ED NOTE: If you are crazy bored and don't mind weeding through baby updates to see recipes, you are more than welcome to continue to follow us on our family blog: Scott-Nems-Doots. XOXO!
(oh and PS: image courtesy of the ever-fabulous Solar Photographers :P )
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Not too long ago, I noticed that we have a half-dead redbud tree on our property. And by that, I mean - I was made aware by my dear Hubs that we actually have a redbud tree on our property. And it’s half dead. How is it that I’ve lived at this house for a year now, and I’ve never noticed that big ole, half-dead, half-pink-flowered tree in our backyard?
Yikes.
I think this is an appropriate time to give you an update on my life as a blogger.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Not too long ago, I noticed that we have a half-dead redbud tree on our property. And by that, I mean - I was made aware by my dear Hubs that we actually have a redbud tree on our property. And it’s half dead. How is it that I’ve lived at this house for a year now, and I’ve never noticed that big ole, half-dead, half-pink-flowered tree in our backyard?
Yikes.
I think this is an appropriate time to give you an update on my life as a blogger.
As I’ve mentioned before, blogging was something I picked up on a whim in 2007, to keep myself busy. We were just married and throwing every spare penny into savings for our home and other things. That means not a ton of disposable income, and therefore I was spending A LOT of time in our wee-tiny apartment kitchen, keeping my hands busy by making all our treats and dinners at home. I always surfed through food blogs looking for something new to make, and thought they were so darling and cute. Hey, why not give it a shot? Blogging was cheap (hell, it was free!), it was a good outlet for any writing I wanted to do, and it was a way to feel productive while spinning my wheels and waiting for our “Real Life” to start.
Once I got immersed in the blogging community, I found it very addictive. This whole food blogging thing, it has a life of its own and you meet so many people and can do so many things! Suddenly I wanted to push myself to attempt more complicated recipes, to tackle new baking methods, to join a slew of baking groups and blogging events and a few contests.
When not working, I was always thinking about recipes to try. When home, I was baking and cleaning up and baking and cleaning up and baking and cleaning up…. Our grocery bills went up, as I was buying "butter, chocolate, sugar, flour" practically every trip to the grocery store. And then you add in the photographing/layout/composing time… My goodness I spent a lot of time with my butt at the computer, clicking and typing away.
And I loved every second of it.
It did take over my life a bit, though. Hubs took it like a champ and joined in the fun - he’d help me pick final recipes, would visit me in the kitchen and poke around while I baked away, and would hang out by the computer in the evenings to (*ahem* bug me) keep me company. I’d get so upset with myself if a recipe didn’t turn out exactly as I’d hoped, or if I didn’t feel quite right about what I had written. I felt a certain need to keep people happy by blogging every other day. It was a lot of pressure that I totally put on myself; I didn’t want to be one of those people who “flaked out” and quit my blog. No way, I’m not one of them. Besides, I love what I’m doing.
So I kept baking and writing through the big life milestones that came into my life. I made 6 new recipes in the evenings while we were going through that tangle of house hunting, signing all that paperwork, and finally owning a home of our own. I made the Daring Bakers Opera cake in between marathon painting sessions at our new home. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning for 4 nights straight so I would have a back-log of posts while people visited. Then we were trying for a family, and I pushed myself to keep baking and blogging through the fun times of pregnancy exhaustion and morning sickness and food aversions…
And then suddenly I'm 9 months pregnant, standing on our back deck that I never seem to find time to enjoy, having the Hubs laugh and point out to me that half-dead redbud tree that's been in our (not-very-large) backyard this entire time.
For me, that was what finally made me stop and think. I love blogging and baking, this is true, but how much was me doing it just to not "look like a flake"? In reality, I was ignoring that whole “Real Life” thing that I was waiting for this whole time. Yeah. That isn’t right.
Ambrosia Macaroons So I guess what I’m saying is: it’s time to retire this blog. Now, I don’t plan on taking it down at any point, so if you plan on making any past recipes you don’t need to worry about copying/pasting/what-have-you. They’ll be up until Blogger no longer exists. I am going to stop adding to this blog, though, or at least - will not be adding to it for a good long time. It’s time for me to concentrate on my family and my house and friends and all that other fun messy stuff called My Life.
I do have a personal blog, and it will probably have recipes from time to time (there is no way a food blogger can go cold turkey). If you are interested in following me on there and don’t mind all the non-foodie posts found in between recipes, leave your e-mail in the comments and I’ll send you a link.
And I leave you with this: thanks for everything, my darling readers - you really do mean a lot to me. I’ll miss ya, lots. And now I’m off to figure out what to do with a half-dead redbud tree.
Toodles,
Nemmie
302 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 601 – 302 of 302Post a Comment