About Me

You Make Beautiful Things Out of Us

August 25, 2014 by Jackie Ritz 2 Comments

Hopeless.

Depressed.

Filled with guilt.

Bad mother.

Bad sister.

Incapable.

Alone.

Ugly.

Fat.

Me.

All this pain. I wonder if I’ll ever find my way. I wonder if my life could really change at all.

These were just a few things that described my life. The guilt that I carried was heavy. Guilt for letting my sister go to her apartment alone. Guilt for not wanting to get off the couch to play with my kids. Guilt for being so selfish with my grief. Guilt for not wanting to let myself feel loved by my husband.

Guilt. It weighed me down and it tore me apart and it crushed me. Crushed. Bruised.

Fat. Ugly. Typical mother who let herself go. Nothing special. Nothing beautiful. Nothing worth caring about.

Incapable. Weak. Unqualified. “Jackie, you can’t do anything right. You weren’t even there for her. You let her go. This is your fault.”

You’re not worth it. You’re not worth anything.

Could all that is lost ever be found? Could a garden come up from this ground at all?

Change. Joy. Life. I starved for it. I was so dry and hungry and desperate and I wanted it so bad.

I was so empty. So dusty.

All around, hope is springing up from this old ground. Out of chaos life is being found in You.

Who is this person? Did I just smile? Did I just laugh? Am I kissing my husband again with passion? Do I really have passion? What is going on?

I’m changing.

I’m evolving.

I’m….becoming.

Happy.

I’m happy. I’m becoming happy.

Beautiful….I’m beautiful.

You make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things out of us.

I’m not hopeless. I’m promising.

I’m not depressed anymore. I’m happy.

I’m NOT guilty.

I may not be perfect, but I am exactly what my children need. I am a great mother.

I loved my sister and she loved me and we will see each other again one day. I was the best sister to her.

I’m able. I am able to be and do what I so passionately love to do. I am able.

I am beautiful.

You make me new. You are making me new.

You make beautiful things out of the dust. You take a dusty woman like me and you make it beautiful.

My life has changed so much. I am so incredibly happy and blessed and grateful that I have been made beautiful. I am so grateful that I tattooed it on my body….

So You Wanna Start a Money Making Blog?

February 4, 2014 by Jackie Ritz 158 Comments

I’ve had so many people write me and ask me how to even begin blogging. This month I celebrate my 2 year blogiversary! I can’t believe that 2 years ago I wrote my first blog post. I cringe looking back at those early posts. I had no direction and my posts sound like one big run-on sentence.

I feel like I have learned a lot over the years and my love for blogging has turned from hobby to income. The last 2 years of blogging has been a roller coaster. There have been times where I wanted to quit, where I would beg or readers, and times when typing words on a screen was the best thing for letting go of stress and emotion.

So, to save some of you HOURS of research and HOURS of trial and error, let me put my thoughts and advice in one spot. Right here.

How Did The Paleo Mama Begin?

Every blog has a story. A beginning. An inspiration. My story began more than 2 years ago. I was a avid Weston A. Price (WAP) follower and ate very well whole foods, lots of animal fats, whole grains, and even ground my own grain. I had sourdough starter, kefir, kombucha, and water kefir. I knew about eating good. But….I ate good, healthy WAP yet carried around more weight then I liked. I was 70lbs heavier than what I am now. My blog began about 2 months after I began eating Paleo. My younger sister passed away and I was an overweight, depressed mess. My journey into blogging began when someone baked me a Paleo “sympathy” meal and since that day I have been Paleo. I started my blog about 6 months after I started eating Paleo. I had no idea what I was going to blog about. I just wrote random things and didn’t really worry about making any money.

This changed quickly. I wouldn’t call it greed, but you get to a point where you want to make money. I mean, if you are spending a few hours a day on the computer blogging, then you sure as hell better be making money. People were reading my stuff. Using my recipes. The idea of blogging for hobby turned into blogging for income about a year after I started my blog.

I never thought I could make a living off blogging, but now I know that if I needed to support my family, my income would be able to provide 100% of our needs. The money didn’t come easy. I used that first year of blogging to really build up my traffic and my readers. That first year I never advertised or threw marketing ads at anyone. I never promoted products or tried to sell e-books, summits, or anything else. I just wrote and I did it for free.

