Stepping Back...

I have been feeling overwhelmed lately. Three kids, a house, marriage, pets, friends, family, focusing on getting myself back into shape, and getting acclimated to a new church, is all taking it's toll on me. I am tackling lots of life changes in a relatively short period of time. While I enjoy blogging, it is quickly slipping from my daily priorities. To be brutally honest, I have just gotten really, really lazy with it. I have always viewed this blog as a personal archive of recipes, more than anything else. Most of my favorites and things that are in regular meal rotation have already been posted...and posted, and posted, and posted some more. The weekly menu plan isn't as efficient as I hoped it would be, and is also becoming very redundant. I have decided that I don't want to continue with the same lackluster posts that I have been prone to doing lately.

Okay, I am beating around the proverbial bush now...

What I am trying to convey is that I am taking a step back from my blog for awhile. I am not ready to give it up completely; but I am not sure how I want to proceed with it, either. I really don't want to expand this site any further; and I am finding that I don't have the time, energy, or attention span, to keep it fresh and interesting. I am at an obvious standstill. I have decided I need to take a step back and figure out what I want to do with this blog in both the long and short terms. Right now, it has stopped being a fun hobby and started feeling more like another chore to check off my "to-do" list. I am enjoying it less and less, and it is showing with each and every post. I think I just need some time to focus on other aspects of my life right now. I am hoping that by taking a break, I will get a renewed sense of purpose, and be able to re-energize my efforts.

As I said, I am not ready to give it up completely. I think I may continue to post just the new and fantastic meals/recipes that we try, and leave it at that. I think posting less frequently will help preserve the quality of the overall content, and give me time to decide what I really want to do with my blog. There will be no set schedule of updates, so I won't feel pressured to catalog every (sometimes mundane) detail of our daily/weekly menu plans. It may be weeks or months between posts, but I promise to make it count when I do post an update. I plan to only post the awesome and noteworthy from here on out. If I do happen to get the cooking bug, then I will be sure to post more often. There are still so many new foods that I want to try, so I don't envision this pause to be any sort of abrupt ending. After all, I still love to cook! For now, I am just going to take my time and only update with recipes that I truly love and want to share.

Photos/New Format

I can say, with confidence, that I have gotten used to this whole blogging thing. In fact, I was thinking about ways of improving my blog because my current shenanigans are getting a little stale (for me at least). I have a handful of food blogs and websites that I visit regularly and I started thinking about what I like and dislike about these sites. Usually, the ones that draw me in all have photographs. I am more apt to drop everything and try a recipe based on how yummy the photograph of the food looks. Take for example the Pioneer Woman website...her photos are absolutely beautiful (there is no other way to describe them).

So, I am thinking about implementing photos into my blog. I think it is one thing to tell you what I am cooking, but it's a whole different experience if I show you. Now, I am not a fabulous photographer. In reality, I am a photography class drop out...just ask Claire about that one. My photos would be elementary, at best. I think over the next week I will play around with inserting photos of "what's cooking". I haven't decided on a definite format, so I think I will just try some different shots and see what works best. Also, I am not sure when to post the photos, so I may need to play around with my current format,as well. If it is too time consuming or too much hassle, I will probably nix my photography experiment all together.

I think I will start with tonight's meal. Once I decide what I am making, I will post the description as usual. I haven't decided if I should update the original post with a photo or just post it in the results.
Also, I am toying with the idea of combining post, result, and photo all in one (i.e. just update the original post as I go along...before I start the next post). I might just try a whole new posting method along with the photo, too. I guess what I am trying to say is that I am not sure what you will see tonight. If it stinks I will go back to my original format. I welcome any comments about my new experiment in formatting/photography, so please let me know how you like/dislike the new posts. Wish me luck!