Reading Time: 4 minutesIt’s Pi Day in 2025 and I’m here talking about it! Do you know how huge that is for me?? 13 freaking years on this site and I always looked forward to talking about pie on Pi Day! Yeah, yeah, I’ve taken plenty of years …Read More….
Reading Time: 10 minutesUpdating 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? …Read More….
I know, I know. The name, the site, it all rings a distant, faded bell in your head. I feel like this should be one of those commercials where the celebrity introduces themselves like, “hey, I’m so and so. You may know me from hit movies like whatever-whatever, or the TV show blardy-blar.” At this point, if you are familiar with my brand of crazy here back when I was updating on the regular, then seeing me here now would probably be equivalent to watching black & white reruns of old shows. Heck, I’m sure my stating “I’m returning to blogging!” is enough to earn me a spot on a 2a.m. syndicated TV schedule.
Well, Lucy, baby! Here’s to hoping I could be your Ricky Ricardo. (if you don’t catch that reference don’t tell me, I wouldn’t be able to handle it) Because I’m slowly but surely getting my sea legs back under me. I know I’ve said it countless times before. Like, an embarrassing amount of times. But this time it’s different. Because this time, it’s true! This is my return to blogging.
I’ve been rebuilt. Melted down and remolded and reforged. I’m Frankenstein’s monster, put together by all sorts of pieces from various places and even timelines. I know, I’ve led you down this path before. And so many other times I’ve stated that I’m back or something of the sort. But a powerful, successful, albeit terrible man once said…
Any man who must say ‘I am the king’ is no true king.
So that’s basically the same thing right?
Watch…
Any man who must say ‘I have returned to blogging’ has not returned to blogging.
Yeah, that’s like totally the same. Nailed it.
I feel different. Like… I don’t know. Like I’ve been wandering. Wandering for a long time. Sometimes even feeling lost, though not mentally. Don’t get me wrong. Mentally, I’m not perfect at all. My goodness, there are some demons there, for sure, but nothing horrible. Overall, in the grand picture, I’m good. We all have problems and issues that we could work on but I like to think I’m ok.
Alright, before this starts taking up my 30 minutes on the couch, I was referring to being lost here, online. My return to blogging has been teased for years now, let’s be honest. But I always seem to find something else to do, only to then lose track of that soon after. So yeah, lost, as in, on this digital plane that we seem to be ever navigating throughout our minutes, hours, days, years. Never really knowing my place, not quite fitting into anywhere, yet still, existing without care.
Whether we like to see it this way or not, we all have a different consciousness online. Here on this World Wide Web, we all have different personalities and often totally different lives from the real world. Sometimes, it’s pretty sinister. I’m looking at you, fake influencers. Yeeeeah, we all know you’re not going to eat that food after you take pictures of it! (You can totally cry on my shoulder if you’re sad, just don’t let me catch you throwing away that sandwich.) But most of the time, it’s really just that everyone is a consumer. Not for products, mind you. But for content. Let me see if I could paint the picture for you…
You wake up, grab your phone, check your email, see a notification for a new YouTube video from a creator you like so you go check it out. This creator is referring to an Instagram post so you head over there to check that out. You open it up, and you see the post, but then you start scrolling your feed there, enjoying what your friends have posted from the night before. They went to a new restaurant in town. You looked up the menu and see it’s stuff you could easily make at home. You really want to save some money for a new laptop, so you get inspired for a night to dine in. Off to Pinterest you go for inspiration on the meal you want to make! You find a sweet blog called The Man, The Chef, The Dad with a great recipe and he goes into detail about how it’s the best thing he’s made and you love the pictures and how it sounds because he is an awesome blogger so you go with it (hey, this is my theoretical situation, what other blog is it going to be?!). And look, you have all the ingredients already and now, you don’t need to worry about that dreaded question, “what’s for dinner?”
See what I mean? Most of us online are consumers. From eyes open to bed time, you’re taking in content of some form from somewhere. Some, more than others, that’s for sure. There are those who get pretty addicted to the screen. Then there’s doomscrolling which seems to have overtaken baseball as America’s pastime these days. But I digress. For the most part, we’re all guilty of being gluttons for consuming content online.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to shame you. I’m guilty of it myself and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s the way life is these days. There’s universes worth of things to take in and we barely scratch the surface when we look at our screens.
We are beasts of habit. Wandering the land for comfort. For shelter from what lies about. And when we find it, it’s hard to wander away. For some it’s watching anime and partaking in the community. Or maybe it’s food videos of people cooking recipes that remind the wanderer of better times. Of their childhood, or old relatives that have since wandered beyond reach. Or maybe it’s something as simple as ASMR content of someone simply making a cup of coffee. The wanderer knows what fuels their journey ahead. A hard day of work, of life – of simply surviving – needs sustenance in comfort. We all face hardships we must endure whether it be difficult tasks appointed or the ever-constant pursuit of gold. See, being a wanderer online is not a bad thing at all. We know that there is happiness and light to be found amongst the darkness.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
Now that I’ve explained that, I can get to what is the leading cause for my return to blogging. And it’s that I’m tired of being a consumer. I mean, I’ll always be one, there’s no fighting it. I love it on an educational level. Learning new things, figuring out how things work, I could get lost down that rabbit hole. Other rabbit holes, not so much, but that’s another post. The issue with me is that, despite having free time here and there, my consuming feels riddled with guilt.
