Some time back when I was working as a content manager/office assistant for a small business owner, she shared with me something someone told her, which was that when you’ve been away from your blog for a while, you shouldn’t make excuses, you should just resume like nothing happened.
I get that, I guess, especially on a professional blog where you have a certain image to maintain. But this is a personal blog and I disappeared for well over a year, so I thought a little explanation was in order.
What happened here? Well, basically I started working full-time. In April of 2018 I started a new job as a part-time writer and editor at an SEO company. In May, they asked me if I’d be interested in going full-time and taking on more responsibilities, essentially slowly taking over my boss’s job so she could move in to a different position. I had a busy summer planned so I asked if I could make the switch in August or September… instead we suddenly got more clients and I had to go full-time on June 1st, 2018.
Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for the work! I’d been unemployed or underemployed for a long time, and I enjoyed the challenge of my new job and all the new things I was learning! But spending 8 hours a day writing and editing blog posts left me with no energy for writing my own blog posts.
I’m actually still doing that job! But in the past year my duties have shifted more and more to editing and admin, and less and less to writing. And when I do get to write, it’s not about something I’m passionate about. In the past month or two, I found myself really missing blogging! I was still occasionally posting to my dance blog, but I really wanted to bring this blog back and share my awesome PNW life with you.
In that spirit, I decided to declare November as “NaBloWriMo” (in honor of the tradition of NaNoWriMo where many people write a short novel in the month of November). I’m working on blogs every day! Some for this blog, some for my dance blog, and some for a book blog that I was a guest writer at before work ate my life.
I have some fun ideas for this blog, especially now that I am more settled in here and have started to find my regular haunts. I’m still exploring, of course. I’m not sure if I fully kept up my 2018 goal of going someplace new every week, but I still make a habit of looking for new-to-me restaurants, shops, and more.
A quick life update
Before we dive into regular content again, here’s a brief recap of what has happened in my life, besides the change in employment.
-We are now a single-pet household. Sadly, we lost both of our kitties this past winter. They had very long lives and we gave them the best care we could, but losing them within a month of each other was a harsh blow. We still have our corgi Daisy and she is a very healthy almost-13 year old dog.
-We moved into a house! We are still renting, but we upgraded from apartment life to living in 3 bedroom house with a dance room for my alter ego and a yard for Daisy. The yard is, in fact, pretty amazing. We’re at the end of a long drive with a lot of space between all our neighbors, and the yard is full of tall cedar trees, ferns, and blackberry vines. There’s some cool tree stumps and a fire pit. It legitimately feels like a faerie forest! It’s not all perfect — I don’t want to talk about how much it costs to keep this rambler warm in the winter, but otherwise I love it.
-We bought an electric car! I think that will be its own blog post, but I am pretty excited that we may never pump gas again.
-I have SO MANY SUCCULENTS NOW. They will also be their own blog post, but, uhm, I kind of have a cactus and succulent problem. Please send help. And by help, I mean cactus food and potting soil and cute planters.
I’m really looking forward to sharing my life with you all again!
