In the Bloglight

This week I am super excited to be featured at Hometalk's Blogtalk community of super talented bloggers! 

On September 6th I will be featured 'In the Bloglight!" and what makes this so fun for me is that I get to share some details about myself and my blog, introduce myself to some of the Blogtalk members who don't know me as well as share my story with those that do!

So welcome to Setting for Four everyone!!

Here's a bit about me, my background and my blog:

I started blogging December 31st 2010....December 31st...Yes, I'm not kidding, the last day of the year!  Why that day?  I was feeling that I absolutley had to start something new in my life at the close of that year.  Frankly, 2010 was a year of not-so-great surprises for me, disorder and frustration.  I had moved to a new city where I had no family and didn't know a soul, with my military hubby and two sons.  This particular posting followed several years of my husband's extended deployments overseas, several family separations and to be honest several months of loneliness. 

This was a posting that was supposed to be more stable, more quality family time, more 'regularity' (if there even is such a thing with the military lifestyle!)...but it turned out to be the opposite. 

We thought we would be golfing together, hanging out with new friends, doing lots of antiquing and day trips (which we love!).  But what actually happened is that two weeks after arriving at our new posting, my husband left for an overseas training exercise and was away each and every month for 10 months every year! He was travelling throughout the continental US, to Korea, to Africa, to Singapore, Afghanistan and Thailand ....he was travelling everywhere across the globe, except home!

And while he was 'going everywhere', I felt that I was 'going nowhere' so to speak, stuck in a stressful and challenging situation alone with two children and not moving forward.  Hubby was only home December and January in 2010 and 2011 and gone every February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October and November!  It was challenging for him too: he was either jetlagged or away from his family.  By December 2010 I knew I needed to do something that I could control in a situation that I had no control over. 

I thought maybe, since I loved reading blogs, I could start my own blog, maybe I could learn something new and challenging, maybe I could meet some friends in the blogosphere that had the same interests and passion for home, family, DIY'ing and decorating as me!

Ballard Inspired DIY Pillow, DIY Burlap Hurricane Sleeves, Glossy White Vase DIY

And that is how Setting for Four was 'born'.  It was a chance to save my sanity in a very crazy situation that I was in...and it did!    I have not only learned a lot of technical things like HTML, coding, blog design and photo editing, I have been fortuneate enough to have made some fantastic bloggy friends along the way!

Some of my bloggy friends:

Silly, fun conversation with my bloggy buddies: 

So how did I come up with my blog name "Setting for Four"??  The name came from from those extended and frequent separations that we were experiencing as a family.....I would always set our kitchen table with 4 place settings during meals, even when my husband was away....it made us all feel like he was still at home 'in spirit', part of our family meals, part of our lives, even when he physically wasn't.  It gave, I hope, our two boys a sense that even though Dad was away, they could be comforted by knowing his spot was still at the head of the table, his 'spot' in their lives, as their Dad, was still there.

So out of a situation of difficulty and challenge, Setting for Four turned into a journey of joy, fun and great personal reward.

I started blogging very slowly with baby steps, with no clue really how to write to an audience, or how to take great pictures...

My first post was 'My New Office Chair Reveal" (um, see what I mean by starting with baby steps??) and I went crazy when I received my first comment! 

(I was so unsure about what I was doing as a new blogger, that I didn't even take my own picture of my new chair!)

Chair purchased at Sam's Club!

I couldn't believe that my first post, which seemed to have gone into some mysterious electronic world, was actually read by someone!  But I cringe when I look back at my first posts and this is why....

You see, back in the day, I used to be a scientist, a Microbiologist working at Fortune 500 companies in Research and Development and Product Development.....so writing for me was 'technical writing'; writing Research proposals, writing lab reports, writing standard operating procedures....completely different from blog writing for sure!  Looking back at my old posts, my writing was so 'stiff', so structured; like my writing had to be for scientific purposes...

My posts were sooooo boring to read!  Really!  I had to loosen up and write for fun, write like I chat over coffee with a girlfriend.  And slowly I learned how.  How did I learn to do that?  By reading lots of blogs and just by writing posts, making mistakes and writing some more!

Blogging changed me by bringing me confidence in a time I felt uncertain about my life and gave me a satisfying degree of control at a time when I felt I had no control.  It has more importantly changed me in that I have so many wonderful new friends now.  Bloggy friends I have never met face-to-face but know better than some of my real life friends. 

