Livin' The Dream

I've been trying to live the crap out of life. That's the short version of where I've been the last few weeks.

The longer version? You know how when you've been in and out of town or had people coming in to visit, how suddenly all your routines get thrown off and then you feel hopelessly behind for the rest of the week? I've been totally overwhelmed because not only did Matt and I take a little weekend trip a few weeks ago, but the following weekend his parents and a few other relatives came in to visit us, and we had a blast exploring new things in Virginia. Especially breweries. There were a lot of trips to breweries over those two weekends.

I'll be sharing more about both of those trips over the next few weeks, hopefully. The photo above is from Monticello, in Charlottesville. The tulips were blooming, and I took about a thousand photos of the flower I love so much I named my business after it. What up Thomas Jefferson. (I mean, I'm no longer actively running that business, but still.)

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The other long version is that sometimes I just get really overwhelmed, and then blogging starts to feel like a frivolous, pointless obligation instead of something I do for fun. I know it's not. I love looking back at things I've done and felt and tried, and my family loves seeing what kinds of stuff I've been doing, and I love the outlet of getting things out of my muddled head and onto the page. I love reading other people's stories too, though when I disappear from my own space, chances are good I'm not commenting either. But I'm always reading.

I'm not the best at taking care of myself, allowing myself rest. I always want to go go go, get more done, see more things, be all things to all people. 

So I'm going to try harder to cut myself some slack when I get overwhelmed, maybe not try so hard to stick to a writing schedule (you're laughing right now, going "what schedule? pah!") and just post when I have something to say or a new adventure to share.

But if I disappear again, know I'll always come back. Unless I get hit by a blimp or eaten by a bear or something. (Apparently there was a bear that went running through downtown a couple years ago. I hear the best stories from my co-workers. I don't know what happened to the bear, but I hope it's okay. And that no one was hurt.)

What do you do when you're overwhelmed? What things do you find restful?

Housekeeping + Let's Have Some Good Conversations

via Death to Stock Photo

I have been avoiding switching to a new blog commenting format for, literally, years. People have been telling me — intermittently, yes, but still — for a while that they were having problems leaving comments through Blogger's default comment form.

And also, since I discovered that it's easier to have legitimate conversations with people through e-mail responses to comments, I've felt like kind of a tool only responding to certain people within the original comment thread (because I was e-mail-responding to everyone who had it set up).

I had wanted to switch to Disqus a loooong time ago, but was terrified by the prospect of losing all the comments that I've received over the last three years. And it wasn't until Jennifer told me that she thought they'd fixed that problem that I even reconsidered switching.

So now Everyday Adventures has a shiny new comments section! Hopefully it's all working hunky dory. But if it's not, and you're having problems commenting, please e-mail me. I don't know if I'll be able to fix it, but I'll do my best trouble-shooting. :)

Hopefully this will help to facilitate better conversations, as you'll receive notice (via e-mail or Disqus notification) when I respond to your comments!

So here's our conversation starter for today: what's the best thing that happened to you this week?

P.S. I know that the switch messed up the formatting of the old "stacked" comments (like, if I've replied to your post with my own comment), so I'm sorry if it looks like you didn't get a response, or if my response isn't attached to your comment and therefore doesn't make sense. It'll be better moving forward.

P.P.S. If you don't already receive e-mail notifications about responses and you'd like to, you can set it up through Disqus when you set your avatar and the name you want to post under.