This pandemic year, this 2020, has most of us reflecting on what we’re doing, why we are doing it, and if we should continue. What changes should we make? And, what can we become? What do we WANT to become?
If I could just wave a magic pen and let the words spill out all at once to write those posts I craft inside my brain… it would be much simpler. 😉
First off, we hope you had a great Thanksgiving (for those celebrating in the USA). We stayed home – just Mr. Gordon and me… and our 18-pound turkey from a local farmer. (And we ordered a “small” turkey! Egads!) Well, we love leftovers.
Here’s what this post is going to include: a bulleted list to the other new posts; a description of a new style of posting here at Garden, Cook, Eat, Repeat; and a short story of where we “are” right now. Ready?
- This is what’s been keeping me busy.
- I still love my chickens.
- The harvest was not good. (Or, we’d starve this winter if we didn’t have a grocery store.)
New Style of Posting
Garden, Cook, Eat, Repeat was due for a bit of a facelift, so I made some changes to how some things look. I hope you noticed! 😉 I made significant updates to the home page and the presentation of internal pages, too. I’m hoping to do better with displaying photos in blog posts moving forward.
Having said that, I also took a step back from GCER this fall. Why am I not blogging these days? I asked myself.
Well, I’ve had a lot of “competing interests,” you might say. Writing / publishing my first fiction book, at-home responsibilities, and j-o-b responsibilities and curve balls (ugh). Job-related items have sucked up a lot of my time and frankly, it leaves me brain-drained at the end of the day. Actually, that’s the point I am at right now as I type. Thank goodness Mr. Gordon heated up leftover Thanksgiving turkey pot pie for dinner – so good! I didn’t even have the energy to think about cooking after work finished having its way with me today.
To compensate for the limited amount of time to blog, I am envisioning shorter posts (less text) with a hodge-podge of photos. I won’t be writing in-depth posts regularly, but maybe the brevity will be preferable to readers? Plus, a picture is worth a thousand words. Right? 😉
Also, I took a page out of the Netflix model this past July and “dropped” a handful of blog posts at once. I think that gives visitors the opportunity to pick and choose what they want to read (topic wise) and/or they might want to settle in an read them in one sitting in the order they prefer. I probably will continue to do that – although I reserve the right to do “one-offs,” too. 🙂
Where are we right now with the offline version of Garden, Cook, Eat, Repeat? That’s a good question. I don’t really know. This past year took a lot out of us. Gardens did very poorly. Many home projects were not completed. Some never even got off of the ground. As a result, we made the decision to scale back next year. Instead of expanding the upper and lower gardens in 2021, we’ll reduce back to just the one lower garden. We did not plant crops to over-winter either (e.g., garlic, shallots). We intend to plant our fruit trees (8 of them) in this coming spring. That will be the extent of our expansion. Finishing the root cellar is back on hold. We didn’t have much for it anyway.
In sum, I still want to write and share photos here of what we are doing to build a more sustainable life, but GCER might just remain a personal blog that I post to or share photos on occasion. On one hand, I’m disappointed that I couldn’t grow the website into something more meaningful – a better, inspiring resource – but on the other hand, I’m just one of many voices already out there. I’m not doing anything that different than the next person (and probably even less in this genre).
So there you go. That’s where “we are” right now. Thanks for stopping by today and I hope your gardening, cooking, and eating is bringing goodness into your life. Stop by anytime (or sign up for updates when a new post is made).
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Where To Next in the December Blog Drop Series?
- This is what’s been keeping me busy.
- I still love my chickens.
- The harvest was not good. (Or, we’d starve this winter if we didn’t have a grocery store.)
You’re inspiring me with my own backyard!
Thanks for coming by, Karen! (When this pandemic is past us, and it will be eventually, we will have to meet up!)
Tracy. I get it. I totally get where you are coming from. 2020 was a hard year, but definitely one of growth (for me). I threw a ton of things out there to see what would stick and a lot did NOT stick. But that’s okay. I can now say I tried and can shed all the ‘extra’ weight.
I like the update to the blog. And I also don’t mind that you add more personal to it. When I think of people who are ‘successful’ in the homesteading world, they don’t always add in a personal touch. Or they don’t seem to be realistic. So go ahead and add in that personal aspect. I have a hard time keeping the personal out of my posts. I mean, I’m not sharing deep dark secrets, but I think people like to know that the garden wasn’t a success. Or that you worry about your chickens. It’s far better that than ‘yeah, I got chickens and they do chicken things’.
Keep up the good work. I look forward to reading about what you’re doing (when I get a day to check back in. That’s been harder and harder to do lately, but I’m trying a new schedule for January. We’ll see how it goes).
Hi Kristin – thank you for your kind words! I absolutely love to write and put up blog posts. I endeavor to be helpful and positive, but sometimes I feel like I am lost. I want to make sure I post honestly and try to make it meaningful. GCER really has developed into a “log book” of sorts and there are times I need to look something up to remember “how / when did we do that.” So, I think that’s where the personal creeps in even more. And of course, there is my general anxiety (not clinical, to be clear). Mr. Gordon says I worry all the time. He’s probably got a point. I worry now more than I ever have. Not sure how to correct that… sad to say, not sure it CAN be corrected!
Anyhow, one of the reasons why I love your blog posts so much, Kristin, is because I really do feel like I’m getting a peek into your life. I’m a reader, I love to know the story. If the story doesn’t ring true, I probably won’t revisit that person’s shared life chapters very much. But yours are so genuine that I cannot help but circle back to your blog time and time again!
Good luck with your January schedule. I’ve been putting my “newish” schedule into place this month. It’s going okay. To be honest, a lot of my morning schedule is driven by sunrise and the chickens needs. Okay – off to see your other comments! So AWESOME to see you!