Blogging has allowed me to join a super supportive community during a time I had no support in a new city with no friends or family nearby.  And by joining that supportive community it made me feel uplifted and that finally I found 'my peeps'....people who 'got' me...who loved to decorate, spray paint and Mod Podge just as much as me!

So after beginning my blog I had to figure out how and when to blog...twice a week, three times a week?  When to make the DIY, when to take the pictures, when to write the post?  When I blog, I don't stick to a strict blogging schedule...I have to be inspired to write, craft, cook, photograph and for me that inspiration can't be scheduled.  I have a loose monthly plan, but sometimes my plans get tweaked as I go along.  Especially since I just moved this summer, anything resembling a schedule has been thrown out the window while I have been neck deep unpacking boxes!

...see there's the office chair from my first post :D

So where do I get my blogging and decorating inspiration from?  My top 5 DIY and design websites are Better Homes and Gardens, Pinterest, Decorpad, HGTV (because I am an HGTV show junkie!), and my most recent discovery Hometalk!  ( I can't list my top 5 blogs, because there are just too many blogs I love!).   
Most of these websites you probably already know about, but if you have never visited Decorpad I recommend that you check it out!  It is total eye candy. 

For those of you new to the site, I highly recommed Hometalk as a way to answer all of your decorating questions, DIY dilemmas, or any puzzling issues you have regarding your home.  Hometalk's site is a unique and novel way to chat with others about your decorating problems...I just posted my kitchen dilemma there; I needed help to choose a wall color to coordinate with the cabinets and so many people not only suggested a paint color, but some even educated me on the way wall colors work, how different tones have different visual weights ect!  It makes complete sense, but I had never looked at color that way before...learning that concept now takes a bit of the mystery out of choosing a color while standing in front of those huge displays at the paint store! 

My kitchen dilemma post on Hometalk

Everyone at Hometalk is so quick to help (thanks Yair for all your tech support!) and to share a tip or too!  And the DIY projects are so inspirational.  There are tons of great fun fall projects there right now to get your house and home dressed for autumn! 

Take a peek at my Hometalk post Let's Decorate for Autumn! to get you started. 

Here is an easy DIY fall branch centerpiece idea!

I blog part time, post usually 3 days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) and am a SAHM.   My dream is to grow my blog and combine that with working in design/decor.  I love to help people with their design dilemmas, I love to bring beauty and comfort to a space, find that perfect wall color, make it a home to shelter the owner, the family...like I did for {Nutmeg Place}:

Here I helped {Nutmeg Place} choose a new wall color for her kitchen after she had painted her kitchen island a beautiful grey color.....I suggested Benjamin Moore Wythe Blue (on trend and BM's color of the year for 2012!!) to coordinate with her white cabinetry, grey island, sand color countertops and beige flooring!  She completely loves this wall color, you can read about it here. 

Before (green wall color):

{Nutmeg Place}

After:  Wythe Blue!

{Nutmeg Place}

Isn't her kitchen gorgeous!!  It was so much fun to help my bloggy friend!

I hope to be able to get a foot in the design and decor world, how I am going to do it is not clear to me yet, but I am open to opportunities that may arise from my blog!  I don't have a design degree, have never worked in that field....but like I started out blogging without any background in it, I hope by the end of this year that dream of mine has begun in some way.

Until then, I will continue to blog, decorate and DIY!  I hope to continue blogging about more fun projects like my:

DIY Beaded Sunburst Mirror

and my DIY Cup Cozy 

share yummy recipes like my:

 Chicken Lasagna

and continue working on fun projects like my favorite post
Turn Children's Art Into Tea Towels!

The advice I would give to others just starting a blog (that I wish I had known before I started blogging) are: connect Google Analytics to your blog when you start blogging to track your blog's statistics, (you can sign up for free!) because if you join after you start your blog, this service does not go back to recover information from your older posts.  I also wished I had purchased my own blog domain name (url) at the begginning of my blogging days.  It's not expensive.  I will hopefully be completing this step myself this week!

So that's the rundown of my blog, Setting for Four!  I hope you've enjoyed reading my story and know me a bit better now!  Thank you Hometalk for featuring me!

So for those new bloggers (my new-friends-to-be out there!):  Congrats on starting your blog!  It's such a fun, personally rewarding endevor and there is such a great supportive community in blogland to help you out! 

And to those that do know me, I look forward to reading more about you, sharing more with you and growing with you 'in the Bloglight'! 

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Thank you SO much for coming by for a visit! I love to hear all of your comments!

Don't want to miss a post? It's easy to stay in touch with me!:

      

 Heather