As you can see, the blog has a whole new look!

I’m so excited about my new platform (WordPress) and design (by OSN)!

I can’t believe I’ve been a blogger for almost 8 years!

EIGHT YEARS!

Whoa.

I started out on Blogger back in November 2004 with a standard template.  Once I got the hang of the site, I decided to be all tech savvy ::snort:: and download different pre-made designs every 6 months or so.  This old blog has had many faces and now I’m wishing I would have taken screen shots of them along the way so that we could all look back and laugh :)

I really think this new design represents me well.  My favorite colors are pink, green and navy blue.  My mom loves birds and I love my mom, so those remind me of her.  I was intentional about having two birds.  The dark pink bird represents my sweet Gracie Bear and the light pink bird, looking up to the Gracie bird, represents this little bean in my belly.  The overall look is fun and girly and bright which are all things I try to be when I’m not taking myself too seriously ;)

This blog has been a great outlet for me over the years.  I’ve shared the ups and the downs and, of course, the food :)

It’s my own little corner of the internet and it’s one of my favorite places.  I can dish about whatever is on my mind or my plate, and it’s so fun to be able to look back on where I’ve been.

I also hope to slowly transfer my blog content into book form.  There are some great sites that allow you to do this but it takes time to format everything so I know I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Whether they read it online or in a book, I’m excited for my children and grandchildren to be able to learn about who I am and the journey that our family has been on since the second year of my marriage.  I think it’s such a treasure to have bits and pieces of it recorded for future generations.

I attended my first blogging conference last year (BlogHer11) and kind of dipped my toe into the waters of “could I make this blog bigger than just updates for my close friends and family?”

When I left the conference, I was pretty overwhelmed by the process of growing and developing the blog into something big.  The networking and self promotion just sort of turned me off and I decided to keep blogging purely for the love of it.

And that’s what I’ve done for the past year.

It’s continued to be a comfortable place for me to share and I’ve posted only as often as I’ve been inspired to.  I’ve remained low-key and just had fun with it.

But since I left my full-time job in June, I’ve been itching for a challenge.  It’s been so fun to pour my energy into my home and my family, but I’ve felt an urge to share what I’m doing around here with everyone.

Not as an act of narcissism, but as a way to connect with other people who are interested in the same things.

Besides my faith and my supportive family & friends, the blogging world is really what saved my sanity when I was a new working mom.  I’d sit up late at night pumping for Grace’s feedings the next day and I’d scour the internet for blogs of other working moms.

I’d read about their good days, bad days, and downright ugly days and it made me feel like I wasn’t alone.  These women, who didn’t even know me, were a support network that helped keep me afloat.  Special thanks to Beth Anne whose blunt, hilarious working mom blog especially resonated with me.

So here I am, eight years in, and excited to take it up a notch.

The switch to WordPress will give me more interaction with my readers (when I figure it all out!) and the new design is clean, fresh and more professional than the freebie logo I came up with a year ago.

I’d like to give a special shout out to a few people who helped me through this overhaul.  I got a little worked up about the whole process (shocker I know!).

My husband Andy for supporting me 100% in my blog endeavors and loving me despite how intense I was during this ordeal.

My sister Ellen for her undying love and compassion for her neurotic and high-strung big sis.  She talked me off the ledge on more than one occasion in the past week and I love her to pieces for it.  Plus, her honesty is of the brutal variety and that’s really what you need sometimes :)

My friend Kortney who motivated me to keep pressing on when I wanted to give up on the re-design.  She’s a gifted photographer (MI peeps check her out!) and has a great eye for style.  She’s also to be credited with me switching up my color scheme and thinking up my new tagline which totally sums up what I do here :)

My friend Rochelle who works in the floral business (weddings specifically – MI peeps check out her shop!).  Rochelle is Ms. Crafty Personified!  She’s got impeccable taste and has worked with tons of bridezillas, so maybe I didn’t seem too bad to her :)  Rochelle also helped me keep going when I was tired of the design process and she gave me great feedback along the way.  She’s to be credited for the branch and birds which I love!

My friend Diana who recommended Twenty70 Hosting for the blog transfer/hosting as well as One Starry Night for the re-design.  Kelly at Twenty70 and Sarah at OSN are both masters at their craft.  They know blogging and they know WordPress which made the process so smooth from a technical standpoint.  Diana also offered lots of encouragement and feedback along the way, and since she’s a seasoned and popular blogger, she had the know-how that I lacked when it came to this whole process.  Thank you Diana for pushing me to do this before BlogHer and pointing me in the right direction to make it happen!

Thank you also to my mom, Robert, Marie, Bonnie, Andrea, Jen, Carrie, Karen, David, and Mary for their feedback and answers to my silly poll.  I ended up not using “feisty” in my tagline, but I love that you all sort of thought of me when you heard that word.

I’m so excited for what the future of blogging holds for me and I can’t wait to be in NYC in less than 24 hours to start making things happen!