The Frecklewonder BLOG

We’re Doing This

by Jenny on May 3, 2012

So how are we feeling about all this stuff now? It seemed strange to just pick right back up with blogging as usual without wrapping things up a bit. I’ll admit, I didn’t know how to do that yesterday. There was such a great conversation happening and I think I needed a day to let the dust settle and just think it all through, how about you?

It’s nice to know that so many of us are on the same page when it comes to the pace and noise of the internet. I’m appreciate all of your thoughtful comments and I love that they will always be there if/when we need a little reality check.

One of the questions I’ve been asking myself is, “Where do I fit in here?” There are fashion blogs + food blogs + mommy blogs + design blogs, but what is this? What is Frecklewonder? I’ve never really had to think about it all that much, I guess. The first time that question was asked of me was only a few months ago when I was on the plane to Salt Lake City for a huge blogger conference. Despite the fact that I’ve been blogging for a decade, this was the first time I ever really found myself needing an elevator pitch and I felt pretty unprepared. Four months later and I confess, I still don’t know what that pitch is. Hi, I’m Jenny, I write a blog called Frecklewonder and …. uh … *crickets* I mean, I know what I write about, I know what I like, I know who I am… it’s just difficult to pull all those things together into a catchy one line zinger and say it with confidence.

Have you ever gone back and read your own blog? I don’t really ever do this but sometimes I have to search for a specific post to reference something, or link an image for a new post. But I don’t go back and actually read old posts. The other day I was asking myself that question: What is Frecklewonder all about? What do I like about this blog? Was there a time when I was happier, when writing and sharing came more easily? Where am I going from here?

And I guess what I came up with was this:

There was that time I shared one of our favorite summertime treats, the one that has the kids jumping up and down and squealing with delight at the mere suggestion of “pee-bow-mah-mok”

There was that post about Dotty’s first crush. Chris aka Christ.

There are all the little He Said, She Said posts that sort of slay my heart. The questions asked from Henry, “Hey Mom? Are brussel sprouts just tiny lettuce?” or that conversation I had with Dotty about going to school.

How about that time I wrote about the laundry situation and you guys told me you were totally in the same boat.

There was that post about seeing my kids as happy and fulfilled as possible, as good as it gets.

There was that week when Dotty and I spent a lot of time making over our living room and dining room. Remember that?

There are all the posts about traveling: trips out west, trips to the beach, trips to the city…

There are funny little records of funny little moments, easily forgotten if I hadn’t written them down.

And precious ones, too. So thankful I snapped this photo and saved that memory here.

So what did I take from all this?

My favorite posts are the ones that are filled with the things I love most: my kids, my family. These are the posts I’ll be glad I recorded on the Forever Internet, so that I can go back someday and read my own blog. I’ll be thankful for all the times I recorded that funny way Dotty asked questions like, “IS IT TODAY, TODAY? AND IS IT TOMORROW, TOMORROW?” or “ARE DOSE YOUR UNDAWEAH MAMA? WOWWWW DOSE ARE REEDY BIG!” or the adorable little conversations I have with these kids. Not so much the Etsy round-ups or the collages of shoes I want to have, or even the crazy amazing treasures that I find, but the day to day snippets of my life as a Mama with this family of mine. The vacations we take, the memories we make, the time we spend together. Does that make this a Mommy Blog? I guess that makes this a Family Blog? I don’t know. And the truth is, I don’t really care.

Hi, my name is Jenny and I write a blog called Frecklewonder, where I share my everyday life as Mom to two awesome kids. Together we raise chickens, we play outside, we make messes, we laugh, we love. I’m a thrift-a-haulic, I have a sweet tooth, I’m a country girl who loves the seaside and I’ve been happily married to my best friend for 11 great years.

It’s not a zingy one liner, but I think that’s ok with me for now.

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* As an aside: I realized the alignment of all those photos is all screwed up and some of you might not even notice it until I point it out. I guess after a decade of tweaking images I can actually see when something is 1 pixel off and these are the kind of things that could keep me up at night, but the truth is, great design was not the point of this post. I grabbed all those images from older posts, which means they are 90 pixels smaller in width than the current images… hence the added dots and whatnot. I should probably redo the whole thing but it’s a beautiful day out there and I’m choosing sunshine and fresh air over re-re-editing images. Know that visually it’s making me crazy that it doesn’t flow all that well but what’cha gonna do… life goes on.

