Happy Blogiversary!

I’m pretty excited that I’ve kept this blog up for a whole year!

This post is super link-tastic. But sometimes I like to blog about my blog, okay? Is that so weird? Yeah, probably. I like to see how things have changed over time.

Here’s a roundup of some of the highlights:

My first post.
My favorite posts from the first 100.

Here are my most popular posts according to WordPress:
Marsha’s Sausage Balls recipe
December Daily foundation pages
Currently
December Daily (part two)
Week in the Life: Monday

So I think the lesson we can all take from this is, link up with Ali Edwards for maximum hits 😛

Here are a few more of my favorites:
Scrapping Retro Photos
My favorite pizza recipe
How I’m making 8×8 work for me in Project Life.
Where I surprised my family on Thanksgiving.
Downtown Nashville photo walk.
Basil Lemonade.
The Master at Work.
Remembering summer.
Oshogatsu.
Voting and election posts.
Tropical Storm Isaac.
A Year of Three Times Twelve.
What’s for Dinner? posts

My Sidebar:

Here’s to Year Two!

Changing up the bloggity blog

Apparently I’m very bad about writing posts and not publishing them… Here’s one I wrote a couple months ago showing my little redesign. In case you haven’t noticed, here’s my “new” header.

I want to freshen up things a little for fall. New season, new header.

I also changed things up a little on the sidebar, adding a Projects section. This part is going to be a work in progress. Eventually I’d like to add menus with images. I still want a clean look, you’ll probably never see patterned backgrounds or anything like that here. I think my layouts are plenty loud enough.

I changed the About Me page. I always find writing those kind of things to be super awkward. Which you’d think I’d be used to it now, considering how I blah blah blah about myself on here all day long.

Thanks for looking 🙂

Goals, plans, etc.

I had big plans for this month… I had my whole month in blogging/ scrapping/ decorating/ and making stuff all planned out in iCal. I was ready to go. Then I hurt my knee and I had to shift things around a little. But that’s okay. That’s the beauty of plans, they can be changed.

For my second list on 30 Days of Lists, I made this list of goals for September. Here’s how that went.

  1. Take positive steps towards finding a part time job. I applied for a few more jobs and haven’t heard anything. Which that’s kind of a moot point right now with my knee. So this one is put on hold for now.
  2. Blog about all the adventures we had this summer with the Little Man. This did not get done. Will work on it this month. Anything that I don’t get done this month will just not get done. I will move on.
  3. Continue keeping up with my CT and mod duties at SDD. I ran a little behind with my CT stuff, but considering my promotion, I think I did ok,
  4. Decorate for Halloween. I did get a little decorating done, but I want to do a few more things.
  5. Start a new series with Jason, or finish an old one. I totally forgot about this one. We have been watching a ton of Big Bang Theory this month though.
  6. Blog at least 5 recipes. Wow I actually did this one!
  7. Do a video for my Twelve class (or at least do a post) Twelve for August
  8. Make something with puff pastry (this has seriously been one of my goals since 2004 and I haven’t done it yet). Yes! Puff Pastry Pizza (not really phyllo like I thought)
  9. Make something not related to food. Nope
  10. Get through September relatively unscathed. I only wrote this one because my family has a “thing” about September. We have since the 70’s. We can’t even say the word September without a certain something in our voices. I’m not terribly superstitious, but I will no longer make flippant remarks about September. September knocked me on my ass, literally.

On to October!

This month I want to-

  1. Go on a coffee date with Jason.
  2. Get off crutches
  3. Catch up with Project Life
  4. Send the Little Man a Halloween box.
  5. Finish blogging summer stuff
  6. Go back to the pumpkin patch and try not to hurt myself this time.

And I’m going to stop there. I think that’s plenty.

Some thoughts on blogging recipes

When I started this blog, I had three main areas I wanted to focus on- recipes, scrapbooking, and documenting the fun stuff in our lives (for future scrapbook pages and “just because”). I have dipped my toes into other things, but those are still my three main areas of interest for this space.

