It’s been a while… I actually started this post six months ago! The One Room Challenge had started the previous week, and I had every intention of participating. I even had my first week’s post written and set to publish, along with the couple hundred other bloggers who played along as guest participants.
BUT. That still small voice inside me was trying to tell me something. It’s too much. I’ve always thought of myself as someone who has the ability to say no. But what I’ve recently realized is that I have a hard time saying no to MYSELF. To saying no to something I WANT to do, but that maybe overextends me, or doesn’t line up with my priorities at this point in my life.
When I started this blog, I did it because it utilizes all of my creative passions–interior design, writing, and photography–and I thought it would be something really fun I could do in my spare time. Because on top of being a full time wife and mom, co-owner of a business with my husband, part time interior designer, and table leader at my mom’s group at church, plus trying to stay relatively in shape, edit my dad’s book, volunteer in my kids’ classes, and declutter my very cluttered house, I had TONS of extra time to work on DIY interior design projects, photograph them, and document them on my blog. Insert sarcasm here. Have I mentioned that my daughter is only at preschool two days a week, leaving me a grand total of 8 hours/week kid free?
Despite my other commitments, I threw myself wholeheartedly into the project, spending months trying to figure out how to set up the website (built my own using Headway), thinking that as soon as that was done, the “fun” part of blogging about my design projects would start. What I didn’t realize was how much pressure I would put on myself to blog regularly and meet unattainable standards for a newbie blogger, and how frustrated I would get when I didn’t have the time to complete the posts and projects I wanted to get to.
Adam and I try to make decisions according to our values. For us, that means honoring God, prioritizing time with our family, taking care of our finances through Adam’s job and our business, and a commitment we’ve made to coaching and mentorship. We run all of the decisions we make through the filter of how they affect those areas of our life. When I started listening closer to that voice telling me that I was taking on too much, I realized that the pressure I was putting on myself to meet certain blogging goals was pulling me away from the things that were really important to me. I wasn’t as present for my husband and kids, I felt distracted from our business, and I very clearly felt God telling me to put my blog aside for a season. As silly as it sounds, that was really hard for me, because I enjoyed every minute of blogging.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about what next year looks like for me. Both of my kids will be in school full time, which will allow me to pursue some of the me focused activities I’ve put on the backburner for a while, including taking on more design work and blogging more regularly. As I thought about picking up this blog again after such a long hiatus, I figured I owed my few faithful readers an explanation of where I’ve been and where I’m going… I am in the process of building a design portfolio I hope to add to this site in the near future, and I want to ease back in to blogging again, but take a little more freedom to deviate from the “blogging plan.” I will still focus primarily on interior design, with an emphasis on budget friendly options, but don’t be shocked if I share a bit more about other areas of our life. And for the next few months and throughout the summer, we’re probably looking at a pretty sporadic blogging schedule, as I plan to enjoy the summer and the last few months before my baby girl (I can still call her that, right?) begins kindergarten…
Can any of you relate? Have you ever taken a break from something you “loved” because it took time away from other priorities, primarily the PEOPLE you love? Would love to hear about it!
As always, thank you for following along with me, and I hope you’ll continue to check in!
