I began blogging 2 months ago, somewhere along the way I found hubpages and to be honest, my goal was to make money at home. I am home right now with an injured knee, my husband found an ad that I checked into, it was a sort of get rich quick scheme, but I did learn from it. Next I set up 3 blogs and added Adsense to them and to my Hubpages as well. I was on my way to riches, well in a way I was right .

I have written another Hub explaining why I believe I lost my adsense and all my earnings so I will not go into that here. I haven't made a dime with blogging or Hubpages. What I have found, is a wealth of information, new friends and the best recipe's I could ever hope for. I am rich!

1. Blogging and Hubbing are therapy. I have had some sad, happy and in between days like most of us. Now I know just where to go to get inspiration to cheer me up, make me laugh, cry with my friends and generally fill my heart and realize that whatever I am going through, someone else has been there and is willing to share. Sharing helps a lot. Blogging actually saves money, I no longer need a therapist, I have learned many ways to overcome my panic attacks, and lose weight. President Obama should consider using blogging as part of his health care package.

2. Blogging and Hubbing are very educational. I have learned so much about the world, politics, travel, animals, flowers, well the list goes on and on. I go to the blogs and find a beautiful photo and then I am drawn in and want to learn more. There are things I may have never even thought about that I have learned because I follow so many different blogs and Hubs. Every day is a new discovery and I take it with me, share it with my family and they share it and on and on.

3 Blogging and Hubbing can be like world travelling I have never had a lot of money to travel so I live vicariously through my blogs and Hubs. On any given day, I go to France, Italy, England. Indonesia all from the comfort of my home. Now I realize this isn't the same as going there, but the photos and stories bring me closer. I now want to go to places I have never even heard of just because of what I have learned. I still hope to travel more someday but for now I can dream and while I am dreaming I keep saving money to go someday.

4 Blogging and Hubbing provide a cookbook of the world. I love to cook and I have a huge collection of cookbooks, but I have never seen some of the recipes I have found here. There are recipes for anything and everything you can think of. I use at least 1 new recipe every week for my family. Some are great, others not so great but always an adventure. I have saved a lot of money on new cookbooks.

5. Blogging and Hubbing are a perfect place for animal lovers of all kinds. I have found so many animal lovers out there. I have learned so much about care, nutrition, fighting abuse and loving my little shih tzu Sasha. No matter what kind of animal you love you will find a friend while blogging.

6.Blogging and Hubbing are a great place to learn about family. I love family blogs and Hubs, my daughter is grown and not ready yet for children of her own, which is fine. I can enjoy the families that are sharing there stories on love, adoption, illness. My husband is diabetic and on kidney dialisys and I have found so much fellowship here. There are many other people with much worse situations that have come to me with love and advise. I read somewhere once and I don't know who to credit but roughly "If we all dropped our problems into a ditch and looked at everyone elses problems, we would probably end up taking our problems back." There is always someone who has it worse.

7. Blogging and Hubbing are a great way to make friends. I would have never believed this was possible. But I care about the people I have met on my blogs and Hubs. I keep up with them, when they are sad, I send words of encouragement. When I am sad, they are there for me. I think about them, I will be watching something and think I have to tell so and so about that on my blog. Its nice and safe for the most part. I do have other friends but it is nice to have this little world where people think I am great and they don't judge me as I don't judge them.

In conclusion I don't care as much anymore that I didn't make any money, I truly have found much more.I still need the money and keep trying but my advise on my short journey of blogging is :

1. Keep up with your blog, post every day if you can

2. Keep up with other blogs, answer comments, make comments, etc.

3. Look for new blogs every day, I go to the blogs of my friends that I have made and check out the following on their blogs and I get new friends this way and new contacts.

4. Keep your posts fun and interesting, they don't have to be real long. Pictures are important, I love pictures and most of the bloggers and Hubbers I get comments from do also.

5. Find blogging rooms such as bloggers cafe, I have made a lot of contacts there.

I have a blog on my shih tzu Sasha, it has become so popular that I was mentioned as a "blog of note" in blogger. I say this not to brag, I don't even know how it happened but I do know that when I stopped caring about the Adsense my blogging improved.I am not saying by any means that there is anything wrong with making money while doing this. I still have Amazon on all my pages and I still need money. Please use Adsense if you can or whatever works for you. My point is that when money became the most important thing that my blogging and hubbing content was not as important. Now that I have found all that this medium has to offer, yes I still want to make some money , but not as much as I want to learn and make new friends. It can be the best of both worlds in my opinion. Most of all blogging and hubbing is a blast and I get good feelings of self worth from it. I have written something and people are reading it an commenting favorably. You can't put a price on that.

I WISH YOU ALL LUCK AND GOOD FORTUNE