Survey Thanks & Blog Purpose/Update

Thanks so much to those of you who have taken the survey thus far (see below for the survey post with the link if you haven’t had a chance to take it yet). I’m so incredibly glad I found this survey site (and now I can’t even remember or find whose blog I originally did a survey on and learned about this nifty, and FREE, site!!). I’m so totally psyched about this.

So again, thanks to those who completed the quick survey. I’m so happy to have your feedback. It’s very helpful!

I’ve noticed a few others in the blogworld talking about purpose recently. Read Melanie’s at Tales from the Crib or Emily at Chatting at the Sky, Part 1 or Part 2. I’m glad I’m not the only one re-thinking a few things.

I’ve debated for a while about all this blog stuff. At one point I was sharing a lot about my personal life, including pictures, but not include names of towns, exactly where I live or work, etc. (I mean, after all, Chicagoland is a pretty broad term!) I decided to start a separate blog related to photography, but it didn’t get much traffic and I didn’t feel up to spending as much time on its upkeep as was needed. In the meantime, the traffic here was picking up so I pulled back even more from the photography-amateur-blog-attempt. Also at the beginning of this year, when I was more bound and determined than ever to lose weight (and miserably failed at it), I started a separate weight loss blog. I didn’t think clogging this blog up with all those personal stories, pictures, and weight loss info would be ideal.

So… right now I’m not sure if I can continue to keep up with those other two blogs. Also some of the comments I’ve received are that people wish I’d share more personal stuff on this blog. That surprised me because early on when I was doing so, I heard from some that they wanted to hear more about the Fibro, how it affects me, how I deal with it, etc. I seemed to get higher traffic whenever I talked about Fibro. So, I started swinging that direction instead and pulled back on the personal stuff.

And now I feel like maybe I should go the way of more personal stuff again. But quite frankly, I’m confused. I’m not sure what to think and am getting mixed messages. That’s perfectly fine, I want to get feedback, most definitely. It just means I’m stepping back and mulling things over a little.

I really appreciate the thoughts about adding in more personal stories & pictures, but on the other hand, I was recently asked to join an amazing group of health bloggers. It would bring a much larger audience to this blog, and help a ton more people with Fibromyalgia and other chronic illnesses. That makes me wonder whether or not I should keep this solely as a Fibro/health blog so that I’m not giving such easy access to my personal information to possibly 10 million plus viewers… and just condense to one separate blog geared at my personal life/writing/pictures. OR just keep this blog, get rid of the other two, and just be more discretionary as to what I post. OR throw all the ideas out the window, and just fully be myself, as I am, right here, whenever/whatever I want to post.

BIG SIGH……………

Needless to say, I need a little time to ponder. Please feel free to fill out the survey and let me know what you think, or you can leave a comment here (survey is anonymous; here I know who you are unless you sign in anonymously—so whichever way you prefer is fine by me). I do appreciate hearing your thoughts, as you are my readers and I care about what you want to hear about from me.

I appreciate you all! Thanks for the support. Be back soon.