Blogging As A Couple What It S Really Like

What that really means is that we sit at coffee shops and talk about nutrition plugins, analyze pictures of melty cheese and determine which one makes my nails look better, and eventually get in a tiff about whether or not that recipe really needed the orange honey glaze and then throw food at each other. KIDDING that’s not really what it’s like. Let me set the record straight for ya. Three goals with this post: So. Over the last few years Pinch of Yum has grown into a partnership that has brought us all over the map. And by map, I guess I mean the emotional sort, although geographically we’ve had some adventures as well. A little of this, a little of that. Like it goes. The journey was like this –>

Have You Always Both Been Involved with Pinch Of Yum?

Not really. I told Bjork one day that maybe I should start a blog because I was worried that my Facebook friends were getting annoyed of me always posting status updates about recipes. And in reality, THEY WERE. Good timing. I was totally out of my league (a blog? what’s that?) but Bjork took me seriously and offered to set me up with a free Tumblr account. And that was the start of Pinch of Yum. We were just laughing the other day about the fact that when we started, I had wanted Bjork to do all the photography. I didn’t have any experience with photography and Bjork knew the basics of the manual controls, so it just made sense. Except not really, because that would have been really hard to sustain and we probably would have killed each other over caramel drips on upside down apple cake, so off I went on my own. With his help, big time, I was able to learn the photography and editing, and I eventually wrote a book on food photography that has been a huge reason for the growth we’ve seen with monetizing Pinch of Yum AND one of the things I’ve enjoyed most about this journey. And now for a little cringe-laugh: this picture of us from high school.

What Are Your Roles?

We’ve traded roles off and on over the last few years, but for the most part this is a mini-breakdown of who does what. Currently, Me: 30-40 hours/week

all cooking, photography, and writingcomments and reader emailscreating products like ebooks and ecookbooks

Currently, Bjork: 10 hours/week (that’s just for Pinch of Yum – waaay more of his time is spent on Food Blogger Pro)

advertising and affiliate marketinghardware and server maintenancemy full-time cheerleader, emotional counselor, and dragger away from the computerer. thanks babe. ♥

How Do You Communicate About Blog Stuff?

If we worked in the same space all the time, we would have just spent the last 4 years watching YouTube videos, talking about funny blog comments, and analyzing interesting articles shared on Facebook. So we need some separation. Bjork has an office and I work on the blog from home. We rarely work in the same physical space, so a lot of our communication happens via email. We both have personal AND Pinch of Yum email addresses, so typically if I have something I need to ask Bjork about I literally just send him an email to his Pinch of Yum account like I would to a coworker or business partner. He does the same for me, so I often have emails from him asking what I think about a new design change or adding a new type of advertising. Email is great. But that’s not the only time we talk about things because we, um, live together. So we talk Pinch of Yum during dinner, long walks, and in the car on the way home from the grocery store. Annnd I just made it seem like Bjork goes to the grocery store with me, which makes me a liar. It’s something that we’ve battled for a long time because we definitely don’t want to spoil our time as a couple, our real life, if you will, with food blog stuff. At the same time, I think we’ve learned to recognize that it’s okay for us to have those Pinch of Yum conversations during our ordinary moments because that’s what we’re interested in and excited about. We are never short on things to talk about, and while we try to keep the blog talk to a minimum during our regular life moments, we also accept and appreciate that it’s normal for couples to talk about shared interests and we are lucky that we have such a strong one. So basically we are in constant communication – all forms of it – about what’s going on with Pinch of Yum. And we never fight.

Wait Though, Do You Really Fight?

hides face in shame Okay fine yes. In fact, there may or may not have been a little squabble that just happened as I was writing this post. Life is real, and while thankfully flinging tomatoes at each other isn’t a super common thing for us, we do have our day to day nit-picky disagreements about bloggy things. While there have been and continue to be blips on the happy radar, just like any business along the road of growth and development, I am 1,000% thankful to have Bjork as the other half of Pinch of Yum. We would NEVER EVER EVER in a million years have gotten to this point without each other. Our partnership running Pinch of Yum only works at full capacity with both of us in the game. Sometimes people point out (in nice and not-so-nice ways) that “my secret” to the success of Pinch of Yum is Bjork. And you know what? Amen to that. Yes and yes. My food blogging road is made waaayyy better because of his knowledge and expertise. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. That being said, please hear this: as a food blogger, you do not need your spouse or sister or neighbor to be involved in order to make it happen. Is it helpful? Yes. Is it a prerequisite? No. The most important thing that I think Bjork has taught me along the food blog road is that I CAN LEARN STUFF. Like HTML (okay, very baby HTML) and photography and SEO and the beast of them all: Photoshop. Things that I would normally rely on him for. So just remember that if you’re doing it alone, you can learn stuff (for free! online! amazing world!), and you can build a team of people who can help you with the stuff that’s still new to you. Go forth and be awesome, food blogger!

How Has Your Relationship Changed?

We can appreciated each others’ skills more.We’ve learned the power of an I’m-sorry-cookie.We can rely on others once in a while (stubborn much?).We’ve become better communicators.We have and still do try intentionally to enjoy life offline.

What’s The Secret To Making It Work?

For us, I’d say the secret has been appreciating how incredible it is that we get to work together. It is such a gift. Challenging, yes. But so uniquely special. We get to appreciate and learn about each other in new ways all the time. And not having kids yet. –> Joking, but not joking: we could never spend as much time working on the blog if we had a few littles under our roof. Someday, though. 🙂 Because babies? their chubby little legs? I die. To wrap up this little reflection of blogging as a couple, I thought I’d ask some of my favorite couple bloggers to give their two cents on the whole spouse-as-your-business-partner thing.