Blogiversary III: It is On
Woo to the hoo. We are celebrating three remarkable years of sharing our adventures (and misadventures) in home improvement with you folks in this virtual place that we call home. So you know what that means… some blogiversary madness is about to ensue.
Year four is sure to be full of projects, both big and small. And we consistently like to use our blogiversary week to share some inside scoop and kick off the next 365 days right. This week we are planning plenty of lively stuff, from a video with some insanely ugly shots of our house before every single project that we chronicled on the journal (let us simply call the footage “vintage”) and some behind the scenes info about how we live and work and do fairly much everything in between.
Oh and we have a fairly exciting blogiversary giveaway, so stay tuned for that later this afternoon. But first we will serve up this email answer:
Q: Have you two ever written a “typical day in the life of” post? I simply wrapped up reading about your latest project and realized that every time I read your journal (after a profound sense of “FANTASTIC!”), I wonder how you schedule to get done all that you appear to be doing (house projects + two blogs posts a day + mood boards/other work + responding to comments so frequently + baby + all the rest that comes with life and house maintenance), and I would be fascinated to know if you have any scheduling/time-saving pointers. I am a quite organized, list-maker, and master-scheduler myself, and I still cannot figure out how you do it. Regardless, WELL DONE! – Constance
The funny thing is that Southern Flourish magazine (hooray for free online glossies!) in fact asked us to write a day in the life post for their latest issue, which conveniently hit the interweb simply last week. Everything from diaper changes and Clara feedings to projects and post writing is in there. Heck, we even detailed what we ate for breakfast. Oh the glamour! So you can check out those deets right here (click to read):
And click here to flip through the whole issue of Southern Flourish. Gotta enjoy free online inspiration.
On the subject of Constance’s question about if we have any scheduling or time-saving pointers, we must admit that we are certainly in the “still learning” phase of baby juggling. We naively thought that John coming on once Clara was born would kick us into turbo speed, but two adults plus one baby fairly much equals one lone ranger who gets to journal all by their lonesome while the other parent is on baby duty. No matter how many people told us that a baby was a full time job we somehow thought we’d have more wiggle room to get things done. But the good news is that we are getting much more efficient after a fair amount of experimentation and flexibility. When Clara naps we have learned to use that time to dive into projects (an hour at a time, until she wakes up and we wait for the next nap to finish what we began). We also give thanks every day for the miracle that is babywearing (Clara + baby carrier = hands free typing/cleaning/project-ing/etc). And we are not too proud to occasionally eat cereal for dinner, or do anything else that we can do to squeeze a few more precious moments out of each day.
Plus we are getting better at taking photos, writing posts, answering comments, and doing all those other journal duties even faster (seriously, you should see us size pics for web, we are a blur I tell ya)… which leaves more time for makeovers and projects and of course some Clara lovin’ as well. One thing we have noticed is that we are faster when we focus on one task and complete it instead of trying to multitask (which results in running around chaotically and somehow getting less done) so we do our best to systematically cross things off as we go instead of trying to do a million things at once. So our secret is less of a miracle cure-all and more of a learn-as-you-go-and-do-whatever-works-best approach. Oh and we certainly believe in list making (in fact John whispers “my list!” as we leave the house since I frequently get into the car, shout “my list!”, and run back into the house for it since I never like to be without my beloved piece of paper with little boxes that I check off as we accomplish things).
And although we are fairly busy these days, we are simply counting our blessings that we were able to have John come work full time on YHL so we have someone to be on baby duty while the other one of us can devote time to YHL, because we cannot imagine what the state of the journal would be if there were not two of us around to switch hit. And the best-of-all news is that Clara is so worth the trouble. Seriously, we do not know what we ever did without her. Plus she makes us want to feather our nest even harder (er, better?) with her precious needs and wants in mind.
Stick around for the rest of the blogiversary hijinx (cue the parade of homeowners marching by with hammers and paint rollers). We cannot wait to crack YHL open and share all the gooey goodness inside…
