In an attempt to do some research on blogging in an early morning coffee + navigating requests from my children at the crack of dawn, I stumbled upon a quick vlog whose host said the following:

 “Blogging is a game of ups and downs, but if you stick with it long enough, you will see some pretty good results.” 

Mic drop moment.  

I started Spruceprints two months ago and have certainly experienced the ups and downs with blogging statistics and the rollercoaster of excitement and disappointment. 

I haven’t quit. I keep showing up every morning at 5am with the hope that the overnight analytics will show growth and reflect my effort. 

Once in a while, they do show sales! And growth! Exciting! But more of the time than not, the growth is slow and steady–and sometimes flat. 

I started this blog during the school’s February break– breaking up the winter doldrums while looking bleakly ahead at the gauntlet of March. As I looked at my calendar for work, I saw weekly waves of relentless to-dos, events that required planning, and a pretty steep professional development course calendar of deadlines that I had set up for myself. 

I’d say I started the blog out of desperation–that maybe I would find a way to make enough money by sharing what I know and what I have learned through hard life experiences, but this morning I have had another epiphany that starting the blog was a much more profound calling than that…

Historically, I have stayed away from adding anything to the March calendar because March, historically, marched right over me. I just simply got through it and got to spring break a shell of a human who needed the week off just to dig out from under laundry, piles of paperwork and to-dos. 

So WHY did I have this un-ignorable compulsion to launch Spruceprints without knowing anything?

I wish I could say it was strategic… but it wasn’t. It was something I’ve come to recognize as the knowing—that quiet but persistent feeling that it’s time to change something, even when it doesn’t make logical sense yet.

((I actually wrote more about that moment here → The “Knowing”: Leaving My Teaching Job After 12 Years as a Young Mom))

I am an overthinking perfectionist at times, so why now? Why did I hit “PUBLISH” on Spruceprints and start creating Pinterest pins aplenty–not knowing much, but knowing that this would have to either be an investment of weekend time or a nightly endeavor–and my plate was already so full?

The answer: Hitting “PUBLISH” was one of the healthiest things I have done for myself in my entire life. 

Why? I did it for me. I chose me. 

No one else. Whether 1 person read my post or 10,000 people, it didn’t matter. I did it for me. I created something. Perfect? Not at all. Did it matter? Not at all. I wanted to find a way to work for myself doing something I’ve always found to bring me peace: writing about what I know, what I’ve lived, what I’m grappling with, and what I envision for the future. 

When I say “work for myself,” I don’t even mean financially–though that would be an amazing byproduct of this endeavor. I am working to show up for myself with the dividends pouring back into myself, which has been a struggle for me. I show up for everyone else, but I often get lost in the to-do list. 

This memory came to me on my Friday afternoon drive home out of the blue, but probably somehow connected to the Mel Robbins podcast on goals I’m currently listening to…

When I was in high school, I tried out (and made) the volleyball team all four years. 

Every summer, the tryout information memo was mailed home with the summer reading assignments. The yellow piece of paper read the tryout dates and a list of timed exercises that athletes should be able to do successfully at the time of tryouts.

Without fail, every summer, I vowed to get in shape and be more prepared than the year before. 

One of the athlete “to-dos” was to run a mule in under a certain amount of time. Every summer, July would slip by. It was too hot to run outside… I would go when the local high school track wasn’t so crowded so people wouldn’t hear me huffing and puffing or see my thighs jiggling when I ran or my shorts riding up with each step… I would do it tomorrow…

Family vacation would happen every August and the dread would set in. 

Surprise! But not so surprising! I would find myself in the second or third week in August with tryouts lurking a week or so away, panicked because I hadn’t run a single step. 

Rather than lacing up my sneakers and going for a walk or jog, I would grab a pen and paper and try to figure out the logistics. If I had X days remaining until tryouts and I had to run Y distance in Z time, was this even possible? Ah. There it was. Doubt. Creeping in in the form of logic. 

Whether or not I realized it, I was putting pen to paper in anticipation of struggle rather than putting my sneakers on in pursuit of the process, and ultimately, success. 

I would spend those last weeks of summer agonizing over my lack of preparation. The should haves and would haves weighed down my every step and every struggle as I trudged around the high school track. No wonder it felt so hard! I vividly remember running every step while hating myself for not training sooner, expecting that all of the other athletes had been training like Olympians all summer, and writing a narrative that come the running portion of tryouts, everyone would see how out of shape I was and I would be defeated. 

Now I see that if my mindset had been: I’m a healthy, naturally athletic 17 year old girl. I can put my sneaks on, set a timer, and move my body before tryouts and see what happens… I might have had a completely different experience and a more joyful outcome.

Some days I wonder if this blog is another way I’m finding my way back to myself and all of the moments I was so hard on myself that in the process I got lost. I started this post saying I’m a perfectionist overthinker, but I don’t think that’s really who I am at heart. I’m deeply intuitive. I take big risks on intuition and faith.

At 15, I signed up and paid for a high school trip to Europe. It was my first time on a plane, ever. I went to the meetings at school, figured out the financials, and did it. When my family found out I was pursuing this goal, they helped! Obstacles of finance slowly abated with hard work and help. My 16th birthday was spent on a dinner cruise down the Seine River with the Eiffel Tower glittering as we floated by. It was magic. 