THANKS FOR READING, GUYS.
xoxo

{ 42 comments }

A Giant Hug from the Universe

by Jenny on May 3, 2012

Yesterday was the first really great day I’ve had in a while. Just really freaking great, from start to finish and I so totally needed it. I didn’t even think it was going to be an even good day (how’s that for optimism) because I had really annoying tasks that I had procrastinated doing and I was pretty much prepared to give up my whole day doing them.

First on my list? I had to take the car in to be inspected. Oh, the dreaded trip to the car inspection place. You know how much I hate doing stuff like this? Oil changes, tire rotations, car maintenance of any kind, really. I can think of a zillion and one things I’d rather do than sit in the waiting room of an auto shop. The smells! The sounds! You know what happened? I was in and out of that place in 18 minutes flat. I had just enough time to get sucked into an epic preview of the new 3D version of Titanic (who’s planning on seeing it??!) before the guy popped his head around the corner to tell me my car was ready. WHAT?! There weren’t even any screaming kids! In fact, I was the only customer there!

Next up, the DMV. The only thing I dislike more than sitting in an auto shop is sitting in a DMV. Really, anything involving a trip to the DMV and I start breaking out in hives. So imagine my delight when I walked in to renew my (very, very expired) license to find this! An empty waiting room! And on top of that? The lady behind the counter was friendly! Chipper, even! FIFTEEN minutes later, and I was DONE people. Was this really happening? Two tasks I thought would take me all day took me less than an hour! Thank you, Universe, for rolling out the big red carpet for me and giving me that giant hug I so totally needed.

The rest of the day was filled with bliss. The kids were happy and played well together. There was hammock time and pool time and to seal it all up with a kiss, we received some really amazing news.

I’m going for a repeat today, do you think I’m pushing my luck?

{ 8 comments }

Let’s do this thing

by Jenny on April 30, 2012

Clearly, I needed a break. I didn’t know it would turn into a week-long break, but there ya have it. Over that week I had lots of time to think, I had a few sleepless nights, and ok – I had a breakdown or two. A week later and I think I’m ready to pull up my big girl panties and do this thing.

I’m not certain it’s worth getting into all the dirty details behind what had me in such a funk last week. Putting that kind of stuff on the Forever Internet probably isn’t such a good idea, and that’s never been the tone of this blog. I’ve always tried to keep this space a positive one, but while I want it to be positive, I don’t want it to be fake. It’s a fine line – positive vs. too sugary sweet and real vs. omg, quit your complaining, already. Isn’t it? I struggle with that balance sometimes, here a little bit, but mostly elsewhere, on other blogs.

I think we can just call last week an intense case of Internet Burn-Out with a giant spoonful of too many life to-dos plopped on top. It was a big ol’ sloppy mess that I just couldn’t make sense of.

I am certain of one thing though:

You guys are really awesome. I read every single one of your comments and messages and I’m working on replying to every last one. You are true friends who gave me a hug when I needed one and I appreciate the time you took to write such thoughtful, supportive comments. I’m officially dusting off my laptop today and hoping to make this week a much better one here at Camp Freckle.

A lot of you expressed feeling this same way about the internet and blogging (whether you’re a blogger or a regular reader of blogs) and some of you specifically requested a follow-up post of sorts, wondering what exactly I did to get myself over the hump. I can’t say I’m officially over any kind of hump, but I know that if I don’t just get moving, well… I’ll still be stuck.

So aside the from the obvious, which was to close my laptop and take a much needed break from all things internet-land, here’s what I did:

I thought a lot about the time I spend online: What is worth my time, what makes me feel good? What makes me feel kind of awful, what I can totally do without reading ever again?

I read and re-read this post. I thought about it a ton. I know he did not write that post for me, but it sort of feels like he wrote that post for me. Talk about a screaming Oprah light bulb moment.

So I dumped my reader almost entirely. It now consists of 8 blogs. Blogs that I love. Blogs that make me happy, make me laugh, make me proud. Blogs with great design and original content that I can sink my teeth into. Blogs that I can relate to, blogs that inspire me and make me think and blogs that I leave feeling generally good. You know what happens when you dump 95% of your reader? Two things. First, you spend a whole lot less time reading blogs. SAY WHAAAAAAAT? You get your time back! You’re not stuck on the computer loading blog after blog! Some of which, let’s be honest, don’t make you feel warm and fuzzy. Some of them make you feel like kinda lousy about yourself. Whether you leave feeling annoyed or defeated, you’re definitely not leaving feeling good about yourself. I asked myself why I was hanging onto daily reads that made me do the world’s biggest eye roll after reading them? Some sort of habit? Obligation? I don’t know. THE INTERNET IS WEIRD.

