Confession #1: Blog Advertising

My dad is my best friend. The day I began my blog, The Hats I Wear, I betrayed to him my first rate idea to use the blog as a way of earning a little extra money. You see, I read this article in Glamour Magazine that suggested that advertising on blogs is an excellent source of income, so I thought to myself...I enjoy writing, I enjoy technology, I should try this...

After pondering over this notion for a week or so, I decided to follow through, which is not normally something I would do to begin with. Usually, after I brew over an idea such as this, I realize that the concept is absurd, and I almost NEVER follow through. But this time, this time I was going to make it happen. This time I was going to have faith in myself and no matter how insecure I felt about revealing my true level of nerdiness, I was going to network and work hard to get people to visit my site...

So I told my dad, my best friend, my plan, and as any loving father would, he set to work visiting my site on a daily basis, and occasionally clicking on the ads, which I agreed that I would not click on or encourage others to click on. Okay, so perhaps he didn't click occasionally, and perhaps my mom began clicking too, and perhaps I knew but did not discourage it...but there was a thrill every single time I logged into my AdSense account and saw the number of clicks and page impressions and the accruing balance of my account, and there was something deep, deep within me that yearned to believe that only a rare few of the accumulating clicks were my parents' and that many people...people from around the world were visiting my site and enjoying what I had to say, and that I was earning extra money on my own, by myself, doing something I am passionate about: writing.

So one thing led to another, and here I am beginning a new blog...a blog devoted to confessions...ugly, foul, dank-smelling confessions. This is my place, my haven of grace and freedom. And here, I plead guilty to the charge of invalid ad clicks, and here I willingly accept the consequence, which is that I will not have ads on another website again...and even if I did have a chance an hour ago, the posting of this new blog has officially precluded that from occurring...and I am okay with that.

To my readers (I would like to think there are millions of you all over the world gleaning inspiration from every syllable I type), I hope this is a place where you can find encouragement to be honest with yourself and the world, so that you can live with the peace of a pure mind and a virtuous heart!