Hey everyone! It’s been a little while since I’ve been able to post anything. Spring and summer were kind of a whirlwind of busy and somehow we’ve ended up all the way in October and I have no idea how that happened! I’m sure none of you can relate to that. Wink. Wink. But, I’ve really missed all of you and I’ve missed blogging – maybe more than I even realized.
Anyway, the first thing that I wanted to tell you is that a few days ago, I guest posted on my friend Emily’s blog The Goldilock’s Kitchen. She is an amazing cook!! And when I say that, I’m not just saying that to be nice. I’ve known Emily longer than I’ve known just about anyone and she has actually cooked for me, so I know how incredible her food really is! I was pretty excited to guest post for her! You can click here to go see the yummy recipe for Chocolate Croissant Cookies.
Also, this week has been incredibly exciting for me!
First of all, it was my 16th wedding anniversary. I know a lot of people say this, but it’s really true: I am really blessed in the husband department. Seriously, I had no idea what I was doing when we got married….I was only 20! But he is really the most incredible guy! I’m so grateful all the time that we found each other! And this is my newest favorite picture of us. We took it on our anniversary getaway last weekend.
Also, I have been waiting and waiting since August for this week to come. I got an email the first week of August from someone at Woman’s World Magazine wondering if they could run a feature of one of my most popular crafts in their October 17th issue: my Floating Cheesecloth Ghost. You guys, I published that post 4 years ago and it is STILL my most popular on the blog. Even with my blog being severly neglected, I still get thousands and thousands every year! And the crazy thing is I originally published that as a guest post on a bigger blog. It’s pretty surreal to me! Anyway, if you go to Walmart this week, you can pick up a copy of Woman’s World and see my little feature!
I know that to some it might seem like a tiny thing, but for this stay-at-home mom that rarely get out of her yoga pants, being featured in a national magazine is a pretty exciting thing!
So those were the main updates I wanted to share, but if you want to keep reading, I posted more about where I am with blogging and why it seems to take me so long between posts. Also some fun things I have planned going forward. If you’re done reading or just want to be surprised by what the future brings, I promise I won’t be offended! Haha!
Life is always surprising to me. Just when I think I’ve got things figured out, life transitions to a new and different phase. Right now, as a stay-at-home mom, I feel like I’m in the pre-empty nest stage. The part where my kids are all still growing up, but they are all three in school all day now, so I have a lot of “me” time. I have hours and hours of all that alone time I craved when they were toddlers and running under my feet. And it definitely felt refreshing the first few days or weeks. But after a while, school really feels like a long time when you’re waiting for everyone to get home! Haha! It some ways it’s completely awesome! I’ve finally gotten to this sweet spot in my life where I have time for things I want to do without sacrificing being a good mom. But it’s also a weird transition where it feels easy to just binge watch Netflix or spend all my time reading a good book. That definitely feels good every once in a while. But I’ve found that doing things like that every day can certainly lead to feeling unmotivated and kind of blah about life. One of the most surprising things about this phase in my life is it’s actually not easier for me to keep the house clean. Since there are no littles running around my feet, nothing is really pushing me to get things done. It’s pretty easy to ignore the storage room that is both out of sight and out of mind. But that’s another subject for another day. What I’m getting at is being a stay-at-home mom with all my kids in school is completely different than I have imagined it would be all of these years!
So, with that being said…a couple of weeks ago, I woke up wondering where all of my passion for life went. I used to be so excited to do things. Anything! When Bria was a baby, I worked hours and hours on surprises for my husband. I would have an idea and just jump right in! One time when she was a baby, he went out of town and I decided that I wanted to completely redecorate our bathroom as a surprise to him. What started as painting our walls and hanging new towels turned into putting brand new shower walls in -which was something I had no idea how to even do. It was a ton of work and at least one whole night staying awake getting it done. But it was fun and I loved it. It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve been really excited about a project like that. And I’m not even saying that it has to be something major like a bathroom renovation. But my point is, now that my kids are getting older, I want to get some of that passion back! I really want to live my life excited to wake up every morning and so full of ideas when I hit the pillow at night that I can hardly shut my mind off to be able sleep. Okay, within reason because you don’t want to see me when I’m sleep deprived! Haha!
This week, I woke up super early in the morning. Sometimes I do that. It was really early and everyone was still sleeping. As I lay in bed, I was thinking about all of that need for passion and drive for life. When I thought back on things, the time in my life that I’ve felt the most passion and excitement for something just I was doing was when I started this blog 4 1/2 years ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long ago!). That was kind of a realization to me that I need to get back to blogging more regularly. And the ideas kept coming! And then of course, doubt set in – there’s so much work to do to get my existing posts organized – how could I add more posts when the ones I have are already kind of scrambled and hard to find on my site. And what about keeping up with social media? How can I add that to my plate? What if I run out of ideas to blog about? Because really I maybe only had like 10 good ones laying there in bed. As quickly as those thoughts came, I knew that they were ridiculous! I can’t live life worrying about the unknown. What is the worst thing that will happen if any of those things aren’t perfect. If I run out of ideas, then I guess I’ll just take a blogging break for a while! And I don’t have to be like every other blogger on social media… For crying out loud, the bigger ones I follow have assistants to help with all of their social media posts. I don’t even have to share on social media if I really don’t want to. But if blogging gives me happiness and passion, then I can do it my way and all of those worries will fade away. Isn’t’ that funny how easily we can talk ourselves out of good things out of fear?
I’m also really excited because my kids – since they are getting older – are wanting to have a bigger part in helping with my blog. I’m excited to see how that works out. Also, we have some fun ideas for videos! My husband owns a videography company that he does on the side and we have tons of great video equipment at our disposal, so why I haven’t used it before is almost funny to me! I’m pretty excited about all of it!
If you’re still reading, then you are amazing! Thank you!! And I promise I will see you really soon! ;)