I started writing a blog post this morning and went off on several tangents, ending up with the beginnings of about three posts, all under one title.

One of them was about the original purpose of a blog post. A blog post is supposed to inform the reader about a topic, share useful information and help the reader in some way. It can provide or promote a service.

If that is the case, what service am I providing with my blog? What wisdom am I imparting? How am I helping you?

<Crickets>

Follow me on my train of thought, if you will. In 2020, I started a blog as a retrospective memoir-type project, chronicling my childhood memories. I expected it to take much longer than it did to complete this project. I think I probably shared much less information than I had originally intended; just the few moments that really jumped out at me as significant. But I only just scratched the surface, kind of summarized. Which is fine. Maybe you don’t need the entire, unabridged story. Maybe I about covered it.

But in what way was I providing a service? I wasn’t, really. I guess you could say I was promoting myself as a writer. The whole reason I started the project was to practice using a content management system and add WordPress to my resume.

When I “ran out” of what I believed were noteworthy stories about my past, I began writing about the present, and my project became more of just a public journal. I did talk a lot about my own fashion faux pas while I worked at TJ Maxx, but that was about the extent of my helpfulness at that point.

Next, I transitioned to Hutchinson and talked extensively about work, work friends, and carpal tunnel syndrome. But again, no services rendered. Just me, talking about me.

I initiated a side project, a blog about home organizing, called Handy Dandy Household Tips, later changing the name to Leah Comes Clean. Here, I wrote actual, well-structured posts on how to effectively manage clutter and reviewed items on the market for organization. Finally, I was doing something that could be considered useful to someone else. However, the project was short lived, as the work was more intensive and the plan was more expensive.

When I went back to teaching, I tried to start a lighthearted, humorous blog about education. That went over like a fart in church. Nobody understood my humor, and people fixated on my admission that teaching middle schoolers is challenging. Are you going to tell me it isn’t?

Listen, I don’t care how talented you are, 13-14 is a tough age group, anyone with a pulse knows that! I didn’t say it was bad or that I couldn’t do it. For the record, I held my own. It was not the children that sent me packing.

But I digress.

Finally, here we are, back to glorified public journal.

I guess it would just be nice if I had something more to offer you than whatever I feel like editorializing that day. The organizing blog could have been pretty good, maybe. I think I might’ve been worried about running out of ideas. I know I was concerned about exhausting time and money.

But I could run the blog for free. It just wouldn’t have a fancy domain, which would be okay, it doesn’t need one. I wouldn’t have plug-ins, which is fine. I wouldn’t post more than once a week, which is also probably fine with all of you, right?

I’m wondering if maybe I should pick that blog back up. I still love to organize. My house could use more cool organizing, storage, and space-saving strategies. It’s the perfect situation for storage: medium size, we have a ton of stuff, lots of storage capacity that we’re not necessarily maximizing, yet.

Something to think about.