It’s about that time. Time to say good-bye.
Really, it’s not a big deal since I haven’t been here in forever. It’s just that the domain hosting service is up for renewal and I don’t want to pay for it anymore. Like, that money can be used to buy more coffee or pay for subscriptions that have past their free trial period but I continue to pay for because I’m too lazy to cancel. (I’m looking at you, Amazon Music Unlimited.)
The big question is: How do you turn this thing off without destroying it completely? I spent a good 45 minutes googling “how to retire a blog,” but then the search results kept bringing me to retirement blogs with advice on “How to Make the Most of Your Retirement.” Ummmm…Thanks, but no thanks, Google. That’s not very helpful. I just don’t want to lose all the photos and stuff I wrote. Is there an “export” button or a free domain I can park this thing on indefinitely? F1, F1, F1!
The bitter and the sweet
I have so many feelings about saying good-bye. I love everything that I created here. I think about the endless hours I spent working on the design, making blogger friends that I still keep in touch with on Instagram, the sweet release of creative energy and satisfaction of hitting “Publish.” (Immediately followed by an embarrassing prompt asking me if I’m sure I want to publish even through the post contains 39 spelling and grammatical errors.)
And then, I see old pictures of my babies.
Remember when they were sweet little babies? Now they are big kids with mouths half full of grown-up teeth. When I read these old posts, I re-live those moments through the vivid pictures I took with my fancy camera. I feel everything I felt at that time because it’s my own voice telling me how beautiful or funny or challenging or blessed my life was at that exact moment. It saddens me that I haven’t taken the time to document anything past 2014 because I won’t remember anything as fondly as I did when I actually wrote it down. I mean, I do post on Facebook and Instagram but those aren’t as through. thur-ough. thourough. thurogh. thorough (Ah! There it is. Geez, that word is so difficult.) as capturing the memories as it is on the blog.
Spoiler alert to my-“2012 wannabe blogger”-self: You won’t make any money from being a blogger.
I did get some free items and attended a few cool blogging events. My google adsense revenue maxed out at about $106. Ouch. The truth is, I didn’t self-promote. I didn’t over-share. I didn’t even tell people I had a blog because deep down, I’m an introvert and I’m not social at all – both online and in real life. Basically, my target audience was myself and maybe a few family members and friends. Good thing I wasn’t in it for the money and I didn’t quit my day job! Ha.
What’s next for Mommy A-Z?
The About Me section still says that I’m in my early-thirties and that we live in the suburbs of Chicago. My current status is that I’m squarely in my mid-thirties and living in sunny Florida! (I’m also fifteen pounds heavier, but that’s beside the point.) I’m still working full-time in the retail industry, focusing on innovation and technology. I still have a wonderful husband, three beautiful kids, and a dog named Coconut. The house we bought in Florida is almost the same exact layout as the house in Illinois so the furniture and decoration is the same.
What’s next for me? What am I going to do when I’m not busy with my full-time job, my three kids, and evenings filled with extra practice of doggone common core math so we don’t collectively fail when school starts again? Will I ever be caught up with the laundry? I wish my future-self would drop a spoiler alert to my-“2018 blog quitter”-self.
In the meantime, I still get a bit of a creative outlet, but it’s totally different than blogging. My husband started a t-shirt printing business out of our garage and we named it Coconut Print Co. I get to design the shirts and list them on Etsy. It’s kind of cool because I spend a few hours designing shirts on the weekends and he prints the shirts on his days off. It’s a lot less time consuming than blogging, in my opinion. Also, I like the fact that it’s something that we can do together – like a husband and wife dream team!
So if you are wondering what I’m up to now that this blog is finito, I will likely be at work or with my kids or staycationing somewhere in Florida rocking a shirt that was designed by me and printed by Jeff.
Look at that shameless plug! Haha! Stop by and say hello sometime to Coconut Print Co!
Thank you for reading along. This has been quite a journey. I will miss you, Mommy A-Z.
Now, how do you turn this thing off?
