Last year I teamed up with some of my favorite bloggers and we worked together to bring you the Five Simple Ways project. I’m so excited because we are doing it again this year!

Stop by Friday for my tips for 5 Simple Ways to Make the Most of Your Pictures in 2012. I’ll also be linking to the other bloggers participating. You’ll want to catch them all!

Just in case you missed our 2011 series, we converted it into a free ebook just for our readers.

If you want to learn how to use coupons, take better photos, live a healthier lifestyle, dress for less, decorate on a dime, get organized and much more you’ll want to download the Free Five Simple Ways Ebook.

You can download the print version here.

Or, view the web version with convenient links.

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for my tips on how do more with your pictures in 2012!

Sometimes I try to dig some story out of the recesses of my brain, already too cluttered with appointments, remembering where things are, and the current ages of my children. All too often, nothing will surface. There are only faded edges. I pull the string only to find it breaks before revealing much at all.

For so long I’ve felt this is where the real story lives, back behind the clutter of today, it’s yesterday’s story and it unravels neatly with proper twists and turns as a story should. For some people, that’s where they find a story. But for me, right now in this place, the story lives in close comfort.

I read that The Nester is doing her 31 days series again in October and this time she is encouraging us to do our own 31 series. When I read that I immediately thought, 31 days of telling your story. And right after it popped into my mind I was terrified, because I knew I wanted to write it, knew I needed to write it, but was terrified I couldn’t write it.

Which is why I’m telling you I’m going to do it, in order to push myself through this fear and do something that scares me, something that challenges me, and hopefully something that will help me (and you) tell a story.

31 days of telling your story. Coming with trembling fingers in October.

It seems that I’ve had a bit of a writing crisis lately. No, I haven’t written about it. I haven’t made any kind of “Writer’s block” announcements here. Mostly I’ve just ignored it and hoped it would go away. This is my approach to 90% of my problems, and most of the time it works.

Part of it has to do with starting my business and focusing a lot of my brain power in that area. I really only have so much brain power to spare, and with so much of it thinking about photography, marketing, and business, I’m not writing as many posts in my head like I used to. (That was a real time-saver.) Therefore, when I sit down at my computer each night, I have nothing. Day after day I have nothing. Sometimes I force myself to write because it has always been my theory that the more you write, the more you are able to write. But even that theory seemed lame now.

I read Unmarketing and Scott Stratten says something along the lines of, if you have nothing to say, don’t blog. I kind of felt that it didn’t really apply to me. My blog isn’t a business, but his words lingered in my mind. Now that I do have a business, even though this isn’t the first impression most of my clients will see, it is a part of me and my brand. I felt torn between needing to be less chatty and more focused as a professional.

Today I finally talked about this problem on Google + of all places. It’s new. It’s quiet. It still feels sort of like a private conversation over there where I can hash out problems like this and find my own answers.

I wrote this:

i’m feeling like my blog is aimless. this never bothered me before, writing without a point…not having a niche, no big deal till now.
i rarely have anything of value to say, and yet i’ve always enjoyed blogging, fleshing out my thoughts at the end of the day was for me, a way of journaling, collecting my thoughts of the day.
i guess i need to evaluate my reasons for blogging and figure out my purpose. i go back and forth between wanting to help people (learn something new…) and just wanting to talk out loud.
is there meaning to what i’m doing? and if so, what is it?

There’s something magical about typing something out loud. It sort of clears your head. Right after I wrote that something specific came to mind. About a week or two ago, Suzanne posted this on my facebook page:

I just ran across this post in your “you might also like” links on your blog. I remember reading it last year, but I think I might love it all the more now. One of my favorites.

After she posted that and I read the post, my first thought was that I used to write much better than I do now. It wasn’t until today that I realized why this post was so special to me. It was a perfect snapshot of our life that day. Reading it brought back all those memories that I would have completely forgotten if I hadn’t written them down.

As much as I’d like to be the kind of blogger that really blogs for you, the blogger posts helpful advice, great tips, and fun crafty ideas, I’m just not that kind of blogger.

It’s something I knew all along but I had to sort through all this just to come back to the original reason I started blogging. I do it for me, to remember. I do it to create these little snapshots of my life right now, day by day.

Every time I click publish it’s just as satisfying as clicking my camera shutter and what I capture is just as meaningful, my story.

I rarely take the time to blog on Sundays because we get up and run to church then we come home and have potluck dinner with my family then, if i’m lucky, i sneak in a nap before evening services. But today I’m home with a still sick Tess.

Today I’m going to share some links from my reading this week.

Blogging – Making Friends and Money. My friends Suzanne has written a series for new bloggers. If you just started blogging or want to start a blog and have questions. This series is for you. This is the last post, but she links to the others at the end.

Mer-ish. A local friend has started a blog. I don’t know of many people in this small area where I live who blog, so it’s neat when someone starts.

Bad Taste: Coke Products Withdrawn in St. Louis. You know my adoration for a cold can of Coke over ice every day. Well, yesterday on our way to yard sales, I opened my can, poured it over ice then was met with a shockingly horrible taste. It tasted like chemicals or what I presume poison would taste like. AWFUL! I googled it when I got home and this is what I found. But it’s only one can in my 24 pack because I’ve already had the others and they are fine. So weird and disturbing. Almost turned me off Coke forever!

Hey ya’ll thanks for linking up on my Saturday Morning Confessions post. I might add a linky next week. Is anyone interested?

{I started this post this morning while I was home alone with Tess. Turns out when you have to hold your kid the whole time you don’t get to do much typing. Finally finished at 4:17 this afternoon.}

Winner of the Funky Polkadot Giraffe $20 store credit: Maury

Winner of the Ruffled Skirt: Wendy-Jannelle

The problem is, I can’t write on my facebook fan page and I was going to do some giveaways today over there. It’s so sad because I had high hopes of making it to 500 fans today (Ruthanne is snorting about this because I’m at 457 and she is doubtful that 50 people are going to randomly like me today.) Look, it could happen. (Ruthanne is here today with me and we are having so much fun eating homemade thin mints, chatting and being mean to each other).

Ruthanne has also informed me that there are real people behind facebook so I”m going to try to email one of them about the problem so those 50 people can hurry up and like me.

Instead of facebook, I am going to use Ruthanne’s guest post as my facebook page. Leave me a comment on that post (not this one). You can tell me what’s on your birthday list. I got an iphone. iLOVE it!

Go comment and I’ll pick one or three of you to win a $10 Amazon gift card. winners have been selected.