This freaked me out a little because before I started writing the post for today, I thought I had written one review each day since the middle of July 2010, or June at the latest. I remember making the promise to myself to write one review, one special product sale post, or something interesting regarding the finding or receiving bargains, but I guess I don't remember when that was, because that date was actually January 13, 2010! That's right, I or one of my counterparts has written at least one post to this blog every single day for a year and a half.  Maybe that doesn't sound like an awful lot to the writers reading this, but for someone who is otherwise engaged in a very time-consuming full-time job, it's a lot!

Now granted I've been sick a few times in there, so some of them were just blurbs. And the blog did break itself in September of last year, so the posts for about a week didn't seem very valuable (one of those still gets a ton of hits each and every day though, so who knew). I also have paid a few people to create for me while I researched products for one of the other 15 sites I own.

I also have one wonderful person available that will write a product review for me at a moment's notice, and she has come through several times in that period when I needed a little break. I couldn't do this blog without her help.

But what I'm getting at here is that it's difficult writing good quality content for this or any blog each and every day. But if I don't place at least something up EACH AND EVERY day, the traffic drops off considerably, and it takes weeks to get it back. I know, I tried it last week when I loaded up a very thing product review with a good deal more last week. So instead of writing for a new post, I wrote for an old one. Traffic fell off immediately, around 20%, and it's just now coming back today.

This is equally frustrating in that I know a blog like this isn't one that gathers a lot of subscribers. It's just too broad in what we try to do here: encompassing motorcycles, road bikes, cappucino makers, eReaders, and Blu-ray players. Lots of people are interested in most of those things, but not all things at once. So it's frustrating to know that I'm only really writing today's post for tomorrow's search. I could instead be writing a really in depth review of one product each week, making for a much higher quality read in general.

But I can't do that, and so I write each day. Please don't take this as complaining: I enjoy the benefits of writing for this blog, and I sort of knew this would happen when I started the site. I've been a faithful reader of Kottke for quite some time, and I heard him say that his site's traffic falls off dramatically if he doesn't post daily just because it's so broad. So if anyone's to blame it's me.

However, and here's where I get to the meat of this subject, I do need a chance to take a break for working daily, a sabbatical if you will, and I think mine is coming up soon. July 25th begins a vacation week for me, but as stated, I can't just drop the blog completely and not write. No instead I'll be writing more posts this week to build up for next week. They won't be the typical 800-1,000 word reviews that I usually write. And may not even be product reviews at all.

For instance, I believe a few articles will be reviews of other sites like Find Cheap Bargains. Sites that provide product reviews like ours, lots of differing products like ours. But I'll feature the reasons why I would use the sites and why I would not. Each site that I'll review has it's good and bad, but all have great value, and should be considered when looking for products in general.

I hope my sabbatical leaves me refreshed enough to get back to work on the 30th when I get ready to begin writing reviews again, but I know that it's only up to me to take advantage of the time off from this job (and my 8-5 job) so that I can continue making Find Cheap Bargains the site that I want it to be! Christmas is coming up, and one can't slack off during that time period, now can I?

Thanks for reading, thanks for being loyal enough to read this post, something so utterly not "cheap bargainish" and doesn't really apply to this site. I willl ask one thing: if you've felt it necessary to take a digital sabbatical before, let me know in the comments if it helped you in the long run!

B. Daniels is the lead review expert with Find Cheap Bargains. B. was more than likely the person responsible for the hands-on review of every product on the site. He also spends time searching for sale bargains when not conducting and writing the reviews.