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I sat down to write this post intending to just check in with you, and let you know where I’m at these days. I started this blog in 2013 when we lived in Utah with two little girls (they were 2 and 5). They are now 6 and 10, and I also have a little guy, who is 3. We lived in St Louis for a couple years, and then about 2 years ago, we moved to Charleston.
That’s a lot of change in 4 years! But I love change. I love new challenges and fresh starts. Its the military kid in me. New challenges bring new growth, I firmly believe that.
What I do
Its been months (years?) since I’ve written a chatty post, without a tip or tutorial or recipe. Tips and crafts posts are meat of my blog, for sure. I’m the “How-To Mom” after all! But after awhile I feel like I start to become too distant, and things start feeling somewhat superficial. Too clean.
This past year I made a new friend, who constantly makes a fuss about feeling inadequate around me because I’m “The How To Mom”. It makes me roll my eyes and feel weird. I’m not an authority, I’m just an over-thinker. And I’ve decided to channel and monetize my over-thinking by putting it on the internet. haha
I absolutely do not know everything mom-related. I just like to solve problems. I basically find “pain points” (what a buzzword. I should say “tricky spots”) and love figuring out how to fix it, or fix my mindset on it. And with my stage of life, my pain points typically revolve around parenting and running a household. And keeping my head in check.
That’s my strength. THat’s where my over-thinking brain can spin its wheels get some traction and make some progress, instead of spinning me up into a mental mess.
Its much easier to just post recipes and wreaths, and I certainly love them. And I have a bazillion more projects I want to do and write about. But those type of posts give an incomplete picture of me, what I’m doing, or what I’m capable of doing (or not doing!).
There’s been a big push on social media lately to be “authentic” (gah, are we sick of that word yet? YES. Yes, we are.). And I’ve been marinating on what that means, specifically what it means for me and what I’m doing.
What does authentic mean?
It means being real.
It means being honest.
But not being negative. – which I don’t want to necessarily hide, but I definitely do not want to focus on it.
It means checking my intentions before I post (“Is this helpful?” “What is my motivation for posting? Bragging? Complaining? Soliciting compliments?” All stuff to think about.)
It means balancing an image with an actual person.
It means being multi-dimensional and relatable.
I blog about quite a variety of things, and I’d say I’m quite multi-dimensional in person. (is that code for all-over-the-place-crazy? Maybe.) My interests are varied, and I’m SUPER into things, in spurts usually.
Parenting!
Side Jobs!
Homemaking!
Faith!
Menu Planning!
Crafts!
Tech crap!
Love!
Shopping!
Caring for others!
I love them all, and these are the things I chat about with friends IRL. I’m all over the place, and I’m ok with it.
New place, new growth
For the past 2 years we’ve been living in an apartment, and in a lot of ways I’ve had to “turn off” that desire to modify our home to fit our needs. I’ve reminded myself over and over “This is not the home I want to decorate.” I needed to save my money and energy for other things. Bigger and better things.
Then a few months ago, one of the craziest and most sacred experiences of my life took another turn, and all of the sudden we were looking at homes! Miracles happened (absolute miracles!) and we found ourselves moving in to a beautiful home a couple miles away from our apartment the week before Christmas.
And now I get to add “home DIYs” to my list of things I’m excited about and want to write about. I get to turn that part of my brain back on, and say “THIS IS the home I want to decorate.”
In the apartment, I constantly whined about how I couldn’t take recipe pics or videos because my kitchen had no windows and fluorescent lights. Well, this new house has like 7 windows around the kitchen and has FANTASTIC light. So, I have no more excuses. All things point to creating more and writing more and sharing more. Which I can’t deny, I feel like I’ve been “called” to do.
So that’s where I’m at right now, and it feels great and exciting. Looking at my track record for the past few years, my energy and desire and ability to blog comes and goes in waves. I put out content for a few months, and then burn out, or get distracted with life. I used to try and control the waves, or force myself to power through the dry spells. But I’ve learned to just enjoy the ride. I’m feeling a nice big wave coming up, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it takes me!
Do you like this kind of “check-in” post? I feel like this is how blogs used to be, but IG has kind of become the place for thoughts and behind the scenes. Which I do. I just felt like my blog needed to re-connect with ME a bit.
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