But as social media grew and became such an avenue for traffic, so did my demand to be on the computer. This is when I made the decision to use my blog as an avenue for income. It combined something that I loved to do with something that would meet the needs of my family. And you know what they say, “when you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. ”

10 Tips to Successful Blogging:

1) WordPress.org – when I first started my blog I used wordpress.com. I didn’t know there was a difference between .com and .org but there actually is a BIG difference. With wordpress.com you CANNOT put any ads up. NONE. About a year into my blogging I wanted to start putting ads up. When I found out I couldn’t I decided to migrate my blog over to wordpress.org. So, for anyone starting out on blogging just go ahead and avoid the ABSOLUTE frustration of migrating a website over. It is really intricate and frustrating…especially if you do it on your own, like I did. My husband stayed away from me for about 3 days when I was going through the migration. At one point I thought I had lost over 100 blog articles.

TIP#1: Start with WordPress.org

2) Hosting – you need to pick a host. I started out using Go Daddy and it was *okay*. Not the best but for $80 for the year it worked. I currently use WP Engine on The Paleo Mama. It is expensive but it is THE BEST. I have around 500,000 page views a month, so I need a host that is reliable and can handle the traffic and possible peaks of traffic that can happen in hours. I, also, have used BlueHost and really do like them too. If you are serious about blogging, get a good host. WP Engine is incredible but, like I said before, they are pricey. I probably wouldn’t recommend going with them until you have around 100,000 page views a month.

TIP #2 Pick a good host.

3) Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS) – my dad taught me to always follow the KISS method. When I named my blog, I was in the hype of eating Paleo. Now that Paleo has become a lifestyle and it doesn’t define me, I have some regret about naming my blog, “The Paleo Mama”. I feel like it really limits me. I know it is what has drawn a lot of people to my blog, but I, no longer, feel like Paleo is what I am 100% about. I want my blog to have a feeling of more than that. I want my blog to be, maybe, 10% Paleo, 10% homesteading, 10% recipes, 20% essential oils…and so on. So, pick a name that is broad but unique, if you know what I mean?

TIP #3 Pick a broad blog name

4) Affiliates – about 30-40% of my monthly income comes from affiliates. I love supporting my fellow bloggers and when they have an book, a program, or a product that I love, I sign up to be an affiliate with them. Most of my affiliates I find through the blogs or articles that I read that seem to really be on brand for my audience. Many websites offer affiliate programs, and all you have to do is sign up. I link to these affiliates in blog posts or I put them on my right sidebar on my homepage. A few of my favorite affiliates right now are Squeaky Clean Paleo, Toxic Free, Kickin the Weight with Keto, Natural Homestead, and these Paleo Meal Plans. PS. I have over 10 affiliate links in this blog post!.

TIP #4 Find On-Brand Affiliates

5) Amazon Associates – Amazon Associates has been a great avenue for income. Anyone can sign up and all you do is link to the product in the Amazon store. This is great for people who are writing recipes and articles with products in it. I try to not post an article or recipe without a few Amazon links in there. It’s a really simple affiliate program and one you don’t want to be without!

TIP #5 Sign up for Amazon Associates

6) Google Adsense & Media.net – Google Adsense is an advertising program that is a great source of passive income. It’s nice to make money without ever having to promote anything. Google Adsense gives you advertisements to place on your blog. There’s lots of ways to strategize about how to maximize your income from Adsense. I can’t really talk much about media.net because I was just approved for it and running a trial on it right now. But, there are several ways to make money with advertising and it’s a great income for doing practically nothing.

TIP #6 Sign up for Google Adsense

7) Take Good Pictures – I cannot emphasize enough how important this is. My early pictures are SCARY. I used my phone to take them. When I got serious with blogging, I bought a used Cannon Rebel with a good lens and it has made a drastic difference. The big chunk of money to buy a camera is sometimes just NOT there. Don’t fret…I, absolutely, love Deposit Photos and recommend signing up for their monthly subscription. You get 5 downloads a day and there is thousands of photos to choose from (click here to check out depositphotos.com).

TIP #7 Take Good Pictures

8) Edit Those Pictures – I use picmonkey.com and Keynotes app on my Mac to edit my pictures. I like to make a horizontal picture (good Facebook sized picture is 800×419) and a vertical picture (good Pinterest size pic is 419×800) for each posts. The vertical pictures are mostly to stand out on Pinterest and the horizontal picture is for Facebook shares. I have stopped taking step-by -step pictures during recipes because it is just too much. I do it sometimes, but mostly I just use ONE good picture.