I’ll get more into it below (and I’m sure in future posts), but after so long, I feel like it’s time for another shift. For the past few years, heck, the past many years it seems, I’ve been nothing but a consumer. I’ve been doing nothing but taking in. Watching and reading. Playing. Bingeing reels and videos. And that hole when you dive into it, well, it’s endless. Think you figured everything out? Think you know everything about something? Well guess what, there are 3827940 more things lined up right behind where you left off. Think you can do just one more run of Balatro? Yeah, fat chance.
And like I said, it’s all great, it truly is. The fact that there is so much out there to help people with various topics is amazing. But at my core, I’m a creator. A creative. A tinkerer. If I need to have something done, 9 times out of 10, I’m going to figure out how to do it myself. All I’ve done throughout the 13 years of this blog’s existence is a testament to the fact that I was not always just a consumer. But lately, it’s all I’ve been doing. That’s why I feel like it’s time to change. See what I mean?? 13 freaking years on this site. I always said a return to blogging was going to happen because I knew it needed to.
I have this blog, and my podcast, The Talking Place. Those are my main outlets for making content. And I have neglected them beyond recognition. I came here to fix up the blog before writing this post and my goodness, the things I had to update or get rid of just to make it feel alive again. Once I get this thing going and working like a machine the way it used to, my podcast is going to be next.
I’m tired of just always taking in. And I discovered this thanks to the current state of the world. It really made me take a step back and realize a few things… For years, all I’ve been doing is floating about online. I’d be here, I’d be there. Just doing whatever, seeing whoever, talking about anything and everything I was into. And even then,I don’t have much to show for it, footprint wise. And that’s because I feel like I haven’t been creating. I have social media which I’ve been subconsciously drifting away from for years now, so I figured what better than a return to blogging to fill the need of feeling productive?
But to my defense, I feel like I’ve been doing pretty ok with being present for my kids, so the trade off is not that hard of a pill to swallow. This also resonates into my gaming hobby, which many in my circles will tell you I’ve also been pretty consistent in neglecting. I haven’t been taking time away from my kids (despite what my teenager might say, but again, another post) to post to social media or play games which I thoroughly enjoy. I’m always taking pictures and videos of our time together, but I don’t want to take the time to post anything to social media like I used to. I’ve just been… Living. And what’s wrong with that? Absolutely nothing.
And before you say, “oh, you could just post to socials or do your thing when the kids go to bed!” or, “Seriously, you can’t really have your entire day taken up by your kids.” To the posting when they’re in bed: yeah, ok, sure. Lady, I’m lucky to stay awake long enough to find something to put 0n the tv for background noise. I get so mad at myself too, when I know I’m dozing off. Like “NO! I have work to do! I’m not falling a–*SNORE*” And to the kids taking up my day: Well, obviously, yes? I mean, I’m a stay-at-home parent. If your young kid is there and your day is not taken up by them, then what in TF are you even doing?? (this does not include teenagers, as I’ve recently learned)
Living has been great, btw. It’s been rough, not going to lie. But it’s been great in that we’re still here, and mostly healthy, and alive together. Times are hard, and despite my hope, they don’t seem like they’re going to get any easier. And continuing to be honest, rough times is what drove me to the decision to jump back into blogging. I’ve never ever, ever seen my blog as a business.
Never ran ads, never tried to pimp myself out there to the masses. But times done changed. Life, as per freaking usual, is not letting up and seems to increase in difficulty every chance it gets. So let this be my formal apology for turning on ads here. I hate the way they look but I’m going to try to keep them respectful with placement. I’ll get more into this in another post, don’t worry. Haha, what is that? Like 5 new posts to look forward to? This return to blogging might be easier than anticipated.
Speaking of new posts, I think my next one will focus on what’s new here. What I did to update everything and how I feel like I’ve evolved with things. I’m excited! I know, I’ve said this so many times before. But it really does feel different.
I feel like I am able to splinter off into numerous other posts with what I’m writing so it’s getting hard to stay on topic. I think this is a good jumping off point. The little kick off the ledge to jump back into the waters of writing and a return to blogging. So let’s break the champagne bottle and kick those engines off!
Los
Reading Time: 7 minutesRemember the Name Alright! New year, new you, whatever it is people say. For a few months now, whenever I checked out the site here I saw a few things that needed updating. I couldn’t do anything, of course, because for the past few months …Read More….
Reading Time: 7 minutesLadies and Gentlemen Oh, hello! Been a while hasn’t it? More than 4 months if you’re counting. Where have I been? Well, I’ll get to that. First off, that elephant is in the room again… A new blog! Do you like it? New layout, new …Read More….
Welcome!
