balancing blogging and life

This weekend is the Relevant Conference.  It is a blog conference for Christian bloggers.  I had so hoped to go. How wonderful it would have been to chat face to face with other bloggers.  Other Christian ladies that ALSO blog… most of which I ‘know’ on twitter and from reading their blogs.

Let’s face it….8 times out of 10 when I mention I have a blog the person I am telling looks at me like my head just spun around.  It is much worse when I say I homeschool AND blog…

After not finding a sponsor for the trip to PA for Relevant and hearing of yet another blog conference in the works for May…..this one for homeschool moms…I began to question why I blog.

You see to get sponsored you really have to have a blog following. See that little GOOGLE FRIENDS over to your right….those are my peeps that admit they read my blog…..that number fluctuates some.  I then have my site counter that tells me how many ‘hits’ I have had in a week, a day, or even an hour.  And then I have my Facebook ‘FAN’ page.  Most of the peeps over there are my fb friends….also a few twitter peeps….of which I have over 900 not including the creepy guys and half nekkid women I have blocked.

To get sponsored it is a numbers game.  The company wants to  or needs to know it is in their best interest to invest in you.  So knowing these numbers in an evil necessity. 

I say evil because I find myself bothered when these numbers go down…oh no I lost a follower…what did I say? Did I blog too much? Not enough?  Then there is the feedburner number…who ‘subscribes’ to my blog so these posts go to their e-mail…my number is ZERO!  How is THAT going to look when I send out begging  sponsorship letters of interest for a conference across the country or even interest to review the latest running shoe (that review post will be on my other blog soon)

Have I lost sight of WHY I blog?  What is my purpose?  Is it still merely an online journal of my life as a Crazy-for-her-kids homeschool mom or am I blogging to encourage other moms?  Or is it so I can go on the dream fieldtrip to DC to a blog conference for homeschool moms?  Is a conference with a bunch of fellow homeschool moms, whom I have never met, a good outlet for me?  Or should I be putting that energy into my ‘real life?’ People I see and talk to everyday. 

My answer to that is balance.

I need to find balance with my friends that are in my computer and my friends that don’t blog or homeschool.

How do you balance your blogging and your life outside of your computer?