I have given select people second chances after heartbreak because I somehow knew the outcome would be different this time compared to the millions in the past. On the flip side, I have known immediately when relationships are over or the other person’s intentions are harmful or threatening.

With both of my children, I knew immediately I was pregnant. The test just confirmed it. 

I knew when I needed to send results out after 13 years of teaching in the same school that, had I stayed, I was slated to become an administrator. 

I knew my next job would be different and not another 10, 20, 30+ years of grading essays and analyzing Shakespeare. My journal entries document that I felt change coming and I had to be patient. I just didn’t know what was coming. 

On my first job interview, I knew it wasn’t a match. 

On my second, I knew the job was mine, as terrifying as that “knowing” was at the time.

After being frustrated by our small house + growing family and growing dreams, I knew we needed to move. That night, we looked on Zillow, saw one house on 75×100 piece of property (nearly a double plot where we come from!), went to an open house, and closed the deal.  

In the middle of February break, on 2/17/26, I knew it was time I put my planning pen down and just it “PUBLISH” even if it wasn’t perfect. 

In these past two months, it has not been perfect. BUT, my blog has gotten me out of bed every morning to check my analytics and think about how I could spend my nightly blog time later that day. 

I’ve gotten discouraged that my $6.74 in profit from commissions is so low.

I want to make enough money to pay for X and we need enough to pay for Y and I’ve done so much work, I should have made Z amount by now. 

And there it is. That old X + Y = Z formula of summer tryout prep that stole my joy–quietly, sneakily, slowly–and then all at once. 

I need to get back to my “Why” not “Y.”

I started Spruceprints to give voice to my life’s experiences. To potentially earn and work for myself financially and spiritually. To create without apology, perfection, or debt to anyone. To take a risk and see where it leads. 

Maybe the greater “Why” is to erase that success formula of expectation in X + Y = Z from my life entirely. 

Maybe it’s time to put the perfectionist planning pen down for a bit and get back to my intuition and risk taking. 

I repeat “maybe” because I’m mid-process. I know nothing factual about what lies ahead. 

“Blogging is a game of ups and downs, but if you stick with it enough, you will see some pretty good results.”

This goes for everything in life. 

If I had not shown up for my blog and myself every day for the past 2 months, I never would have gotten affiliate status or earned that $6.74. I stuck with it–and now I’ll get back to my “Why” and bring it to the forefront of my mind. I’m not doing it for the impressions, outbound clicks, commissions, or blog traffic–but for my “Why” of sharing my life’s experiences in pursuit of something greater. I just don’t know what it is yet! Sound familiar?

This blog has challenged that 17 year old summer training memory and reworked it. I hit publish. I have proven myself that I CAN consistently show up for ME.

In life I have always done my homework first and then eventually gotten around to myself. In school, that meant schoolwork. As an adult, that meant my to-do list. As a teacher that meant grading, professional development coursework, and lesson planning. As a mom and wife, that meant everyone else’s needs and to-dos. 

Add ALL of that together at age 36, that left me completely absent from my own planner and to-do list. My homework had gotten done at ALL COSTS–health and happiness on the top of that list. 

If I had started this a year ago, I would have let the to-dos get in the way of my blog goals. 

For the first time in my entire life, I have gotten my homework done during my busiest season and pursued myself, my goals, and self-fulfilment in the process. MY wants and to-dos made the master list. 

And the results are pretty good!

This morning’s epiphany takes this whole identity shift a step further: 

I started to do the X + Y = Z formula to see how much weight I could lose by summer– a lovely little game I have played for over 20 years.

I am so tired of the planning and the disappointment and the angst. 

I’m tired of the equation. 

Besides, I’ve never liked math, anyway.  As a matter of fact, my family loves to remind me of my famous line, “Math makes me angry,” once declared out of frustration, defeat, and the defining thought that math would never be as easy for me as English. Just another self-conception that I’m currently challenging and trying to erase. 

Time to erase the 6 weeks to Memorial Day (X) + 20+ pounds I need to lose (Y) = so that I can feel better (Z). 

Today I commit to hitting “PUBLISH” on my WW journey and moving my body daily. And that sounds really good. 

Work, home, family time, dinner, blog time, and daily movement… I can do that. 

My plan: I will be consistent every day (no planning of perfection and certainly no formula). Let’s take that quote that resonated enough with me this morning to write this post: 

“My commitment to show up for myself in my health journey may be a game of ups and downs, but if I stick with it enough, I’ll see some pretty good results.” 

Today I will log my weight and measurements. I’ll take my “before” photos but only so I can celebrate the process. 

I’m marking my calendar and planning for a celebratory post of my commitment: 

On May 26th, I’ll write to share what I’m sticking with and the ups and downs I’m handling. 

On June 26th, I’ll do the same– which will give me the same amount of time to show up for my health and well-being as I have shown up here on Spruceprints. 

No X + Y = Z. 

Just intention, commitment, and an eye on a joyful, sustainable life to be lived with risks to be taken.

I’m choosing exponential growth over the limitations of a finite equation that has quietly ruled my thoughts for decades. Maybe I do like math.

Something tells me the results will be pretty good.