By now I would hope that you’ve noticed a few new things around here. Let me start by acknowledging the elephant in the room:
This is my new home! Thanks to a birthday gift from my mom (thanks mom!) I am now the proud owner of TheManTheChefTheDad.com. This not only means it’s going to be easier to share my address with people, but it also means I’m invested, so no more slacking off!
So far, despite having to spend a good 2 weeks of using my free time (which is usually time that I have to take away from a good night’s sleep) to fix this place up the way I wanted it, I’m extremely happy with the change. The differences between a free blog and a paid blog are apparent. I had to find a new theme that I liked, which proved to be the most difficult of tasks, but once that was done it felt all downhill. A really, really big hill, but it was fun. Thanks to Jenn Bauguss for talking up WordPress, the joys of blog ownership and getting me to try new waters.
As far as my old subscribers go, if you’re worried about having to subscribe again, then don’t worry. The good folks over at WordPress.com migrated everyone over with the greatest of ease.
Of course… You probably already figured that out since this was in your mailbox.
Alright, enough about what I had to deal with, let’s talk about what’s new! Starting from the top:
You’ll notice my social media icons are lined up there. One of the two icons that may seem strange to you is the big “E” which is not for Etsy, but for EyeEm, my photo sharing network of choice. I loved my network of friends on Instagram, but with all that drama last year along with just having too many network streams to go through, I decided to quit the Instagraming. EyeEm is crazy sleek and downright beautiful to look at as an app/network. And since 98% of everyone I know is on Instagram, I don’t feel obligated to go through another stream at the end of the day (although, sometimes I’d like to because EyeEm is pretty sweet).
The other icon is the more familiar cross belonging to Bloglovin’. Now that I’m not going crazy trying to get this up and running, I look forward to putting Bloglovin’ to use and catching up on everything I missed from being so deep in plugins and CSS. Or shall I say guessing at CSS.
The second thing that probably sticks out like a sore thumb is the slideshow. Sore thumb or not, I really love how it displays the last 4 posts, up front and center. I feel like it’s going to force me to take better pictures. Haha.
Going down the sidebar:
You’ll notice my snazzy welcome message to my visitors which also links to my About page.
Next, an updated Google Custom Search bar. Then, following where you can subscribe via email and view my recent scrolling tweets (so freaking cool), you’ll find some new favorites of mine. I tried to go with recipes that you’ll appreciate during the spring/summer months since I noticed my last collection of favorites seemed like it was more for the fall. Finally at the bottom is the Random Post button, which is probably my most favorite addition! Even though it might point you to a post that was published back when I started and contains less than stellar pictures. I mean, I know I’m no pro now, but compared to some of the pics I have on here… Let’s just say I have to do some more updating to older posts.
I have to say thanks to Ashton over at Something Swanky for not only giving me some tips, but for posting a tutorial on how to create a gallery for your sidebar and a tutorial containing free social media icons and how to use them. Both of which were crazy helpful and I urge you to check out her site if you haven’t because there are tons of other great ideas she has going on over there.
I also wanted to say thanks to image-maps.com for creating one hell of a mapping tool which made the sidebar possible, as well as the link in my little welcome message. Great, free tool, so check them out if you need something like that.
And another thanks to Chelsea Tera for her tips on blog presentation and offering to help with some pesky codes.
Ok, as for the rest of the blog, the posts themselves are getting love too:
I recently started adding music back into my life so I thought I should add it to my blog as well. I was posting YouTube videos of songs I liked and that reminded me of what I was posting about. But thanks to my new home, the videos are being replaced by a nice little music player that I’m sticking on the top of every post. You can’t control volume or rewinding, just play and pause. I’ll give a little line or two at the bottom of the post about the song and where to get it. My hopes are that you press play and listen to the song as you check out the post. Of course, you don’t have to listen, but it’s there if you do.
Continuing on, now not only can you hover over a picture and utilize the crazy convenient Pin it button that appears, but you can also leave a comment via Google+ if that’s your thing. I’m a huge fan of Google+ and know something like this is appreciated. Really brings a whole new social aspect to the posts. The only thing I don’t like is how I have no way of knowing a comment was made there unless I either check it, or I’m mentioned in there when it is publicly shared. I have learned that if you post a the link on Google+, it will show up automatically in the Google+ comments section at the bottom of the post, so that’s pretty awesome. It’s a fairly new plugin so I’m not entirely sure if there are a lot of bugs with it or if there are any other negatives. But so far, it’s a welcomed addition, as is the ever popular Commentluv check box when you leave a comment.
And that’s about it with the changes. I love the way it came out but of course I’ll be tweaking things here and there when they pop up.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you like my new home!
Please, check stuff out and let me know what you think!
About the song: Almost Over by Limp Bizkit – It’s a song that talks about growing up,
changing your life and becoming something better. It’s something that fits me not only in life,
but also with this blog thing I have going on. So I thought it was fitting. It is off Results May Vary.
Reading Time: 2 minutesWelcome to my new home! If you’ve read my blog’s Birthday post, you would know this is where I’ll be setting up shop from now on. Go ahead, take a deep breath. Suck in that new blog smell. How do you like it? Does it …Read More….