Imagine a homemaker mom, happy at home, spending time with her daughter and husband, being a domestic diva and generally living it up. But there is something missing..
She doesn’t have the social diary of a butterfly (to quote the book) and has a few but close knit group of friends. However most of them are busy with their jobs, kids and life.
She desperately craves for some outlet for her creativity, needs to talk about something other than potty training and weaning the baby. She is not a painter, not a crafty mom either but yes she is good with words and infact can spin a mean web of words. Writing was a passion that she had left forgotten in the mundane alleys of life and humdrum. She had most fun when she was putting her thoughts to words and she never felt like it was a chore -that was hardly what she could say about her pre-baby job.
One day while browsing the web on her husband’s laptop she had a brainstorm. There was more to internet than just Facebook. What if she wrote a blog? She sure had read enough of them and even had a lot of ideas about what she would love to share. But there were so many ifs and buts in this germ of an idea.
She was no techie and had no one she could even rely on to give some technical advice. What the hell was WordPress and what was all this talk about php and HTML code? What if she wrote some evil code and broke everything? Even if she ended up figuring out all the mambo jumbo jargon, how in the world was she going to make it look presentable enough for anyone to land up on her blog? Suppose there was a miracle and she did find a way to get people to her blog, there was a major chance that no one would ever read what she wrote much less comment on it. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, not an OPTIMIST.
However this germ of an idea did not let her sleep at night and one fateful day she resolved come what may she was going to be a blogger. The first step was to cajole hubby into buying her a laptop which was not that much difficult. He was happy to have his wife distracted and not eat his brains. The difficult step was -How to start a blog?
And people, that is when she realised the beauty of internet, it really does know everything!!!
She, the resident non-geek was not only able to buy a domain and install WordPress without ending the world, but she was even able to make it look pretty and easy on the eyes. Turns out there is a tutorial for everything on the internet. Trust me or try it out. Don’t know how to install a theme or save your WordPress database? Bam! There goes a tutorial for you. SEO means gibberish, don’t worry there are tons of online experts. Have no idea how to tie your shoe laces? No problem, go to ehow now.
Slowly but steadily, she started figuring out this blogging maze. People started finding her blog- first a trickle and then a steady stream.They left beautiful, generous and motivating comments. Some even recommended her posts to their friends and acquaintances. She started finding like-minded people who turned friends. She was connecting with brands who loved having a mom’s point of view.
Soon, she bought a 3G smartphone with Vodafone connection which gave a huge boost to her networking skills. For less than Rs 200 she was able to access fast internet and unlimited browsing. Now even if she didn’t have an internet connection available she could simply use the mobile AP feature on her phone and turn it into a wi-fi modem for instant connectivity with the awesome Vodafone 3G speed. She could blog from anywhere she wanted. Her world was truly wireless.
The more time she spent on the internet with her phone the more she found it resourceful. When she started renovating her house she found cool decorating ideas from Pinterest. She wanted to save time she spent offline and she found a host of online shopping sites,which sold everything from diapers to makeup to a kitschy table. Her phone often became a babysitter for her toddler with a multitude of educational apps and videos.
She rediscovered social networking on twitter and Facebook which was now a place to share real thoughts and not just exaggerated status messages. She was participating in discussions on parenting and life being held across the continents.
Her life as a Mom was also more simplified thanks to amazing apps like Out of Milk, My Fitness pal and Dinner Spinner etc. Her blogging was streamlined thanks to the wordpress app which enabled her to keep on top of the comments and all the emails.
Life with her smartphone and its internet connection by Vodafone was now more fun than ever.She encountered a number of amazing bloggers and their blogs which helped her become a better blogger, a better parent and even a better human being. Yes, Internet could be a time-suck and an addiction but eventually it was what you made it to be.
Somewhere along the way she found beautiful communities for bloggers which supported and pushed forward bloggers like her. One such community called Indibloggers even helped her to access a contest where she won a gorgeous IPad2. Before she knew it she had people asking her to write articles for them, companies sending products to review and most importantly fellow moms commenting on how useful and helpful they found her writing.
If you haven’t guessed already, yes this is the story of me and my blog. Today I am at the cusp of an exciting work at home career with my online writing and my blog. All this has been possible due to the three most fun letters in the dictionary WWW.
If you haven’t already, come and discover everything that Internet has to offer. The best part is that Internet lives where everyone can access it.
If you want to know more about how internet can be fun for you, LOG ON TOÂ
Disclaimer: This post has been submitted to the Indiblogger -Vodafone Internet is Fun Contest. If you are an indiblogger This girl would really appreciate a MacBook Pro.