Well, hello there, party people.
Happy New Year! Can you believe it’s already 2018? It floored me to realize that everyone born in the year 2000 will become legal adults this year. But I’m also floored by the fact that my pores are still relatively invisible for my age, so I guess I’m doing okay.
Before I get into my next post of Tip #16 (and truth be told, I don’t even know if that’s the right number, but it’s my mom’s favorite number, so it seemed like a good place to start), I want to share a few updates. The first of which is just a giant THANK YOU for your continued patience with me and PGEW during these past 3 years or so. Between the URL fiasco, the loss of many of my posts from 2011 on, and health/personal issues, it’s been a struggle to keep up with my baby blog. But to my amazement, YOU’RE STILL HERE. You’re still reading, and following, and engaging, and asking for recipes, and it just chokes me up to know that I still have this much support after so many years of being “unproductive”. I put this in quotes because I know I haven’t been unproductive in my life. It’s just that as a blogger, you can feel extreme pressure to churn out posts on the regular to keep everyone happy, and then when life gets in the way and you can’t produce, you feel guilty. That’s something I worked on a great deal last year – overcoming that guilt of not pleasing everyone all the time, especially here. Your continued support always gives me a boost, and helps me remember that yes, people will still be there, even when I can’t be a blogging machine. I wanted to thank those of you who remind me that it’s okay to take time for me; sometimes I need the outside reminder.
As most of you know, last year was extremely difficult, but I made it through and lived to tell the tale. Now that I’ve successfully completed the first several months at my job, I feel more able to address the issues of last year’s attack through therapy, so that will be one of the many challenges I face in 2018. I’m looking forward to it though; I’m tired of feeling so afraid about everything, and having nightmares and flashbacks all the time. It will be nice to work through all this and get back to feeling like me again. Through the support of good friends, and determination to lead a “normal” life on my part, I’ve gotten closer. But I’m not quite there yet. I will get there eventually, and the continued support from my friends, and little things about life in general will get me there.
One of those not-so-little things is my baby blog. Can you believe this kid is going to be TEN this year? (I know, right?!) While it doesn’t seem like much progress has been made these past couple of years of slow posting, a lot of progress was made behind the scenes. Some of you who pay close attention on social media have already noticed, and I was thinking of announcing it sooner, but this seemed like a great day to share the news: My URL now points to a blog you can see.
*cue cheers and applause*
That’s right, you can once again use www.poorgirleatswell.com to come to the blog! It took a lot of research and teaching myself all sorts of new things on the back end of the blog maintenance world, as well as the help from some great folks in certain forums, but darnit, I did it! Now, I was unable to snag the rest of the WP site’s posts before making the switch, so essentially those posts are lost and gone forever (unless I can resurrect them from memory and Web Archive). But it’s a small price to pay for having my blog back under my full control. I should never have given up the control in the first place, and that lesson has been painfully learned. But there’s no need to dwell on past, especially on the first day of a new year. I’ve beaten myself up enough about all that’s happened to my baby blog, and it’s time to release that. It’s good to reflect upon what was learned in order to not repeat the same mistakes, but moving forward and looking ahead is what’s most important.
So, now what?
Well, I to be perfectly honest, posting will still be slow going. Considering the demands of an intense job, and the personal demands that will be made on me during therapy, the last thing I’m going to do is put extra pressure on myself by making promises I cannot keep. Some might say that I should just give up the blog entirely, but… no. I’m not going to do that. Writing this blog, cooking, and just creating in general is a core part of me, and I’m not about to give that up. But being realistic about my priorities is key, and as I mentioned in the few posts from 2017, I want to honor those without letting my readers down.
The best way to do that is to not make any promises about post frequency and amount. It builds you up and stresses me out, and then I feel guilty when I can’t keep up, and it’s just a hot mess. That’s no way to blog. I’m going old school again, posting when it feels right, keeping up the social media, and just being me again. I think a lot of us OG food bloggers from the aughts did burn out because of that constant pressure, and I totally get why some of them have just moved on. But I also get what it’s like to practice self care, and to honor authenticity in one’s craft. Maybe I needed these extended breaks to get me back to what really matters: I just like doing this for the sake of doing it. Not for the online glory, or the perks, which are definitely fun. I just like cooking stuff and telling you about it, so that’s what I’m going to do.
I will make one promise before I go, and that’s mainly to keep myself accountable when it comes to this project and posting about it: Tip #16 is coming up tomorrow, and it will be all about a fresh start for your kitchen now that we’re in a new year. It won’t be some organizational gospel, but I do hope the tips I’ll be sharing will help you take stock of what’s in your kitchen so you can be prepared to make delicious, affordable food choices throughout the year.
Thanks again for all your support, old school PGEW fans! And to all you newbies, welcome! It’s a roller coaster around here, but the food’s good. Stick around. 🙂
