Behind the Curtain – Updating the Blog

Updating the blog is something I always look forward to! You know, despite my mind and laziness telling me I don’t need to. When I update the blog and make things fresh and clean in here and it’s time to make the post about it? Oooooo, I feel like Kendrick Lamar walking up to the camera in the Super Bowl. 

Ugh, I’ve been on such a Kendrick trip too. I’m so mad at me for missing out on that beef when it was happening. That’s what I get for living under a rock I guess. 

Side note, these posts are mostly a guilty pleasure for me. It’s not the first time I flaunt changes around here, and I hope it’s not going to be the last. I’m a sucker for seeing how I’ve progressed over the years so these posts about updating the blog are a nice way of showcasing that. Overall, this may seem boring to you. But if you’re interested about blogging yourself (which you should be!), or you already have a blog and you want to peak behind the curtain of a fellow blogger, then this is the post for you!

Why I’m updating the blog

If there’s one thing I learned from these 13 years of blogging, it’s that I can be insanely stubborn when it comes to change. I’ll get into themes later, but I am notorious for finding something that I like, and sticking with it for years. Not because it’s amazing and the best available, but because I get so used to the options and customizations I have in place, that in my head, I feel like there is nothing that could be better for what I need. 

And that is such a easy way to get stuck, believe you me. So many different ways I could’ve updated and spiced things up throughout the years, but I always defaulted to what I had. “Nope! I love my set up, I can’t change this thing that I’m not fond of because that would disrupt the flow of things.” One thing leads to another and you eventually grow bored of things. After that, it is a very quick transition to indifference, and before you know it, your blog is dormant and you just don’t care anymore. 

Yeesh! That got dark really quick, didn’t it. I didn’t realize this was going to be a self-reflecting therapy session. Never know what you’re going to get coming here!

Anyway, let’s get to it and see what’s going on in here that’s different! Don’t even know where to start. How about from the top. 

The Bruce

Let’s start with the banner! (Get it? Bruce… Bann.. oh, nevermind) The banner, or, header, as we refer to it in the industry*, is… well, it’s semi-new. I really wanted to update it and do something fresh and different. Changing the banner is equivalent to fresh paint in a room – it changes the whole feel on the site! So naturally, it’s the first thing you want to do when updating a blog. This isn’t the first time I make a post like this updating what’s new. And if you go to any one if them I’ve done in the past, I’m showcasing new banners vs the old ones. 

This time though, it’s not as drastic. It almost was! It was almost huge and gaudy. I guess if you want to check it out you caaaan….

I had a small test group and they agreed with my gut feeling about it – MEH. This was the result of many YouTube videos researching about what’s trending in designs and fonts and such. Turns out medieval is in? Kind of an old timey, Englishy, blocky lettering. But nope, after trying numerous fonts and designs, this is what turned into the best of the best for me. Which is funny because it’s actually the best of the worst. I just did not dig it when compared to what I already had. Strangely enough, it reminds me of an older banner I had when I was going through my pirate phase. But we won’t talk about that………………… Ok, fine, here it is. 

Listen, we all go through pirate phases, ok?? Don’t judge me, matey.

Trends come and go, minimalist is forever

Ultimately, I ditched medieval me rather quickly. I tried to force myself to like it for the sake of having something different and new. But deep down, I just really liked my old one still. So I kept it! I did want to have it narrower though. So I made it a straight line going across, instead of the words stacked up on each other. I think it looks good! Go ahead, scroll up and see for yourself! The tagline was something the blog did automatically. It was rather small so I just turned it off and included it in the actual header image. Here’s what it looked like before I straightened it out.

I am still attached to the colors as they remind me of coffee. What can I say, I’m a simple, cozy man. The font is minimal but still distinct. BUT! I do want to come up with new icons. I could have sat there still trying to figure out something different for those but I wanted to move on with my life. So it’s a task for another day! 

Sadly, I didn’t think about taking screenshots of everything before I started cleaning house. I usually do, but when I jumped in here it was the equivalent of rage cleaning so before I even knew what was happening my theme was changed and everything.  Typically with blogs, updating and editing of the blog takes place behind the scenes. I’m lucky I knew no one has cared about this place in a long time so I didn’t have to worry about any of that hahahaha. One of the positives of being lazy when you’re updating your blog.

New theme, who dis?

Speaking of themes, that’s new! For the past 2 or 3 iterations I’ve updated the blog, I used themes made by the same company, Cryout Creations. Seriously, those peeps know what they’re doin’! I liked them because they had a ton of options for customizing that were not paid, which is what made me stay with them for so long.

If you don’t know, themes are like… uhhh… themes? Ok, ok. Themes are like cars. They all look different, drive different, have different stock and premium options. You’ll have tons of choices if you’re looking for a theme somewhere, especially if you’re ok with spending money on one. 

Which I’m not, LOL. Sorry, I’m both cheap and broke, so I have loads of patience to get me through sifting out dozens of free themes instead of coughing up $50+ for a premium one. They’re nice! And maybe one day I’ll invest in something like that. But for now, I have way too much fun in searching for something and making it work. 

If you remember the last theme, this one isn’t too far off from it. It’s still very minimal feeling, which I was still trying to aim towards. And it has enough customization options to satisfy what I’m looking to get out of it right now, so I’m happy I found it. And it’s designed to be for a food blog! So it fits?

This is my front page. This is my new rage.