But I have been severely lacking in recipes lately. I started the “What’s for Dinner” series hoping that would spur me on to blogging more of my recipes. And while I really enjoy those posts, I’m still not blogging recipes like I want to.

I think a lot of that has to do with my skills as a photographer, or lack thereof. I take tons of pictures of food, but I don’t like any of them. And what good is a recipe blog if there aren’t wonderful mouth-watering photos to go along with them?

I guess my question is, what’s more important- good recipes or good photos? I’ve cooked many recipes from books that don’t have photos. But I will rarely try an internet recipe if there isn’t a picture of the recipe.

I will make a confession here. I had a recipe blog on Live Journal once. And it had no pictures whatsoever *gasp*. But I made it for two people, myself and my sister. I wanted to have a place where I could quickly find one of my favorite recipes without having to look through my ridiculous recipe book collection. And I wanted a place where I could give J little tips on cooking because I couldn’t be there for her in person since we lived so far away from each other. Despite not having photos, it was still a very workable little recipe blog for what it was. I still go there occasionally to find a recipe.

So I guess in a long rambling way what I’m trying to say is that I need a new approach to this whole blogging recipes thing. I need to not let my bad photos hold me back from sharing recipes that I love. So from here on out, I’ll still attempt to take good photos, but if they don’t turn out, I’ll put up the recipe sans pictures. And if it’s something I make a lot I can always edit the post down the road. I know this doesn’t matter to anyone but me. But the food I cook is just as much a part of our lives as the places we travel or the layouts I make. It deserves to be here.

Some of my favorite posts

Now that I’ve reached the milestone of writing 100 posts, I wanted to gather up a few of my favorites since I started this blog, waaaayyy back at the beginning of February.

Our Love Story and Our Engagement Story

52 in 52 Weeks original post and update

Thoughts on Home, a post I wrote during the stress of moving

Jason is Great Week, Jason’s (belated) birthday week

Hatsume Fair, fun day with friends

Cinco de Mayo, our first celebration at our new place

Father’s Day, where I got a little crafty

Talking about spending the summer with the Little Man, and how much he’s changed in a year. And of course the trip to pick him up.

Working out my feelings once he left.

Trying to start a garden

Fourth of July, Pinterest style

My obsession with Hunger Games

Posts on gratitude

And a few more goodies from my sidebar right now. I add these because I’m planning to change things up in the fall, so it will look different soon.

I BLOG ABOUT

I have really loved having this space to document and share what’s going on in our lives. Can’t wait to see what the next 100 posts will bring 🙂

High Five for Friday #6

Hello Friday! I’m so glad you’re here. We have some fun stuff planned for this weekend and I can’t wait to get started.

But first, weekly gratitude post. I really like doing these. It helps me get my head straight sometimes and realize that I’m surrounded by awesomeness in my daily life. Will be linking up with Lauren from From My Grey Desk.

1. Growing things. I LOVE my little balcony container garden. Crossing my fingers that I can keep them alive,

2. Jason is feeling better. After a couple of weeks with an intracostal strain, Jason is finally on the mend.

3. (i)NSD. InterNational Scrapbooking Day was last weekend. Oh, how I shopped! I’m still organizing it all, but will do a post on that soon.

4. My blog. It’s been 3 months since I started writing here in my tiny corner of the interwebs. This will be my 44th post. I’m pretty psyched about it. I have lots of plans and schemes.

5. Missus Smarty Pants. I am fashion challenged. I admit that freely. And after years of wearing mostly scrubs, it’s really strange to suddenly need an “outfit” for every day of the week. I’m so over the yoga pants an t-shirt look I’ve been sporting for months now. MSP has been a great help to me in the past, and I’m looking forward to joining again in the near future. In the meantime I’m listening to her podcasts.

Honorable mention:

Cinco de Mayo, washing our car together, talks with Melissa, Barack Obama, any night when Miss Kitty lets us get a full night’s sleep, and The Lovely Bones (finished last week)