I don’t know why 10 years is hitting me so hard! I’ve been feeling all kinds of emotions this week as I look back and think about everything it took to start the blog and get it to where it is today! What a journey it has been. For so long, I felt varied amounts of not enough-ness when it came to being a food blogger…there are so many bloggers doing it so much better than me. However, all of this reflection has left me feeling SO.DANG.PROUD of myself! In fact, I’m getting tears in my eyes just typing that out. 

I’ve debated about how in-depth to take this post. Should I really share every detail about why I started the blog? Should I stick to the highlights? Does anyone even care? Will anyone even take the time to read it? 

DON’T FORGET TO SCROLL DOWN TO THE END OF THE POST FOR THE GIVEAWAY INFO

Ultimately, I’ve decided to share it all, but make it a condensed bathroom book edition, so you can get through it while you hide in your closet, bathroom, or pantry for a minute. Don’t forget some chocolate.

Here we go…

If you are an OG Real Life Dinner fan, you know that I was part of The Mother Huddle (a blog my friend, Destri, started in 2008). She asked me to contribute a recipe a week. I didn’t know how to blog. So she showed me how to get into the backend of the blog to type up the post, and then she did everything else. There were 4 of us who contributed to The Mother Huddle. It was a great site. Unfortunately, it no longer exists, but without that experience, I never would have felt like I could go out on my own and start a blog. In fact, I never EVER would have even thought about it.

After about 4 years of posting once a week for Destri, she started telling me that I should start my own blog. I would literally scoff and laugh every time she brought it up because I really didn’t have a clue how to do that, and I knew it. She told me she would help me, but at this point, we lived thousands of miles from each other, so I really didn’t even seriously consider it.

In the early spring of 2012, I was sitting in a church meeting about missionary work. During that meeting, I had a very clear voice come into my mind that said, “Start a blog and use some of the money to help support missionary work.” I was taken aback, but also knew I needed to take that message seriously. My heart has always been directed to helping others, and I knew there were people whose lives would be dramatically impacted if I chose to listen to that message.

At this point in our lives, we were living in a townhouse and saving every penny to hopefully buy a house in the near future. I knew that starting a blog would take about $500-$600 upfront, and at the time, that might as well have been a million. I just couldn’t feel right about spending that much money on something when we were trying so hard to save.

An interesting thing happened. A month or so later, I got in a car accident. I wasn’t hurt, but the car was totaled and the insurance company gave us a payout check for the car. After we bought a replacement car, there were about $800 left. I took that as my sign to use the extra money and start a blog. 

For a tech-illiterate person like myself, it was excruciating to figure out how to start a blog. I had four young kids ranging from 1-7 years old, so I was staying up super late after putting them to bed to figure everything out. For three weeks straight, I was up until at least 2 or 3 in the morning. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, and there were multiple times when I was in tears wanting to throw in the towel. It was like trying to learn a foreign language and create something all at the same time. Even today if I were told I needed to start a new blog, I would probably break down in tears at the thought of figuring that all out again. 

Finally, after a couple of months of trying my best to make sure everything was working correctly, I decided to hit publish on my first post. I was lucky to have people who knew me from The Mother Huddle follow me to Real Life Dinner. So after about a year, I was getting enough page views to apply for an ad network. I remember getting my first payout from the ad network. It was $411 for one month, which was so exciting after having only the Google Ads for that first year and averaging about $70-$75 a month during that time. 

Those first few years of blogging were so much work. I knew that being consistent was really important for growth, so I kept myself to a strict schedule and posted 3 times a week. One of my posts was a weekly post about “Real Life” at our house and what we had for dinner. I wanted to show the messy side of life and also show that food bloggers don’t always eat blog-worthy food. Those posts were always on Thursdays. I thought it would be a great way to force myself to journal since I am not very good at doing that. It was fun, but after a few years as the site was growing, I realized I didn’t want to keep putting my kids on the internet.

I hesitate to add this part, but it’s the truth. Those first few years my husband was not very supportive of the blog. He didn’t like how much time I spent on it. In his defense, I’m not the best version of myself when I don’t get enough sleep, so I can understand why he thought I was crazy at times when I would stay up late to hit deadlines. Needless to say, now that the blog is making “real” money, he’s a pretty big fan and encourages anything I need to do for the blog. He is even my in-house accountant.

Running a blog is a ton of work. There is always more you could be doing. There are a lot of behind-the-scenes things that need to be done on top of the recipe creation, cooking, photographing, editing, writing, social media presence, emails, pinning…so many things. It became clear that I could either have a successful blog, or I could have a life. Lol. I decided I wanted both. So about two or three years in–I can’t remember exactly–when the blog was making a little money, I decided it would be worth it to hire someone who could edit pictures (the job I disliked the most). As years went by, I also added someone who helps with social media, someone who helps with planning, editing, and SEO. I’ve also had employees at times who have helped with Pinterest and project management. 

The blog is still a work in progress, but I’ve made and continue to make choices based on what works best for me and my family. The hardest times have been during pregnancies, new babies, family emergencies, and sickness. I feel so grateful that the nature of blogging is such that I can take breaks when needed without too much of a consequence other than getting behind on things.

I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times that I felt like quitting. Last year was a doozy for a lot of reasons, and it took more effort than ever to stay motivated. I have also been feeling a pull to become a life coach, and I got certified last spring. Part of me worries that I won’t have the bandwidth to manage to keep up with the blog and also start a life-coaching practice, which I feel pulled to do. Recently, though, I had an epiphany that I could combine the two. I am kind of excited to see how that unfolds as I work through the different ideas I’m having. 

It genuinely makes me so happy to share recipes, and I really love helping people find more purpose and work on their confidence and their relationships. I don’t want to give up either of those passions, so I guess we’ll see how this unfolds together.

Thank you so much for all the support you have given me over the years, for trusting my recipes, and for sharing a part of my life. Simply hitting “like” on an FB post or a heart on an InstaStory means the world to me, and comments on the blog are one of the kindest ways you can inadvertently help the blog continue to grow. Thank you so much for each effort of support you give me. Hopefully, Real Life Dinner will be around for at least another decade or two…I already have two kids fighting over who gets it when I die. 🙂

Giveaway Information

Are you even a blogger doing giveaways if you don’t give away a KitchenAid? Look at these cute colors! If you win, you can pick which of the three colors is your favorite. If you win and don’t need or want the KitchenAid, you can opt for a $400 Amazon Gift Card instead. These are 5-quart Tilt Head KitchenAids! I WANT ONE!!!! I have a 5-quart, but it isn’t this pretty!

Two ways to enter:

• 1. Leave a rating and review on a recipe you have made. If you haven’t made any, go find something you want to make and comment on it. Make sure to include the word “PARTY” in your comment, so I know it is an entry for this KitchenAid giveaway.
• 2. Go to my social media birthday week posts and tag a friend on any of the giveaway posts.

The giveaway ends Sunday, August 27, 2023, at midnight (EST). I will announce the winner in a final birthday post and on Social Media on Monday, August 28, 2023. Good Luck!

Disclaimer: To be eligible for giveaways, you must live in the Continental United States or have an APO/FPO mailing address.