Wait a minute. I have a BLOG???

I didn't mean to take the lengthy break I did, but I won't lie.  It was kind of nice.  I love blogging as much as I love... (hmmm, no, can't write "chocolate"... nope, not crafting... "I love blogging as much as I love..." huh.  I'm stuck.) ... pomegranates.  Or even SEWING, most of the time.  And definitely ALMOST as much as reading a good book or watching Parks and Rec or Arrested Development.  So, yeah.  I love it.  That's what I'm saying.  But the break was nice.  It made things feel... slower, somehow.  Even though I was mainly breaking in order to bust out some Christmas presents in a crazy, hectic, haphazard, "why do I always do this to myself" kind of way.

(Side note.  Honestly, why DO I do this to myself?  I've mentioned the biting off more than I can chew thing more than once, but EVERY.SINGLE.CHRISTMAS is just ridiculous.  I procrastinate.  Even when I do start early - which I did this year - there is still too much on my list, which overwhelms me, which leads to procrastination, which means there's still too much on the list, which overwhelms me more... and it's a horrible, vicious circle.  Every single New Year, I tell myself this year will be different.  And every single December is WORSE than the LAST.  This year I even decided to MAKE the "big" gifts from the mr and I to our two kiddos (which you saw peeks of on instagram if you follow that kind of thing.)  Why am I insane?  No, really.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.  I am LIT-erally insane.)

Despite the harried quality to my gift-making and the incredibly late nights (which included painting a toy kitchen until 4 in the morning on Sunday the 30th) I felt less pressure and stress.

My blogging absence started, in part, in conjunction with me learning about the shootings in Newtown Connecticut.  There were so many times I started to write posts - posts about the shooting, posts about what I was feeling, posts completely unrelated and more Christmas-y in nature - and I couldn't do it.  In my head I could compose just precisely what I felt I needed to.  But sitting down to the computer somehow felt wrong.  And the longer I avoided posting about the tragedy, the more wrong it felt to post anything at all.  I am hardly the person to speak on tragedies such as this - I am obviously not the person most touched, most affected, most grieving - and I acknowledge that.  I hope my attitudes in response to what happened make some sort of sense regardless.

We traveled to Utah to spend Christmas with the mr's family - something we haven't done since moving to Wisconsin.  We've been back around Christmastime, but never FOR Christmas.  To sum it up (which in no way does it justice, but does help keep this particular post from turning to epistle proportions) it was an incredibly snowy, restful, kid-filled, exciting and fun time - with some minor downers (like a canceled flight,  a sick cousin and glasses lost on the plane), but all in all a pleasant time.  As you've already guessed, this added to my absence considerably as well.

I don't mean to presume that you've noticed my disappearance over the past 2+ weeks, or missed my crafty endeavors, but felt I owed an explanation nonetheless.

And now, I come to the true point of this post, which is to say that all of these recent experiences combined as a catalyst for rethinking my approach to this blogging gig.  (Which I still totally love, by the way.)  
Recently I was reading a post on the Vintage Revivals facebook page in which Mandi asked what sorts of things readers were looking for from the blogs they read in the coming year.  I was intrigued, and spent time looking through the comments.  In short, it seemed that people wanted less "filler posts" and more good stuff.  By filler posts, I don't just mean the mundane, "hey I'm busy right now.  What are you all up to?  Here's a picture of an awesome crate I scored at the thrift store" posts that you slap up to fill your week.  I mean people wanted more REAL LIFE from the blogs they read, and I admit to posting precious little of that.
I think I put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself to post for my readers, because all the "big time bloggers" let us know that we must establish a blogging schedule and post often so our readers know what to expect of us.  I don't want to rub anyone the wrong way, here, but so what?  I love my readers.  You're the reason I do this, no denying it, but I have to think if my time is so valuable, then so is yours, and quite frankly, you probably have better things to do than look at a picture of my great aunt Ethel's plaid fabric nicely folded on the shelf that I recently inherited.  Right?
What I'm trying to say is that I believe I will try to cut myself a little slack this year.  Not a lot, I'm still going to be present (until Christmas time comes again, obviously) but a little. My family deserves that, I think.  And I'm going to try my hardest to post more Tales From the Crib (if for no other reason than that they are my sister's favorite posts and my mom IL really likes them).  And I'm going to try to get back to the roots of this here blog - which was partially showing you like it is; mistakes, flub-ups, failures and all.  This is no perfectly charmed life over here (as if the egg painted carpet and the tour of my first floor didn't give that away.)

So what can you expect this year?
Well, we'll start with some "top 10" stuff, because that's the cool thing to do.
We'll still have Yummy Mondays, some easy, some not - posted Monday night.
The week will still have about 2 project tutorials, sewing, crafting, kids stuff, whatnot.
The end of the week will have some kind of writing attached - Tales From the Crib, more likely than not, but perhaps other musings and some installments of What Not to Say?  Yes, I think so.
I'm still going to try my ongoing series that I started - A Chemist in the Kitchen for one, and the whole Pinteresting Party thing.  
And I'll also try to post some photos - some instagram and some not - usually on Sunday.

So, basically, what I'm saying is that not a lot will change.  I'll stick to roughly the same schedule.  But I'll give myself some leeway, and I'll know you understand - since I warned you and all.  More writing, more real stuff, more good stuff, you know.
In short, you won't want to miss it.

And rest assured, in December 2013 there will be a sudden and "unexpected" break, from which I will return in January with apologies, self-proclaimed insanity and promises to do better.

Glad we cleared that up.

*Be sure to check the right sidebar for all the fun parties I link to!