Sam Yeap Makes It Big As A Blogger

What started as a form of self-therapy has brought in more enriching rewards for a mother of two.

IT HAS been two years since blogger Samantha Yeap has had a good night’s sleep. For this 36-year-old mother of two, it is a case of enforced insomnia.

There are two reasons for this. The first has to do with her one-year-old child who will wake up at all hours in the night to breastfeed. Being a blogger is another.

Why suffer just for the sake of the Web, you may ask. But for Samantha, blogging has offered the solution for this stay-home mum to earn a living and be there for her sons, Gordon, five, and Malcolm, 20 months.

Samantha’s venture into blogging began two years ago when she started Just My Lil’ Organic Life, her blog page, as a form of self-therapy.

Like many bright women who have chosen to give up a career for motherhood, Samantha had found herself having to deal with the strain of boredom after the birth of her first child.

Under nobody’s rule: Samantha Yeap is queen of her blog pages.

“Rather than turn every one of my trivial dissatisfactions into a verbal and physical confrontation with my husband or other members of the extended family and cause unnecessary tension, I resorted to blogging to maintain my sanity and to keep the peace at home,” she recalls.

Little did she know, her online diary would also turn out to be an asset in the end. As she found out, blog pages are also targets for advertisers.

To her delight, the rewards of featuring them on her website have helped Samantha to regain her financial footing.

In a posting dated Sept 1, 2007, she reported earnings of US$3,478 for August 2007.

“Don’t think it came easy. As with all success stories, it comes with a price,” smiles the satisfied Samantha knowingly.

The first challenge was in accepting the dynamics of an irregular income.

“There are always lulls and peaks in advertiser traffic. I may be earning a five-figure income one month but things can always change.

“At the moment, blogging activities seem to be at an interim so the only thing to do is to wait,” she says.

And, of late, quick checks in the mirror have brought on worries of premature ageing due to lack of sleep. A beauty regime, she whispers sotto voce, has been employed to reverse the effects. Though she can still be found in front of her PC till 4 to 5am, Samantha will make it a point to have a short shut-eye in the hours when her eldest son is in school.

Samantha also had another task in convincing her husband, Keith Wong, 42, an organic skincare salesman, to see things her way.

“At first, he didn’t understand what I was doing and we had constant debates about why I was always so busy.

“When I showed him the traffic flow on my blog pages, he began to see things in a new light,” explains Samantha on how she had won her husband over.

And getting the support of her spouse has helped to spur this Ipoh native on.

“Blogging is like writing. You need to concentrate. Once you interrupt the rhythm, it is very hard to get back into the same frame of mind again.

“So, I definitely need my husband’s cooperation with the kids when I need, say, three straight hours to work on a project,” says Samantha.

As a form of encouragement, not only will be hubby take turns to mind the kids but he has taken the extra mile to ensure that Samantha is properly fed, too.

As she works into the wee hours of the morning, Keith makes it a point to go out to a nearby food court for takeaway suppers.

“I talk about everything from cooking, depression, pre-cast concrete and how to prevent white hair.

“There are parenting tips, daily life experiences, how to deal with frustration, things that everybody goes through.

“What gives me so much satisfaction is that I am able to do and say what I want in my blog (within moral and ethical boundaries, of course). I am under nobody’s rule,” beams this independent minded individual.

So, for those who have wondered if one really can have it all, career, motherhood and a happy marriage, Samantha is a walking example of the saying, “When there is a will, there is always a way.”

“It is very tempting to resign to the belief that earning an income should be left to the husband but I say it is definitely better if both can earn for the family.

“Of course, I can give up everything, sit at home and do nothing. But in doing that, nothing moves and that is not how I want my life to be,” says Samantha determinedly.

To see what’s cooking in Samantha’s head, go to http://myorganiclife.blogspot.com.