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A year ago, I would have never thought that I would ever start a blog.  I was getting fed up with the computer, but it’s the only way that I can stay up to date on what is going on in the world, because we only have one TV, with local stations plus Netflix.  The kids are always watching something on it, and even if they weren’t, there isn’t very much on the local news stations that I was interested in seeing anyway.  So I would spend an hour reading the fox news website, and then 20 minutes or so reading about the weather.  After that I’d jump on facebook for a while, see what is going on in friends and families lives then I was about done with the computer.  If Hailie was on her computer, I might play a game or two in Roblox with her.

I’ve always loved to read, write and work on the computer.  I took computer programming in college and also ran a website for 9 years.  Not that it was used for much, but it taught me all I needed to know about web design and HTML.  But after I started having kids, all that fell to the wayside so that I could take care of them.  I sometimes found myself missing the work I used to do on the computer and playing around with websites, but I thought that was all behind me now.  Little did I know that in 2018, I would once again find myself owning a website, writing on a blog and learning what was necessary to monetize it.

So how did this all come about and why did I make the decision to do it?  I was playing around on Facebook and came across something called “Start A Money Making Blog.”  I stopped to see what it was all about, thinking it would occupy my mind for a few minutes more before I had to get up and get the kids from school.  Little did I know, that few moments would change my whole outlook on life.  The next day after I sent the kids to school, I went back to that facebook page and read a little more, realizing that this is something that I might be able to do.  The first thing it encouraged you to do was try to choose a niche.  So I started thinking about what I could write about.  What would I have to say that might interest others.  At first I couldn’t think of anything, so I went on to read the rest of the steps necessary for it, thinking I could come back to it later.  The next step, however, was a continuation of the first step, think of a name for your blog.  Well if I didn’t know what I was going to write about, how was I ever going to think of a name.  I did go ahead and play around with names, but couldn’t really think of anything that stood out to me, so I was about to give up when I decided to see if any of my website names were available.

I went through 4, none of which were available.  I asked myself how I was ever going to accomplish anything, if everything I tried wasn’t available.  Out of frustration, I gave it one last try, typed smithlifestyleblog.com in the box and was surprised to find it available.  How could I pass up this moment?  So I went ahead and purchased the domain afraid that if I didn’t, it would be gone when I came back.  The next step of course was to get hosting for it.  I figured why not, maybe something would come to me if I started to get things set up.  So I went to Bluehost which was suggested in Start A Money Making Blog.  As soon as, I purchased the website and hosting for it, I thought, well why not use it to spread awareness about epilepsy.  I could tell my daughter’s story and our journey with epilepsy.  That gave me a start.

As I wrote the first 3 posts about Lorianna and how we had trouble with her diagnosis and getting it under control, I was looking through pictures on my computer.  I had pictures from trips we had taken and that sparked the idea of doing a lifestyle, travel and epilepsy blog.  That would leave it open for whatever I wanted to post in the future, but gave me some focus and hope.  I thought with travel, I could write about places that we had already visited and then hope to visit in the future.  I have hopes of eventually getting some sponsored trips so that we can travel the way I would like to do, then I can do what I love the most, write about our trips and experiences.  Since we are always going, I thought I could also write about the things we do with the kids.  Suddenly, the perfect name for our blog came to my mind and Livin’ The Smith Life was born. I thought the name was cute and it encompassed everything I wanted to talk about, our experiences, our travels and my daughter’s journey with epilepsy.

I was a little nervous to begin with remembering how long it took me to create my old website and was afraid because I had forgotten a lot of what I had learned.  As I started setting it up, however, it couldn’t have been any easier.  I found that a lot of what I had forgotten was still in there, just waiting to come out and soon, with the help of a free theme and a very user friendly portal through Bluehost, I had my first 6 posts ready to go.  I wasn’t really very happy with the first theme I chose though, and was soon looking for a new one.  It took a while for me to find something that I was happy with, but with the theme I have now, you see the website as it is today.  There are still a few things that I eventually want to change, but, isn’t any website always a work in progress.  So, that is how I got to where I am today and why you are reading this right now.  I’m very happy with my accomplishments to this point and hope to see more come up soon.