The Xanga days are over – when teens and preteens primarily used the medium of the blog to record their sometimes illiterate thoughts. Now blogs are increasingly the domain of professionals, some of whom are paid to blog.

Loudoun resident Samantha Lee wants to represent her own unpaid profession: motherhood. She works more than 40 hours a week and seldom gets to take nights or weekends off. She’ll never get a raise, but Lee says the job isn’t without its perks.

Lee is a stay-at-home mommy blogger, which means she writes about her day-to-day life and experiences with her four young children and her husband.
“It’s a chance for me to represent my profession in a realistic light. I found it to be a great outlet creatively to chronicle the funny things about life with kids,” Lee said. “I’m a mom. I’m a blogger. I guess that makes me a mommy blogger.”

She’d like to meet other mommy bloggers in the area, but suspects that other mommy bloggers in Loudoun may have privatized their blogs for safety reasons.

“[Blogging] is a great way to reach out to other moms, to share what you’re dealing with,” Lee said. “It’s a great way for a stay-at-home mom to stay connected with other moms.”

Lee’s closest contact by location is a blogger in Maryland. Though Lee doesn’t have a huge readership, she has met other people around the country and the globe online.

“Sometimes I get messages from a girl in Spain that I’ve never met, or a girl in Germany,” Lee said. “It’s been really interesting to me to have complete strangers validate something that I’ve said.”

In addition to writing about her children, Lee writes about her hobbies, including thrifting, cooking and pop culture.

“I like to talk about ... parenting – not necessarily advice, but what works for me,” Lee said. “Sometimes I’ll wax emotional and just get something off my chest. Sometimes I’ll write about absolutely nothing – the cereal box or the weather or whatever’s on my mind that day.”

Lee’s blog also serves as a family history archive. Each year, her husband prints a year’s worth of entries using Blog2Print, an online service that turns blogs into books.

“The kids like to take the books off the shelf and look through them,” Lee said. “I plan to continue blogging if only [because] I’m creating a family history.”
To visit Lee’s blog, go to samanthaleelee.blogspot.com.

To learn about turning your own blog into a book, visit blog2print.sharedbook.com.