The front page is hugely different! Like I mentioned earlier with getting stuck in a rut if you got comfortable. The front page for me was my biggest rut. As you may know or could tell, my blog is essentially split up into 3 sections. On my front page, I always try to maintain that separation between these sections. Because you know, the front page is, well, the front page. So you’re making an impression, you’re trying to show people this is what your place is all about. So I tried to make it sectioned off, with a cool carousel featured banner in the front. 

But of course, I never wanted to change it. It functioned for what I wanted and I was comfortable with it. Dumb, stupid comfort, the silent killer of progression. So when it came time to jump in here and clean off the dust and get serious again, my first order of business was to get the front page changed. And that I did! I decided to make it all just recent posts. Maybe in the future I’ll introduce a carousel of featured posts and such, but for now I’m happy with the basic structure of it with nothing fancy or crazy. 

CSS’ing the QoL

I wanted to add some minor stuff that helps the overall QoL feel. I’m always looking out for cool things to implement in here, but so far, I only have a few to help with reading. There’s now a progress bar on the top of the window. It scrolls over to the right as you’re scrolling through the post. So it gives you a general indication of how far along you are and how close you are to finishing your read. Something else to help you get an understanding of how long it takes to read something, is right at the beginning of each post, and even on the front page, associated with each post, is an estimated reading time.

Look, I know how it is. Clicking on something and seeing it’s long to get through is pretty daunting. Or even worse, you start reading and you get invested, only to figure out it’s an entire life story that you really should have planned half the day to just be sitting there reading it. The progress bar and the estimated reading time should help somewhat.

I’m far from a web developer. But thanks to this blog and my constant OCD need to have things exactly a specific way, I can now get by. It was fun learning super basic CSS and that sense of discovery of figuring out what I need and how I could fix it is pretty addicting. Things like colors of links, fonts, titles of posts, and the size of certain aspects of the layout have all been customized thanks to CSS. Sometimes it could get a bit wonky, but for the most part, it works out ok. 

Ordering a Side from the Menu

Ok, these sections are getting harder to name. The top menu has changed as well. Where Links and Who I Am were their own thing before, they’re now nestled under About Me, along with my Contact Page. I figure that works better there and it makes room for more important things like My Podcast and My Etsy Shop. Funny enough, my shop has been going for over a year now. But outside of show notes for podcast episodes, this is the first official mention of it here on the blog. I suck so much lol. But I’m working on it! 

You’ll notice the side bar when you first load up the front page. This was a huge back and forth for me as I’m huge on not having a side bar. I love the look of a full width page and how much more engaging it is as a reader, versus having a narrow reading area surrounded by other information and images. Ultimately, I decided to keep it. I figured if someone was to only check out one page for one specific post or recipe, it’s better to have the sidebar there to try and catch their eye with something that might intrigue them. That said, it’s been severely cleaned up compared to what was in there before. 

Like right now, you’ll find the latest episode of my podcast, The Talking Place. I love how I set up a player there as well so you don’t have to go searching for it to find out how it sounds. Like a try before you sub kinda thing. Underneath, you’ll find my latest reviews and such from Goodreads. I went super hard on books in 2023. 2024, not so much, but now this year I’m going to try and get back on my grind. I’m not as relentless as 2023, but I feel like I have a lot more ambition to read than I did last year. That said, you could find my latest reviews on the side bar, as well as what I’m currently reading below that. 

Eventually, once I get it set up again, I’m going to have a quick sign up for an email list there on the side bar. Maybe even something to see recent posts. There used to be one there but I got tired of the clutter. Much as with life, I’m trying to be more minimal these days. It’s been a huge influence on the revamping of this place so might as well commit all the way. I used to have three different recent post widgets there!! You know, one for each personality of mine. AND a top favorite posts on top of that. Together with social media updates and such, it was a lot. So this is a nice change, I feel.

Anti-Social Butterfly

Speaking of social media, let’s address the elephant in the room. Or the lack thereof.

I don’t have any social media links anywhere! 

To be honest, the current state of social media is what pushed me to get back on this blog horse of mine. But that’s a completely other post for another day. For now, just know I am trying to maintain a blog and all of its social aspects without the utilization of social media. I know, wish me luck, right? Honestly, I’m happy with this decision and I’m looking forward to not having to worry about sharing posts every which way. Keeping up with socials and SEO were huge deterrents for me when I was blogging before. I’m having to suck it up and deal with SEO so I’m happy to cut out something haha. 

That’s not to say I don’t have socials somewhere. If you go over to my links page, you’ll see my accounts and where I have the possibility to be engaging. But I will not ask you to follow me because I know I won’t be on there lol. Once upon a time, I was all about the socials and chatting on wherever and posting pictures. But as I got older, I found less and less excitement keeping up with things. Again, current state of the world may contribute to that. There are way too many things out there that I’d rather not poison my eyes with. So I found myself on networks less and less. 

Ok, I’m getting carried away here with stuff that is going to be another post. I’ll leave the social stuff at that for now. 

Now, I will say that I’m not going to stop completely from sharing to stuff. When a post is done, if I feel like it, I’ll go and throw it on a network I’m on. But it will be far from my list of things I have to do on here. There will be one place though that I will try to maintain on a regular basis. Once I get going, I’m going to double down on Pinterest as my primary network of choice. 

Ok, I think that’s that for the updates! I feel like I’m missing something but I’ll figure it out later. I’m looking to go back to doing my Humpday Updates, so once I get in the flow of things I’ll update blog stuff on there. 

Until next time! 

Los

*I can’t believe you scrolled all the way down here to see what I meant by “industry.” There is no “industry,” duh. I was said something stupid and tried to cover it up with something even stupider. No, I don’t have a punch line, I’m just rambling at this point. So go on, get outta here. The movie is over, go home.