the evolution of this blog

i started blogging in 2006 with the sole intention of sharing scrapbooking pages and recording pictures and thoughts with my other friends and family who cared (about three people). we lived in a little apartment, grant was still in school, and i spent my days with a toddler and craft supplies and a camera.

soon etsy came into existence and enough people were reading that i could start making money from the stuff i was making rather than teaching piano (yuck) or cleaning toilets (yuck) like i had been doing. for the blog's part, in between updating the shop i would mostly show pictures of cate's life, domestic bliss, cooking, packaging, and would add a long rant about life here and there.

cate got older and went to school. i should've been able to just keep growing my handmade business but i am not a business woman. it is not in me. i hate networking, i hate self promotion, i hate deadlines, everything that is a part of it. etsy was a blessing in our lives because we needed the income. but grant started making more money and i started caring less about it. i declined great opportunities and was getting pretty stoked that i could just knit for myself again.

a little previous to that, grant and i became obsessed with urban homesteading. we were living in a bigger place with a yard and we had chickens and dogs and gardens and raw milk and i was working as a wellness counselor (my degree is in health and psych) to get a discount on quality food and to pass the time while cate was in school. my posting slowed down and when i did write it was a lot about wellness physically.

that was because in the etsy poor years, i was also struggling with the diagnosis of polycystic ovarian syndrome and had gained a lot of weight. i was infertile and way heavier than i ever had been and felt like crap. i shifted my whole focus from sewing quilts and blogging to the gym and sprouting. the two lives didn't seem to be able to co-exist.

now, i feel better physically. i have lost the weight. ya, my hair is still falling out, and i still have to shave my face, and i'm still infertile, but you know, you can't win them all. i am focusing on the mental health aspect of my hormone imbalance and am getting new directions for my life. i'm using this blog as a journal and sounding board more than ever, and less and less for a specific obsession or business need.

though a few patterns are still available in my etsy shop that still sell pretty regularly, i don't feel present there anymore. and though i still feel strongly about eating healthy, my physical goals have been reached, and the obsessive level needed to come down a notch or three. plus we moved out of the big yarded house. although motherhood, family life, and home domesticity are still my number one loves, i am not doing art with a toddler all day and taking pictures of it. cate is old. she wants to read a book and not have her picture taken.

it's so interesting to me the stages and directions life takes. everything always feels so permanent. but it's not. everything has changed in the blink of an eye, over and over. in the early days, i didn't even have my own car: blogging was a main mental activity of my mommy day stuck in a house. that just isn't the case anymore.

soon i will be so busy with my social work field work and masters program. will i still blog? of course, i have to. writing, expressing, sharing, recording, that's all part of who i am. maybe i'll go broke and have to stay up all night trying to make things for the etsy shop again, you never know.

i am, and have always been, so grateful for this space. to look back through my archives and remember good times, hard times, and times where i tried to sound cheerful but i was dying inside. to see progress as an individual and as a family. places we've lived, things we've done. great moments recorded. especially the support and positivity you all give me. i'm so glad i've been doing it. it's a forever thing, so, talk to you soon(ish). and it will probably be about social work. (next phase you know...)

oh yes, and thank you so much for all the congrats and kind words about that! it really gave me a confidence boost i needed. thanks!!!!

Comments

[Jill]

I'm so glad you're not going to quit blogging. Congratulations on the next chapter of your life. Look at little Cate! That's totally how I remember her.

[Coco]

I miss to blog. You wax poetic.

[ellen patton]

Your blog is one of my very favorites. In fact a friend asked me this weekend for a list of my favorite blogs and yours was on it. You inspire me. I look forward to reading more about your life.

[brittany barney]

i really like this. its so nice to know the reason why you are doing things and to watch the progression of things. it is crazy how things go by wayyyy faster than you would ever ever ever think. im glad you are in a good place now. heres to the next chapter! yahooo!

[Autumn]

I love reading through my blog and seeing how I have changed. I have really been enjoying reading your blog the past few weeks, I just don't think I have commented until now :)

[Desi]

Geesh you scared me for a sec there. I thought you were saying goodbye, that you were done with blogging. I appreciate so much your realness. You are inspiring. Thanks for letting so many of us blog stalk your life.

[Erin]

I love this post, in a sad and happy way. It's kind of sad to see things change, but happy, too. I liked what you said about health. Once you'd met your goals, you could tone it down. That's how I feel. I am very much in do it do it do it mode for nutrition, as I have a very big goal to meet. But I'm dang sick of it. I just want to do something else - anything else. Luckily, I think it's around the corner, my relief. But nutrition really is a means to an end. It is important. We don't all just want to go to pot when we're 40. But we are healthy so that we can LIVE. And if we worry about food our whole lives, we're not living. Thanks Kelly.

