Goals for the Blog

Since we’re talking goals for the new year, I figured now would be a good time to share with you all my goals for More Fruit Please in 2011.

1. Incorporate more fitness on the blog.

One of my personal goals for this year is to become a fitness person. What I mean by that is by the end of this year, if someone asks me if I’m into fitness, I want to truthfully, wholeheartedly reply, “YES!” Right now, I would say that I have a small interest in my physical well-being. I read the fitness magazines. I read other’s blogs on working out. I dabble in exercise here and there. But all of this makes up only 5% (maybe) of my life and blog content. Just how blogging became part of my life in 2010, I would like for fitness to become a major part of my life in 2011. I plan on documenting my workouts and progress with my work out goals here on MFP and hopefully the end result will represent a more balanced approach to health between food and fitness.

2. Post more meals.

When I started MFP, it resembled something of a food journal where I documented everything I ate. After a few months, I broke away from that and started focusing on just recipes and occasionally highlighting a breakfast here and there. I’d like to share more of my day-to-day meals with you all, but I don’t want to go back to sharing everything I eat. Trust me, it would quickly become very repetitive and boring. But, I’d really like to give you guys a better glimpse on how a girl living by herself eats (such as the nights where chips and salsa make the cut for dinner). So here’s where I would like your input. What do you want to see on the blog? I was thinking of doing a weekly recap of my dinners or maybe showing you what I eat for an entire day but only once a week. Any thoughts?

3. Improve my photography skills.

This is an area that I made huge leaps and bounds in 2010. I don’t have any plans to take any formal classes, but have been doing a lot of reading and hope to improve my photos. Right now, my biggest challenge with photos is finding decent lighting when it’s dark outside by 4:30. I also don’t have the best kitchen countertop to photograph on. I actually contacted Angela about my photo woes and she was nice enough to offer up some advice! She advised that once I got my DSLR, try turning off all yellow indoor lights and learn how to shoot in RAW format so that I could later edit my photos using a program such as Lightroom. Looks like I have some practicing to do!

Things started off in May with this…

And morphed into this by December…

4. Blog with better consistency.

For the first three months of blogging, I did great at posting everyday, and even up to two or three times a day. Then, when I made the shift to stop documenting everything I was eating, the frequency and consistency of my blogging dropped. Actually, dropped is putting it mildly. Plummeted would probably a more accurate way of describing it. I’ve been working on improving that in the past few weeks, but I think I have a little ways to go before I build back my reputation. My goal is to consistently post once a day. However, I never want to hit ‘Publish’ on a post that I’m not proud of. So if you don’t hear from me for a little while, it doesn’t mean that I don’t love ya, just that I don’t have anything that I feel is worthy of your eyes or ears. But on that note, if there are any readers (bloggers or not) who would like to contribute a guest post, I’d be happy to take submissions!

5. Go public.

I’ve been debating for a while now about sharing my blog on Facebook. Despite the fact that what I write is available for anyone to see on the internet, my blog feels very private to me. I’ve let a few close friends and family members in on the secret, but the idea of exposing myself to everyone is terrifying! I should explain that I’m not a very vocal person in social media. I hardly update my facebook statuses and have a terrible track record with twitter. The blog is the only place where I express myself and feel comfortable doing so without judgement. It’s been so wonderful getting to “meet” others in the healthy living community and I’ve truly enjoyed getting to know all of you through your comments and/or blogs. I feel so supported and encouraged by you all and am frightened of not having the same reaction from others. However, I feel like I’m not being true to myself by hiding the blog from so many people in my life. I think the time to come clean will be soon.

So, with those five goals in mind, I hope to improve my little blog baby. The past eight months have been wonderful and I can’t believe what a huge part of my life that the blog has become. I have other ideas in mind for MFP, but no set plans to put anything in action. Just don’t be surprised if you see little tweaks here and there.

Also, I put my email address out there (in the upper right hand section under my picture) if you ever want to contact me directly with any comments or questions!