At the bottom of this page are quick links to Sweet Stuff you might need for your blog. Some of the links are affiliate links, which means I will earn a commission if you purchase through those links (THANK YOU!!!). Some of them are just super great freebies that I’ve found helpful here at Sugar Dish Me.
Let me preface this page by letting you know that I am in no way technologically savvy. In fact, that’s kind of why I decided to do this.
In August 2011 I lost my job through some very weird and unfortunate circumstances. I live in the Middle-of-Nowhere, 
and job opportunities here are not plentiful. But job opportunities are especially not plentiful for women. This is a very blue-collar community. There is plenty of heavy-lifting to do, and though I have never ever been opposed to hard work, working on a road crew or at a construction site was really not for me (Reason #1: whatever notions you have about southern gentlemen, well… just throw those out the window; Reason #2: I am the clumsiest person alive. Me + Work Zone = Death or Dismemberment). Women in this zip code tend to gravitate in one of two directions: nursing or teaching. These professions are noble and amazing, but they just aren’t for me. In addition to being the clumsiest person alive, I have to put my head between my knees at the sight of a paper cut and I’m not known for being incredibly patient. In short, I’ll never be a teacher or a nurse.
I’ve worked in restaurants since I was old enough to have a worker’s permit, so food service on some level tends to be the direction I gravitate in. But restaurants out here aren’t plentiful and none of the options available were a good fit for our family.
Writing is another passion of mine, but I’ve spent most of my life just figuring out how to figure it out, never honing many skills besides hard work and damage control. Aside from journaling my random thoughts and editing my children’s’ elementary school book reports, I was completely out of practice.
While I hung out in professional limbo, feeling like I had absolutely no direction, I started this blog as a way to stretch my long-dormant writing legs and blather on about my two favorite things on this earth: my family and food. I started with technical knowledge amounting to exactly NONE. Also I had only my cell phone camera to work with (and not a good cell phone camera either… I’m pretty sure it was the worst of the worst). I logged a few posts a week, though. Enough to give me a tiny bit of practice with HOW to blog. Enough to give me the beginning of a voice in my writing.
We decided as a family that it was time for me to put the dead-end job search on the back burner for awhile. This blog has been a way to exercise all the pieces of me that I nearly forgot in my quest for making ends meet.
I started with approximately 10 readers – ONE loyal friend, my mom, my brothers and sisters, my boyfriend. It was months before I felt brave enough to venture out into the blogging community to interact and make my presence known, and once I did I was kind of overwhelmed and intimidated. There are SOOOOOO many talented people with such creative content, so many awesome things to say. It took a good long while before I believed anything I had to say was worthy of being heard. I cultivated a handful of tentative friendships with newbies like me and steadily watched my traffic grow. Not much at first; 35 views in a day was toast-worthy for me. I was completely thrilled.
Sharing, learning, crafting and befriending have been the most rewarding parts of Sugar Dish Me. I got to where I wondered what else I could do with a blog? How can I share more, interact more, create more? It’s an ongoing process and I’m constantly tweaking the pieces. I wrote THIS POST with a few things about how I got my site launched… dipped my toes in the waters of self-hosting and where to start.
Bluehost
… is the company I chose to host Sugar Dish Me WAYYYY back in the beginning.
Here’s what you need to know. Bluehost is affordable. And it’s fine if you have a small budget and are just looking for a place to host your site that is a hobby. Everyone has to start somewhere and I know that when I initially started this website I was NOT able to justify spending even $10 or $20 a month on anything blog-related. We were broke AF and barely making ends meet. Bluehost filled that gap for me.
BUT. As soon as I had even an inkling that I might be able to parlay this food blog into a business I started to look into managed hosting. It is 100% amazing to have smart professional people to help you with things like backups, updates, servers, and site speed. Bluehost has none of those things (unless you pay for upgraded service), and the services they offer at a fee are NOT worth it. Support is not wonderful and I have definitely seen them do things like run outdated versions of PHP (so when you update WordPress or plugins things break).
With all of this in mind! If you need an affordable option to get you started you can click the image below (it’s an affiliate link).
Tasty Food Photography
…is an e-book that should be on your Christmas/Birthday/Valentine’s/Everything list. Or you could just buy it for yourself. You’ll be glad you did. The author, Lindsay, is a talented photographer, baker, and blogger. She breaks down how to make your food look goooooooood. And she makes it easy. To see some sample pages of the book or to purchase a copy to download for yourself click the image below. (also an affiliate link)
Free themes are available from WordPress. You can sift through them and even see what your site will look like all refreshed and new by using the live preview function. If you are looking for something MORE functional and customizable, if you really want your blog to look professional and awesome, DIY Themes offers the biggest bang for the buck. It is definitely your best option if you aren’t super techno-savvy (like me) and can’t afford a web designer (like me). Click the image below to learn more.
You might also find this stuff handy:
As always, if you have questions, feel free to contact me!!