[Amanda]

I was a bit worried when I first started reading this post that you were going to stop blogging. While I've followed your Tumblr page since way back, I only just discovered your blog recently and really enjoy reading it. I like that your blog is 'real' and that you blog for you,to journal and to record and to reflect on things.

[glor]

yay. life is never boring!

[Marilyn]

Perhaps, the evolution of our blogs is the most fascinating way to learn about ourselves. Sometimes when I go back and read posts from the first year of my blog, I cringe and even think "Oh, I want to delete this post." But then I remind myself that it's a reminder of how I've grown and changed over the years, a marker for learning.

Thanks Kelly, for all you share here!

[julia]

thank you kelly! you have put into words, more beautifully than i could have, how i have felt many, many times.

and congrats girl! can't wait to see where it takes you!

<3 a fellow blogger

[debbie]

I know exactly what you mean about all of it. And you writing all of that made me try and remember what it was about you that made me start following your blog. Was is sewing? scrapbooking? gardening? after reading that post and seeing a bunch of your phases I have decided it wasn't any of those things. It was just you. Keep it real and I will be here.

[Tiffany]

You'll do very well. I love reading your blog so much so I just have to say this: no using grad school as an excuse not to blog! I'm just finishing my master's and I blogged the whole time! ;) (I understand if you can't, but I'll miss your posts!). I like how you said that things feel permanent but they really aren't. I've had great blessings in my life these past few years but I'm hitting a rough patch. I believe you were inspired to say that just for me, so thanks! :)

[Nicole]

Every day I struggle with PCOS and most days it feels like a hopeless challenge. Most days it beats me into the ground to the point where I painfully believe that I will never be thin again, that I will never be able to move past or through this, that everything in my life will always have this miserable side note of PCOS screwing around with my girl parts and what I show the world through my physical being.

Shaving my face is particularly humiliating when layered to that.

But this post...I'm at work, I'm in tears, and I am feeling something like hope. I read your blog quietly and often envy the images and things found on it. To know that you struggled with the same monster that I struggle with...and that you have risen above...it is literally life and mind changing.

Thank you. For this post. For blogging. For sharing.

[Natalie]

Wonderful pictures - it is fun to see the evolution. I am curious what you were able to do that helped you lose weight? You look awesome! I have some very stubborn pounds to lose.

[likely]

Those pictures made me sad happy. It seems so long ago you were the crafty etsy girl...It's so odd to me how chapters close and we evolve. Blogging in general across all of the blogs... changed. It's interesting. Sometimes going to a blog you haven't read in a while is like picking up a book you used to read all the time. Looking at those pictures you posted is like revisiting a chapter in my own life oddly enough, does that make sense? Like I remember myself when I was reading about Kelly's new scrapbook kits and quiet books... hmmm... Etsy was the way I found out about your blog... and then nie's when you made her those aprons... like 5-close to 6? years ago? crazy. I am glad you are changing and doing new things. All the best to you.

[Callie C.]

I really only read about 5 blogs these days, yours being one of them...no time and waning interest on my part :) I was trying to think of how to describe what your blog has been to me and it dawned on me. It's like my favorite old sweatshirt...comfy and the one thing I'd rather be wearing more than anything else. I remember a quote from one of my favorite movies...in the movie Robert Redford is being interviewed and he said, "In this industry you search for authenticity..." and that's what I crave when reading blogs and that's what oozes from every corner of yours. Kinda makes me sad for the timing of when we first met and that I was still so painfully shy :) Cheers to grad school, cheers to feeling love and finding hope in thrift stores and cheers to you chica :)

[andi]

Sweet Kelly, your blog has always been one of my very, very favorites- ever since I discovered it the first year I was blogging six years ago! So happy that you are still writing + sharing your thoughts. While our stories are very different, I can totally relate in the evolution of my own blogging journey. I mean, remember when my blog was called Tales of a Crafty Mama because I thought I was only going to write about being crafty, but then never really did? :) So excited for you + grade school and all that has in store for you. And of course, I am still praying that God grants the desire of your heart with a baby someday soon!
xo

[heather]

I love reading your blog! It is always uplifting. One of my good friends struggles with PCOS too.
http://vibrantsexystrong.com/

That is her blog. She recently changed her diet and the doctors no longer say she has PCOS. Which is incredible.
Anyway, again, I hope you continue blogging. I love reading it.

[jes [a mountain bride]]

you totalllly don't know me - I don't think I've ever written on here before (I fell in looove with your quilt pics on tumblr and have followed your journey ever since!)

I am cheering for you!