Regrouping and Moving Forward with Intention

keep-calm-and-re-group So if you hadn’t noticed, I haven’t blogged the past several days.  I did that intentionally.  I’ve gotten pretty overwhelmed in trying to find ways to blog faster and better/more thoroughly; and I’d gotten in a really bad habit of comparing myself to other coupon bloggers and this blog to other coupon blogs. I’m trying to get it into my head that those other blogs have been around a LOT longer than mine have and their bloggers have been doing this a lot longer than I have. I need to stop beating myself up and set a schedule for when I’ll blog and stick to it…no more and no less.  Most of all, I need to stop feeling like blogging is a competition.  That takes the joy out of it and defeats the purpose! Calvary Couponers is still a baby in blog life. It’s only 6 months old, for crying out loud! 🙂  I needed a blog sabbath 🙂

I think the way I fell into it is that I also administrate 3 Facebook groups for couponing. Two of them are HUGE…over 13,000 members in each group (and both have waiting lists of 9,000 + wanting in the groups that we’ve stopped approving for the time being). Along with all those couponers wanting to communicate with each other comes a LOT of spammers, scammers, and harvesters.  What’s a harvester?  Well it isn’t a farmer 🙂 In internet circles, a harvester is someone who joins every group they can find on a topic they are trying to sell people on and don’t participate in the groups. They just pop from one group to the next and so on down the line posting advertisements to products they’re selling or bloggers posting their blog posts in hopes of luring people to follow their blogs – that kind of thing. My few co-administrators (thank God for them!) and I work hard at moderating the groups to keep spam and whatnot down to a low roar. (I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say if I see one more post trying to make it through moderation and to the rest of the group for Ugg boots or sunglasses, I swear I’ll scream!). Oh, and the “I just got $100 in grocery savings” yada yada… scam. Anyone posting especially those three things will get banned in a heartbeat…no questions asked…gone.  They were warned.

We’re put rules in place and let people know there is no selling in the groups, no trading, etc.  We’ve let other bloggers know it’s perfectly fine to post their deals in the group IF they’re an active participant in the group.  If the only time you see a post come through from them it’s a blog link, that’s harvesting and it’s insulting to those of us who work to keep the group a decent, safe place to communicate and share information about coupon deals, hauls, etc. So…as a result, I’ve gotten slammed a number of times from bloggers who are not happy that the admins aren’t allowing their posts through to the rest of the group, and after so long, it wears me down.  I want this blog to succeed, I want fair and honest bloggers who take part in the group to post and of paramount importance is to keep scammers out (oh yeah…you wouldn’t believe the number of scams trying to get through), links to viruses out (we stopped three potential viruses from coming through in two days time a while back!), and harvesting to a minimum.

So…I stepped back, took a few days off to regroup and I’m back trying to remind myself to find a good balance in blogging, group adminning (ok, that’s not a word, but the point is made 🙂 ), and to stop comparing myself and my blog to others.  I’m self-taught in blogging, computer graphics, and couponing, and there are still a number of things about coupon blogging for me to learn about.  I will continue to learn how to blog better, more effectively and try to rest more through it all.  By nature, I’m a people pleaser, and I’m trying to learn that it’s ok to not try to make everyone (online and off) happy. Not everyone is going to like what you do and/or what you have to say.

I want to start afresh at this point and be more mindful and intentional in my blogging. I want to offer as many deals and info as I REASONABLY can, add more crafting posts (since my test at adding crafting and other things drew a lot more readers from Pinterest in December) and post what I feel this blog represents, not what other blogs are posting about or not.

Speaking of rest…that’s what this week’s Mindful Monday post is going to be about. I’ll be posting that after this one. I’ve fallen behind in my Mindful Monday posts and intend to make that more of a priority.  This blog is CALVARY couponing and I need to put the One who gave His life for us all on Calvary for the ULTIMATE SAVING front and center 🙂

So, if you believe in prayer, please say a prayer for me to share the coupon deals that are out there more efficiently and effectively so I don’t make myself worn out trying to keep up, that I make wise choices in the other areas of postings I make and that the Lord will bless my little corner of the internet as I share with you, my reader.

I can’t afford $20 a month per store to post matchups I buy from people who sell them like the big blogs do, so I post what I can find and put together myself (you didn’t know you could BUY store matchups?  I didn’t either till about 3 months ago). When you see more established blogs posting one store after the next after the next of store matchups every week, they’re buying those from people who don’t blog, only make up matchups to sell to every blogger who will pay them $5 a week per store for it.  Ever notice why so many coupon blogs matchups are pretty much the same?  That’s why…  Well, I’m a mommy to a disabled little boy and a wife to a disabled husband. I just can’t afford to buy a bunch of matchups every week, so I’m just going to do my best and plod along and pray for the Lord to bless my little blogs as I go and hope to be able to glorify Him in the process 🙂

Thanks for reading this heartfelt post, if you’ve made it this far 🙂  I hope you follow along with me as I work myself through this maze and get us all the savings we need for our families and communities as well as posts that go along with making a happy and healthy home life and community while glorifying our Creator at the same time.

Blessings,

Helen

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