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I Am Ending The Blog 4.1.22
Friends, it’s been a really lovely 15 years. But the time has come to close up shop.
April fools!!
It’s fool-able because it’s believable, right? 15 years!!
Not to worry – I’m not going anywhere except…
We’re heading to Bald Head Island for Spring Break!
Thomas, Birch and I are heading down this morning for the week. Yep, that means Mazen is missing, which is super sad because he LOVES BHI!
However he is going to the one place that might be more exciting for an almost-10-year-old: Disneyland! He’s in California with Matt and Katie for the week.
I can’t wait to hear what he thinks of my favorite ride there – Indiana Jones. I went with my California cousins right after it opened in the 90s and it was super cool.
My First Visit To Disney
We went to Disney World for the first time when I was in 4th grade.
Sometime around when the fashion looked like this:
My favorite Disney World ride is (was) Alien Encounter. I am devastated that I just Googled it and it closed in 2003!! I loved how scary it was to feel the alien around you in the dark. I also love Space Mountain and the E.T. ride over at Universal too. (I guess I really like space things!?) And Pirates and Small World. Classics!
We went back to Disney when I was in middle school.
The fashion then was more like this:
Disney Recommendations
We would love to take both kids to Disney World in the next year or so. I get so overwhelmed thinking of all the details of planning and crowds and cost, but it’s something that we definitely want to do. Thomas has never been!
I can’t decide if we want to do a shorter trip and just skim the surface or go all in, see all the parks, and stay for a week. I get exhausted just thinking about theme parks for more than two days in a row. Please share your recommendations!
Obviously we have to take Birch to Pirates of the Caribbean! And I haven’t been to Universal since Harry Potter World was built – is it as magical as it seems?
This week I’ll be on Island Time
But this year, we’ll be relaxing by the marsh and hanging out with my parents for the week.
I’m planning to do a mid-week blog post with some photos, but otherwise will be taking the week off of regular posting.
Have a great spring break!
Real Talk 3.22.22
Spring Swing!
I have spring things to share today!
First, my mom’s birthday was Sunday – the first day of spring! HBD Mom! We’ve been enjoying lots of warmer weather, and I hope it’s here to stay.
My favorite days of the year are warm (but not hot or cold) days where we can throw open all the windows in the house. That is until it’s so windy that plants are blowing over!! #fail
Irish Soda Bread
Also my favorite bread of the year from Great Harvest! I picked up two loaves before St. Patty’s Day and frozen one to have it last beyond. SO GOOD toasted to a crisp with butter!
Spring Sports
Mazen started golf lessons yesterday! Thomas bought him some new clubs to fit his height since he’s older ones were a few years old.
We aren’t sure if Birch will be able to use all of Mazen’s old clubs because Birch is left handed! (Like me!) Should we teach him to golf rightie? Most lefties (like me) are fairly ambidextrous when it comes to sports, so I think he could easily learn. But we obviously want him to be comfortable!
Porch Dining
With warmer weather comes dining outside and cold smoothies! Love the Daily Harvest Acai and Cherry (it’s my favorite flavor) with granola on top. Enjoyed in the sun!
Caraway Home + Asparagus
We needed new sheet pans and I bought us these baking sheets from Caraway Home for Christmas. This is not sponsored! They are the BEST SHEET PANS EVER. Caked on food literally wipes off. I bought one medium and one large. The large has handles on the side that I like for easy lifting. They are seriously awesome. I hope they stay looking this nice!
The spring asparagus cooked with roasted potatoes, salmon and an amazing ranchy sour cream sauce. All Blue Apron
Our Little Blue Truck
Birch and I walk past our friend’s house every morning on the way to school. He has a blue truck that he uses to deliver Meals On Wheels. Birch always comments that it’s THE Little Blue Truck. We took our friend Birch’s book to read, and that afternoon he had something for Birch – the springtime version of the book! So sweet of him, and Birch was thrilled.
