, basically, write their blogs. Without compensation, so the answer was no. I mean should I ask a Christian who works in a clothing store to give me clothes? Or a Christian who sells homes to sell mine without a commission?
To me, these dear friends were asking something similar of me. It would have been even more work, because I would have to write it, let them massage my work to presumably put their own voice into it, and then post it for them and monitor any traffic their blogs generated. One would have had a lot of traffic and required me to get into monetization and other bells and whistles you see on the most professional of blogs. The other I would have needed to work his social media accounts to get any blog traffic going at all. Which is what I'll have to do for this blog too.
So I will post this introduction here. It will get zero reads, just like all the posts below it. But hopefully very soon - next Monday at the latest - I'll be back to tell you how I'm letting Christ's power enhance my life and the lives of those around me.
Have a blessed day!
But notice I said "step." That means I had a long life (38 years to be specific) where the mommy thing wasn't something that defined me, and when that changed these stepchildren were 17 and 19. Now they are 37 and 38. I've been a fifth grandparent to their children since the first one was born almost nine years ago. No doubt about it there. But motherhood itself has never been my passion the way it is for some Christian mothers and grandmothers in the blogosphere.
My own grandmother was still alive then, so that's why I started Grandmother, Granddaughter on a blog connected to my other email address. I recognized it as highly unusual to both have a granddaughter and be the granddaughter of a living woman. Since my stepdaughter and her baby were in Colorado then we didn't see much of them. My stories were more about my adventures with my Grandma, who only lived about four hours away from me. But she died just over a year after I became a grandmother. And I had very little to write about my experiences as either a granddaughter or a grandmother.
I eventually, without changing the name of that blog, transitioned it to a blog about my new passion, art journaling. I had been a scrapbooker before I started blogging, but scrapbooking requires you to pay for photo printing and in my mind, lots of new supplies. I felt (still do) that art journaling is more freeing, and I could use the mountain of scrapbooking supplies I already had to create new items of beauty without matching them to specific photographs. But I haven't blogged about that since 2014. I'm not sure why.
This blog is called Pen Porter (for now). It was previously entirely about my content writing service, Pen Porter. I tried to make a go at making that a self-supporting business for about four years from 2013 to 2017. But I had to accept it was just not going to happen, for a variety of reasons. I also have not written in this blog since 2014. I believe I may have had another blog when I had a penporter.com website, but that's ancient history now too.
I have another blog connected to my alternate email, just as Granddaughter, Grandmother is. That one, Good, Fresh and Cheap is about cooking. I've made a few more stabs at that one over the years, and my last posts on it are only from last year. Cooking remains a passion for me. So I could see some of what I want to blog about appearing on the other blog. But I don't see me diving in on that one anymore than I have in the past.
So why will this no niche in particular attempt at revising this former business blog work? Because I'm seeing something I haven't noticed before. And that is, as a woman who has been committed to Jesus Christ for well over 30 years now, I have a lot to say about Him.
And not to be arrogant, but I think my combination of life experiences will help me to say it well. When I accepted the Lord as my Savior in college, I was already a journalism major. I worked for almost 20 years in that field, and have also been a journalism teacher for a charter school, a media relations specialist for a public relations company and a marketing manager for a local non-profit organization. As well as trying to make my own content writing business work. And I've occasionally served as a writer and editor for my current church, Sandals Church of Riverside, as well as in the past, two others.
Plus I've been a Christian for 36 years. I've been married to a man who has a Masters in Divinity for almost 20 years. So I've learned quite a bit about theological issues from him as well as from my own study and life observations. Why am I keeping all this knowledge to myself?
I've even had two Christians, one recently, one longer ago ask me to, basically, write their blogs. Without compensation, so the answer was no. I mean should I ask a Christian who works in a clothing store to give me clothes? Or a Christian who sells homes to sell mine without a commission?
To me, these dear friends were asking something similar of me. It would have been even more work, because I would have to write it, let them massage my work to presumably put their own voice into it, and then post it for them and monitor any traffic their blogs generated. One would have had a lot of traffic and required me to get into monetization and other bells and whistles you see on the most professional of blogs. The other I would have needed to work his social media accounts to get any blog traffic going at all. Which is what I'll have to do for this blog too.
So I will post this introduction here. It will get zero reads, just like all the posts below it. But hopefully very soon - next Monday at the latest - I'll be back to tell you how I'm letting Christ's power enhance my life and the lives of those around me.
Have a blessed day!
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