Blogging: What I’ve Learned from Year One

I’m celebrating my Blog-iversery, y’all! My first post What does it mean to have an Indisposbable Life? was published on April 18th, 2025. I’d like to look back at one year of blogging right now.

Oh wait…we might have to go back even further. Writing has always been a hobby, passion, and cathartic for me. I remember writing short stories even as a child (something about a mouse in the house, a Frog and Toad fanfiction, and a Sesame Street birthday party story). I wrote for school newspapers, went to school writing conferences, and joined a writer’s group in college. I was always working on a “story” of some type. Maybe one day one of those will get finished and become a novel! 

I’ve heard a lot of women say that when they have a baby they lose track of something that makes them them. I can understand it…babies are demanding, your hormones are out-of-wack (why does no one ever say they are “in-wack” when they’re feeling balanced?), your sleep is probably all over the place, and you don’t have time or energy to concentrate on you.

It was about two months after B.G. was born that I started writing again. I had been dabbling here and there for awhile and had another blog in pre-Covid days about exploring bars, restaurants, and events around New Orleans. But in the quiet mornings when my husband had gone off to work and B.G. was sleeping, I started grabbing my computer and writing. I wrote when she would nap, the two of us on the couch, with her lying between my legs and the back cushion. In February and March, I wrote the articles in the Origins section, and the articles My Pregnancy Journey, Top Ten Things I Wish I Knew Before I Gave Birth, and Breastfeeding Journey. They were things I was still processing and writing helps to do that. 

I had wanted a six week blog article buffer and believed I was ready. So, early April, I purchased the Indisposable Life domain and decided to use Squarespace to manage my site. I had a little experience with it before and thought it would be the easiest. Turns out, Squarespace is not “meant” for bloggers just blogging. It’s a seller’s tool. I was able to set up different pages and enjoyed customizing things, but it was clumsy. On April 18th, my blog technically went live. I continued to work on it, writing the Origins section and getting a few others ready. On June 2nd, I felt confident enough to share it with the world via Facebook.

It plodded on. I posted articles every Monday and Thursday for a few weeks. And then, if you’ve been here since the beginning, you might remember that it stopped suddenly. I realized that the posts weren’t saving to the different categories like I wanted to. I tried troubleshooting and couldn’t figure it out. I emailed customer service with limited help. They probably would have been more helpful, but the process of emailing back and forth to troubleshoot was also frustrating.  

But I really wanted this blog to go somewhere, so I kept coming back to it. One night, on the same part of the sofa where I wrote those early blog posts (though B.G. was asleep in her crib, not next to me), I was fiddling around in the “Categories” section of the blog pages. I realized a few things: first, a few of my categories’ URLs had been saved still with Squarespace’s example, not how I wanted them to be. Second, on the “Recipes and DIY” category, when saving the posts, I used an ampersand, but on the URL, I wrote out the word “and”. I fixed those things and found my posts appearing neatly where they should be. I nearly cried. My blog could get up and going again. 

Since then, it’s been (pretty) consistent. Goals for the Year Two of blogging include a monthly email newsletter and getting a few week buffer on posts. Stay tuned!

Thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to read my posts, whether you’ve been here since the beginning or you just pop on once and awhile. It means a lot!

Thanks for reading!

💜

Laura