Real Talk 3.16.22
I said I wasn’t coming back this week, but I am energized! Popping in to share some pics from our family fishing adventure yesterday.
I feel so grateful that 1) We both have jobs that allow us to do things with the kids in the afternoons and 2) the weather is finally getting warm!
Mazen and Thomas were convinced the fish were still hibernating (do they do that??)
I was convinced the snakes were coming OUT of hibernation when we had to walk along the shoreline to get to the boat! YIKES. I had a really scary experience at a summer camp when I was young were supposedly harmless water snakes were coming up to my canoe and attacking it. It was very odd, and I have no idea what prompted them to do this. So I decided to stay on the dock!
Birch was convinced they’d catch a fish. He was right!
We are so lucky to have fisherboys in the family.
We fish at the pond next to Thomas’s parents’ house, so we brought dinner to cook for them afterwards. I scooted up to the house to make it while the boys finished up. This was a Blue Apron focaccia pizza with Italian sausage and salad on the side. It was totally delish!!
Hope you’re enjoying these quick posts!
New Real Talk Series 3.15.22
I’ve been thinking of adding a fourth post each week where I just sit down to write what’s on my mind. Just like in the olden days!
It’s so hard to believe I used to publish TWENTY ONE blog posts a week!
I always tell people that it was easy to do because my content (what I ate) auto generated and I just wrote fluff around it. Turns out people used to really love fluff! Do you still?
KERF will be 15 this year!
Over the past year or so, I have gotten into a really wonderful flow of working ahead. I LOVE working ahead.
I think I have shared before that when I was in college I would ask for the reading list over the summer so I could get a head start on the stack of books assigned for the course. This meant I had more flexibility in my semester – mostly for play! (nerd alert)
I absolutely hate procrastination, and I’ve always needed flexibility to minimize anxiety and pressure on myself. I don’t work well under pressure.
The never-ending blog calendar has always been and love-hate for me. I love creating posts, but I don’t love the feeling of having to create posts forever. Working ahead has taken some of that stress away.
Working ahead on blog posts has taken so much of the pressure off of my weeks.
My virtual assistant, Hillary, and I have a content planning system inside the productivity app Asana. We geek out over its organization all the time.
For the past year or so, I’ve been focusing on writing posts that are SEO optimized and more “helpful” and evergreen topics that I’m excited to write about don’t require me to write so at the moment.
This is a good thing. And the evergreen posts are doing well, too.
I am working a few weeks ahead at all times. That means if Birch is home from school, or I otherwise get an interruption in scheduling, or just need a day off, that can happen worry-free.
As you know I’m still doing travel and lately recaps as trips or photo collections populate. But they seem to be fewer and far between. As much as I like working ahead, I do miss being in the moment. Those posts are always the easiest and most fun to type up!
Real Talk Series
I started to think that in addition (not instead of) my regular 3 posts a week I could sit down and just type up some thoughts with a photo or two and share the day with you all like I did when this blog was young. I have absolutely no idea if I’ll like this style or not or if I’ll do it more than once or twice a month. But it seems like a good bridge between evergreen posts and the old real-time blog posts that so many loved over a decade ago.
I always have a million ideas swirling around, so these posts could focus on a topic of the day or be a round up of favorites – really whatever feels good in the moment.
Toss in a nice photo of breakfast and it’s a blast from the past!
I’m attempting to do this without pressure. If I feel like posting I will on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday. And if not, that’s cool!
One Long Post
The last detail of this news is that I think I’m going to stack tidbits on top of each other and republish the same post rather than having real talk after real talk posts go up that might be hard to find or clutter up my back end. I might delete the oldest one as time passes so there are no more than 5-10 updates on one page. I hope that makes sense!
There’s nothing particularly juicy in this post – just wanted to set the stage for next time so it doesn’t seem so out of the blue!
Back to the future!
Greek yogurt bowl with granola, peanut butter, and pears!
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