TIP #8 Make pictures stand out

9) Have a newsletter signup on your blog – I never understood the importance of this till about a year into blogging. You want to be able to give people this option if they LOVE your blog. Click here to check out my newsletter sign-up form. My newsletter sign-ups are my most devoted readers. They have signed up for my RSS feed and get my new posts delivered in their email inbox. I send out personal emails to all my readers once a week and, also, share specials and giveaways with them. I love MailChimp for this! It’s free until you start getting thousands of sign-ups. You can have a signup on your right sidebar or use a pop-up like Pippidy to grab emails.

TIP#9 Set up an RSS feed and/or Newsletter Signup

10) Get on the Social Media Train – you have to get good at social media. You just have to. Pinterest is my leading traffic source with Facebook following close behind. Make a Facebook page that runs along with your blog and share articles and posts. Encourage your readers to engage more and more on Facebook. Don’t forget Google+! Google+ is a huge asset to bring in traffic and it’s also great for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Make a Pinterest, Facebook, and Google+ plus account. The thought of managing all these might stress you out. I got tips for you on that: Hootsuite sends out all my posts to all 3 of my social media outlets in ONE post. Saves me tons of time! Viral Tag pins images to my Pinterest page throughout the day. I just have to schedule my pins in the morning and that’s it.

TIP#10 Utilize Social Media

Other Tools I Love:

Google Analytics – Google analytics is something to use to really take a look at where your traffic is coming from, what articles they are looking at, and key words they used to find your blog. It’s nice to watch to see how your traffic is growing and it’s, also, fun to look at the “real time” analytics! If you have a blog, you want to sign up for this free google service.

My favorite plugins – Plugins are programs you can download to your WordPress Dashboard. They are tools you can use to make your blog flow better or to customize your blog. A few of my favorite plugins are: Quick Adsense, Before and After Content, Pin it Pro, Shareholic, WordPress SEO by Yoast, Print Friendly, Pretty Link, Pippidy and Custom Content.

Design and Themes – for 2 years I used a free WordPress Theme on my website. It worked great until I really wanted to have my website stand out and give it a little personality. I wanted my personality to shine through it. Michelle Guzman Design made a custom web design for my blog! She is awesome to work with and made my website really stand out. Check out my new design (click here).

doTERRA Essential Oils – I am an Independent Product Consultant for doTERRA Essential Oils. I have a wonderful team that I have built and am growing with. I make a little extra income with doTERRA. My goal in signing up to sell doTERRA wasn’t to market. My goal was to be able to make great recipes for blog posts and link to a reputable essential oil. My love for oils grew so much that I decided to start building a team.

Networking with other bloggers – I have so many wonderful blogging friends that I have met over the years. I love supporting them, selling their e-books, meal plans, Amazon or Kindle books, etc. When the time comes around, they do the same for me. It’s a “scratch your back” mentality but, also, I have made some amazing friends.

Alright, where’s the cheese?

In all these things listed above you can make some money. How much can you make? Well, that depends on you. I started out getting excited about $50 checks from affiliates and it being a good little job on the side for spending money. Now, I can support my family if my husband was to ever lose his job. Blogging is NOT easy and it’s not a fast road to success. It took me 2 years to get to this point. However, I am so glad that I am doing something that I absolutely love, I’m making an income from it, I’m sharing my love for Paleo foods and natural living, and I work from home.

Working from home is the highlight for me. I’m so blessed to be able to stay home with my kids and make my own hours. It’s hard to find time to do everything…between milking the goat, making healthy Paleo meals, blogging, and maintaining a home, my life is a little chaotic. However, I’ve built discipline to make hours when the kids are in bed or napping.

Alright, there it is…so do you still wanna start a blog after reading this?! I say go for it!

Leave me a comment with your blog below so I can follow you!

Help The Paleo Mama Out!!!

October 31, 2013 by Jackie Ritz Leave a Comment

Hey everyone! I have a HUGE request and need your help. 2013 is quickly drawing to a close and I plan on creating plenty of great content for you in the coming year – including ebooks, an online class, and lots of great posts.

I’ve got lots to share about Paleo, natural living, raising Paleo kids, and health/wellness. But, I need your help. I want to make sure to create content that you want and need. So, I’m taking a really quick survey on Survey Monkey.com to see what my readers are more interested in.

Please fill out this quick survey to help me decide which classes and books to offer next year. Thank you SO MUCH!

>>>Click here to fill it out! <<<

Thank you again! This is such a big help!

