I've been thinking long and hard on how I want to write this post.  I'm back from another Alt Summit in frozen Salt Lake City. For those of you who don't write a blog, this is a conference like no other, designed specifically for creative/craft bloggers like myself. Topics range from "The Business Of Blogging", "Personal Branding", "Pinterest Strategies", and "Growing Your Community", and keynote speakers included Mr.Pinterest himself, Ben Silbermann. Last year I threw caution to the wind and I bought a ticket. I only knew one attendee, and I had no idea what it would be like other than that the dress code would be strictly awesome and I needed to have knock out business cards.  While I was there I spent a lot of time assessing how I fit into the big picture, feeling a little afraid that I would never really stand out, worrying a little that I might be medicore at the thing that I think I do best.  Have you ever felt like that before? I can have a lot of self-doubt. Those inspirational typography posters that say things like:

My strategy: Create and share unique, original content.

A little over two years ago I kind of stumbled.  I found myself living my days at home, with my very young children, and I began to feel the walls closing in on me. I couldn't really contribute much of my time to anything but childcare and house maintenance, something that I did because I really wanted to be home with my boys, but not because I felt all that satisfied by it; I think it's okay to admit that. I started writing this blog during nap time. Originally called "Make-Do", it was my creative outlet. I snapped warm, fuzzy pictures with Hipstamatic and wrote about my life, using projects and recipes as the take-away. It gave me something more to focus on, and a few of my friends read it, so I felt like I was connecting with the outside world a little more. I didn't have a plan for where it would go, because I didn't need one.