I had an epiphany!
(This post almost got titled "Rae goes blahdeeblahdeeblah about ?")
I am pretty sure that as soon as I say this outloud on the blog it's going to sound really dumb, but here goes.
I realized just this evening as I was driving (by myself, without the children, Praise the Lord) that craft bloggers have it harder than other bloggers. See, I told you it would sound dumb. But hear me out.
Other bloggers can produce posts about their topic of choice and they're finished. A political rant. An embarrassing parenting moment. Links to cool designs. A family picture. And I don't in any way mean to demean the work that entails, but we have a different situation, a predicament of sorts.
Craft bloggers (and most food bloggers too) have to not only produce the actual post, but they also have to produce the THING that the post is about. Sew the skirt, the dress, applique the backpack, knit the sweater. That's (at least) two things you have to produce for every post you write: the thing, and the thing's post. And sometimes a tutorial, in which case more hours put in making the things + taking pictures of the things. OH and we have to procure supplies. Are you getting me here or am I sounding stupid. Don't answer that. And I'm generalizing of course, you can always do posts about your kitchen wall or things that are unfinished or take pictures of your cats.
From what little I know about the business of blogging, I understand that to really make a living doing it you have to write a post a day or at least something very close to that. That brings in traffic, you know, and traffic = shop sales, ad revenue, Martha appearances, White House invitations, etc. And what I realized is that to try make it happen daily on a craft blog, well, see isn't that nigh to impossible? Especially if you are trying to piece together some semblance of a Real Life (in which you go Real Places and talk to Real People). If you've been around here long enough you know that sort of post-regularity isn't happening on Made By Rae, and if I'm honest with myself it probably won't ever (sorry to disappoint those of you who were hoping for the daily dose). Side note: the crafty folks who ARE doing it, well, hats off to you amazing people!!!
So then the other thing that struck me was: you guys could go anywhere online and read something every day, but you still make a stop over here occasionally (or every hour, you crazy obsessive people), even though I don't and can't produce the daily awesome professional stuff that Design*Sponge or SeeSaw or Dooce can. So thanks for reading, even though this just turned into a cheezy feel-good post, blaaaaaaaaaah (see? I just barfed all over it for you to cancel out some of the charm). Thanks too for being patient with me when I can't pump out patterns for every single thing I make at the drop of a hat, because that sort of pressure would probably break me. And thanks for all the really nice things you say in your comments too, because that means so much that you took the time to say hi and it brightens my day.
I really do not mean to whine about how much work blogging is or anything like that, just felt a little liberated when I realized that I'm happy with where I am here in this space and that trying to attain the daily-blogging goals in my head that you probably didn't even know I had until I wrote them is probably not worth it. OK, that's all.