Jackie @ The Paleo Mama

City Girl to Farm Girl: The Transformation Within

October 30, 2013 by Jackie Ritz 9 Comments

Picnic basket in one hand, my son’s hand in the other, we open the rusty gate and head out to find a perfect spot to lay our blanket. The autumn leaves crunch beneath my farm boots – I still snicker when I look down and see rubber boots instead of polished, tan toes that compliment my $1 Old Navy flip-flops. Paleo farm girl runs ahead of us and asks to let the chickens out. Her wavy hair dances in the mountain air and sings a song as the sun flickers off her fading summer highlights.

Paleo son giggles when the chickens break free from their coop – their eyes eager to find a juicy bug outside the coop walls. Do I know that feeling! Paleo farm girl picks up her favorite chicken, Susie Sunshine, so delicately and gently. This is the second Susie Sunshine. The first Susie Sunshine met her unfortunate fate when Paleo farm girl accidentally stepped on her. I felt the crush and blow with her and we held her fading body as she slipped away from this world. This was our first hard lesson of farm life but we knew the pain of death already.

My son slips from my hand and brings me back to this moment. I watch as he runs ahead and I know where he is going. He is fascinated with “wish flowers” and they cover our pasture. He counts to three and blows and I watch the white florets surround my son and I watch as his eyes follow the florets up in the air above him. The moment is perfect and I thank God that I am here in it. I remember my life when it was crushed, stepped on…like the first Susie Sunshine. My life was fading away and I felt like I couldn’t breath. My bones were broken and I couldn’t hold my head up. My spirit barely was holding on and I could not get past the pain my body had felt.

I stood in the hallway broken and crying out for help, I felt it. I felt someone pick me up and over time He began to, every-so-carefully, put me back together. I watch my children in our new life and think of how my life has so, drastically, changed. But it didn’t happen all at once…it was piece by piece…by piece. And now I walk hand-in-hand with my child whose birth painfully reminds me of the death of my sister. My life has been a life of parallels; plagued with celebrating the life of my son, but burdened, at the same time, with grieving the death of my younger sister. It’s been two years and I’ve walked these parallels and I’ve been burdened with grief and guilt. I’ve been screaming into a pillow and felt trapped in this life. I thought this is how it would feel forever…but here I am…I’m watching the wish flowers surround my son and fly up into the mountain breeze. I’m looking at the mountains that surround us and admiring the way the sun forms shadows on in the crevices of the distant peaks.

I hit my knees and a wave of peace comes over me. I don’t feel God anymore so I don’t know if that is what this is…but it is something so close that it leaves me believing that I will feel Him again. I reach my hand up to grab my sister’s necklace and, for once, I know it’s ok. My sister led me here because I know I wouldn’t be here…in the middle of the mountains of North Carolina…if it wasn’t for what happened. My life wouldn’t have gone through such trauma. I wouldn’t feel like I do now. I wouldn’t be this alive.

Cause now I feel things. I see things I never saw…

like how beautiful the florets of the wish flower are.

Or how my daughter’s hair dances in the air.

Or how beautiful the leaves are as they are changing from green to their autumn color.

I wouldn’t feel peace because to truly feel peace, you have to know what war is.

I pull the checkered blanket from our picnic basket and we sit down to enjoy this day that was given to us. My daughter says a prayer and thanks the Lord for her chicken. My son throws his little arms in the air and screams, “AMEN.” We break bread together, as a little family that has been through a tough few years but has come out of the storm. I had a feeling this place would help me continue to heal and I’m thankful that it has held up to that expectation.

My heart has always had a calling for more than what a city could offer me and living in it was like a prison.

I’m thankful to be set free.

I’m blessed to be able to treasure this moment.

…because now I know how fast life is.

…now I know that I can be broken…and happy…and it’s ok.

This crushed and broken city-girl is gone. A vibrant and peaceful farm girl has arrived.

My soul is…

quenched.

The Udder Truth: City Girl Adventures in Goat Milking

September 22, 2013 by Jackie Ritz 22 Comments

uddertruth

Hi everyone! I’m Jackie, a city girl turned farm girl. I grew up in Orlando, Florida and all my life had a calling for living on a farm. I would run into farmers and tell them that my dream was to have a farm. They would look at me like I was crazy and say, “I didn’t know people dreamed of doing this.”

