Milestones

I recently came to the startling realization that I am quickly approaching two blogging milestones.  First, I'm coming up on my one year blogiversary in the beginning of May.  So strange to think that I've been doing this for a whole year.  This is the longest chunk of uninterrupted time I've ever sustained a hobby (I can be fickle; don't judge)!  I also recently topped the five-digit pageviews mark.  I know that in internet-land, 10K pageviews in a year is pretty really extremely small potatoes.  But it's bigger potatoes than  I ever anticipated harvesting, you know what I mean?

So with those things in mind, it seems like the time is right to do a little revamping around here.  I'm surprised my decorating ADD hasn't compelled me to tinker with this blog before now!  I've been thinking about what I enjoy about the blogs I read and trying to translate those things to make my own blog more enjoyable.  I'm putting my skills as a teacher to use and teaching myself some new tricks to make things more organized, prettier, and look more professional.

You may have notice my photo quality is improving.  I'm teaching myself to shoot with a DSLR camera (Nikon D3100 for anyone wondering).  It's so much trickier than I imagined but I am bound and determined to learn it well enough to do most of my shooting in manual.  And where a good camera goes, Photoshop follows- I'm learning how to watermark my photos and use more sophisticated editing techniques than simple cropping.  Talk about a learning curve.  Obviously I'm not good at it yet, but people are rarely good at anything worth doing in their first attempts.

I've been teaching myself some basic programming and will be making the switch from Blogger to my own domain in the coming months.  Using my own domain will allow me much greater flexibility in how my blog appears and will let me do some exciting things like create my own graphics and lend some organization so it'll be easier to find archived posts or search across a category or room.  I am super-excited about this part because this type of look and function is a large part about what I love in the blogs I read, but it's by far the most intimidating goal I've set for myself in blogging.  And although I know enough about technology to check if it's plugged in and turn it off and back on again, programming is a whole different ball game.  All I have to say is thank God for a husband in IT and Google.

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Another way I could make my blog better would be posting regularly, which I would love to do.  Unfortunately, I can't really do anything about the regularity of my posts (or lack thereof).  I need to remember that working around our home and updating this blog are my hobbies, not my job.  Being able to blog and update our home when we have the time and motivation instead of following a blogging schedule is part of what keeps things fun for me.  So even though my fits-and-spurts style of blogging may make things harder to follow for ya'll, it's absolutely essential for me.

What kinds of things are you teaching yourself to do?  Do you have suggestions for ways I could make my blog better?

Spring Has Sprung

Well, we had glorious weather on Easter.  Pretty much unparalleled for the Pacific Northwest.  In fact, many of the family members over at our house spent time sitting in camp chairs in the front yard.  The last time I can remember anyone sitting outside at Easter was in the early 90s.  With such a surge of great weather came about 4 days of clear-ish skies and temps in the low 60s (just enough to encourage all the trees to begin pollinating) and now we are back to chilly and wet, wet, wet.

Despite the lackluster weather, my living room has finished its transition to springy-ness.  The blue curtains replaced the purple ones that have dutifully served all fall and winter.  And I ordered some pillow covers from an etsy shop called Modernality.  Why, you ask, didn't I force my Mom to endure another sewing project with me?  Well, these folks had really cute color-coordinated fabrics, were running a sale, and the pillow covers had *zipper closures.* They have happily springed things up in the living room.

Chevron love.

Modern florals.  The log pillow really ties things together, amiright?

I love how everything in this room is playing nicely together and complementing the colors in both the entryway and the nearby kitchen and dining area.

So much lighter and brighter up in here!

How do you make your home more springy?