{a home in the making} State of the Blog.

Let's just dive right into where I've been for the past month. Wait, has it been two months? Yep. I originally wrote this post at the beginning of June! So, I've edited to update to the rest of June, but the basic message remains unchanged :)

I started in May in Miami (above) for work, as soon as I got home we headed to the Oregon coast, then a long weekend visiting friends in Bend, Central Oregon (below) and I finished the month visiting a dear friend in Dallas Texas. May was awesome! And, my head is in fact still spinning. 

June was a little quieter, but included an amazing trip to wine taste in eastern Washington (below). Quite frankly, I'm not used to traveling that much and lots of other things fell through the cracks. Including, sadly, this lovely space.

There's another issue I've been having, though, with blogging in general. Early in May - pre-travel craziness - I actually thought to myself that I need to hire a landscaper to come weed our terribly overgrown yard and lay barkdust. My reasoning? Besides being lazy (!), getting our yard in shape would take a full weekend day and it's not something I could blog about so I didn't want to spend time doing it. What shocked me the most is that I realized this is only one example in a list of things that I've been avoiding doing because they aren't blog worthy.

It hit me hard that I don't want to live my life according to what's blog worthy. Since I started my new job about 8 months ago, I've had very limited time during the week to blog - thanks to crazy work days that often lead into evening work activities. I've been managing the blog by filling my weekends with starting and completing projects, photographing the projects, uploading and editing photos and then, at a bare minimum, writing Monday's post and starting the other two posts for the week. I'm sure you can guess how much time that leaves me for anything else on the weekends! :)

I was chained to my house last summer trying to make progress on our kitchen remodel, and I don't want to feel the same way this summer. I want to go hiking and pull weeds and go for bike rides and touch up the back entry steps that are chipping. I want to enjoy my weekends!

I'm not completely sure what all this means. I know I'm not going away. The first couple weeks of May I felt really free in my non-blogging life, but the few weeks I've really missed it - and all of you! I think this summer I'll just be winging it more than usual. There are still small home updates I'm working on - living room furniture, fabrics for the kitchen, the sage of our kitchen chairs - and I'll definitely be updating you as I get to them. But there might be weeks when I just don't have time to contribute here. And I think right now that's fine too.

Thanks for hanging in there with me friends! I appreciate you reading and checking in here and not giving up on me when life kinda gets in the way :)

The end of an era ...

That's right. Google reader is dying tomorrow! I know you've probably all taken care of transferring your readers already (and it's easy!), but just in case, I made it super easy for you to continue following me with bloglovin'. Click on the link, or, there's a new button on the right.

Oh, and I realize I've been quite absent the past couple months, but I promise you don't want to go away. I'll be making a state-of-the-blog address tomorrow, followed by updated and new (!) kitchen chairs, an amazing nursery (not mine - that's definitely not why I've been absent ;), living room chairs and more. 

Now, I'm going to go cry over having to change my blog reading ways.

{inspired} wine tasting and friends

Friends! How good of a combo is that - wine tasting and friends. I think it might be my favorite! :) I actually have a couple posts all ready to publish, but my camera card reader died. Dead. So that's on my list of things to purchase this week, but in the meantime my wonderful and gorgeous friend Angie did a post on her blog about our wine tasting in eastern Washington last weekend. I highly recommend you check it out. Because not only will there be cute photos of us:

See? But, Ang took amazing photos of the day and the wineries.

And, while not home related AT ALL, it has me wondering - what type of wine is your favorite? I'm a big red girl - cabs FTW! - but I live in Pinot Noir country. So, tasting in eastern Washington was especially delightful. Are you all about Pinots? Chards? What about Merlots? White vs. reds? I'd love to hear! :)