So, after years of dreaming of having a farm, we finally made it a reality! Three weeks ago we moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina to fulfill our farming and homesteading dreams. One of the first things I did, even before we moved to North Carolina, was look for a goat. I wanted to be able to have fresh milk every day. So, I bought a goat. I bought two goats.

bothgoats

We moved to North Carolina, ditched our sleek, sedan, pimped out Altima and bought a old, cornflour blue, pickup truck. We hopped into our new “ride” to pick up our goats. The kids sat, excitedly, in the back seat and we arrived at our destination. “Ok…now what?” Ummm, ok…the big mama goat got shoved into a dog kennel in the truck bed…and I’m talking SHOVED. Poor thing. The (not-so) baby goat sat ON MY LAP in the front seat. “Helloooooo goat”.

takegoathome

So, here we are, a family from the city that just moved into the country and we are driving in a 21 year old pickup truck with 2 goats that are bleating incredibly loud! “Oh what a dream.” One is pooping in the dog kennel, the other is trying to climb into the driver seat, and my husband is getting hit on by a local redneck woman driving next to us. “Hello, I’m the wife and, yes, we those are goats. Hot, right?” The kids had no idea what to think. But we arrived home safely, tucked the goats into their new barn, and said goodnight till the morning.

Oh the day has finally come! Oh sweet morning! I have dreamed of this for years…milking my beautiful goat out in the mountain breeze; pumping fresh, warm milk into a shiny new bucket. I jump up from bed at around 4am, I just couldn’t sleep. Let’s do this. I washed and sanitized the bucket as all the articles had said, and I set out to milk my new goat. As I walk out into the cool air in my new rubber boots carrying my shiny, new bucket, the thoughts of chèvre, feta cheese, and goat milk ice cream dance in my head.

Into the barn I go. I prepare the milk stand that my husband, so graciously built, for me. Then call Sophie, the mama, to the stand. She doesn’t move. She stares me down. “Oh, Sophie, come on you old goat. I’m your new owner…I know you got some delicious milk for me.” I, literally, have to drag her to the milk stand. It’s almost abusive. My desire for milk is becoming squashed by a stubborn goat. “Oh, no Sophie, I will get some milk. Don’t spoil my dream.“What is her problem? I bribe her to the stand with grains. Up she goes and I lock her head in. Ok, here we go.

udder

What in the world am I doing? Am I really about to milk a goat? One look at those hairy teats and I about lose it. Oh city-girl Jackie…where am I again? Some old farmhouse milking a goat…my mother is probably dying laughing at the thought of this.

I grab my homemade, organic, udder wash for Sophie and go for it. Get them teats all nice and clean. Clean teats make clean milk. Thank God I was by myself. It took me almost 10 minutes to clean them teats. Sophie was almost done with her food. “NOoooo, slow down, I still have to milk you.”

Alright, here we go….I grab my shiny silver bucket and give her teats a squeeze. Nothing. Ok, let’s try this again. Squeeeeeze. Sophie about jumps a mile high. Sorry girl. I’ll get this. I squeeze again and I shoot myself in the neck with milk. At least there’s milk! All I can think about is all the times I spent milking myself!

“Do her teats feel like my nipples did?” God, I sure hope not. I aim, set, and fire away…I’m doing it with two hands. “Look at me, twooooo hands!!!” As soon as I start getting it, Sophie steps in the nice, new, shiny, clean bucket and my heart sinks. “Are those poop particles floating around in there now? Shoot, I guess I can’t use this milk.” I leave the goat strapped into the milk stand and run in to get another bucket to use. I come back and get back into my rythym. Squeeze, aim, and fire away. Sophie wiggles and squirms and kicks me over and over again. “WHAT????”

She squats and an enormous amount of pee comes out. Really? Is this really happening? A goat is, literally, peeing on me.

I clean the table…then I clean her udder again. “I want some friggin milk.” Squeeze, aim, fire…squeeze, aim, fire. The sound of milk hits the bucket and I smile. I am here…no longer a dream. I’m milking a goat…my goat. So beautiful!

“OMG what is eff is that falling from the sky???” The sound of a million little goat turds hit the table. I back away and look at the goat. How could she disgrace herself like that?

I clean the table again…then her udder AGAIN…and she kicks me over and over. I manage to get about 3 tablespoons of milk that morning. Whew…what to do with 3 tablespoons of milk?

Thankfully, Sophie and I have an understanding now. I let her poop and pee before bringing her to the milk stand and she gives me almost a half gallon of milk every morning.

soph