(As an aside, if reading this blog makes you feel anything but good, please, For The Love of Pete, pull it from your reader! Take a break from me. I would never, and I mean NEVER, want to be the source of a giant eye roll for you)

Thanks, Oprah. That’s good stuff.

The second thing that happens when you dump 95% of your reader and only keep those that you love is: you load your reader and it’s like Christmas! It’s a real treat! You can’t wait to see and read and most importantly, leave a comment. All of a sudden you have time to leave a comment, because you don’t have 97 other blogs to drive by quickly, and maybe you leave the same “Wow, how pretty!” comment in a chorus of wow! how pretty comments and maybe you don’t leave a comment at all, but you almost certainly leave with that old familiar feeling. Defeated, depressed and annoyed because the hundred other blogs you’re reading make life look so darn lovely. And you’re not sure why but YOU never have time to DIY that lampshade-journal-vacation video-handmade dress-reupholster that couch-come up with 14 different ways to make icing-applique that thing on your kid’s shirt-generally look like everything is roses and wonderful type of situation. Maybe it’s because you’re reading about everyone else doing this stuff instead of just doing it yourself? But when you have only a handful of blogs in your reader? You WANT to comment, you WANT to be a part of that community because these are the blogs that you love. What a relief.

This also probably means that you’ve lifted that weight off yourself. You know, that weight of holding yourself up to all that you see when you log in and load up all the beautiful, wonderful, perfect and delicious. And holding yourself up to all of that, when it’s coming at you faster than lightening and it never stops? It can be exhausting. Downright exhausting. My friend Andrea said it pretty well:

“… sometimes I am so profoundly inspired by everyone and everything around me and then sometimes it just makes me feel horrible, completely inadequate and 100 times worse. I’ve been working on a post for a while called ‘the internet never stops and sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing here’. it’s a big mess of thoughts right now but it addresses this very issue– the unending, deafening noise of the internet. it can be the best thing in the world. or the absolute worst.”

The unending, deafening noise of the internet. THAT. Holy crap.

Which brings me to my next move: TWITTER. Good grief, twitter. Believe me, I’ve had some fun on twitter. 14 thousand tweets worth of fun. But I hit a point where all that twitter noise just needed to be silenced. It’s a bit much, right? I didn’t have a whole lot to say last week, but there was this:

I also tidied my twitter. That sounds kinda dirty, huh? Whooooops! In an effort to quiet things down, I went through that cringe-worthy process of un-following people. Sorry, Leo DiCap and a handful of others, it had to be done. No harm meant.

The beauty is, you can always re-follow people. And it’s not personal, and you don’t have to feel awful about it. You’re not doing it to hurt anyone’s feelings. You’re doing it to make yourself feel better and quiet the chatter a bit before you lose your ever lovin’ mind. And while you’re on a roll? Facebook. And that is all I will say about that.

So the good news is this: while I wasn’t spending time on the internet reading blogs and shouting and being shouted at on twitter, I was outside. I was laughing with my kids. I was talking to my chickens. I went on a date with my husband. I cooked and read and relaxed. And I didn’t blog about any of it. And I was perfectly ok with that.

I leave you with this, because it’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever come across on the internet. Which, by the way can be full of wonderful, amazing, beautiful, funny and delicious things, don’t get me wrong.

Let’s do this, guys. Let’s make this week a good one.

Thanks for reading.
Jenny

EDIT: I meant to include this article, that Alix sent me last week. Good stuff, please read it – whether or not you have kids, I think it’ll hit home for you.

image sources: you are awesome, via aesthetic outburst (in my reader!) / the oprah quote, via tracy benjamin aka shutterbean (in my reader!) via whoorl (and as an aside, whoorl is new-to-me and upon discovering this blog, I am officially adding it to my reader, based on THIS POST alone, whaddup 9 blogs I love!) / comparison is the theif, via my words board on pinterest / Bastards, via Flickr

{ 95 comments }

Stuck

by Jenny on April 23, 2012

Hello, Friends. Happy Monday to you. Was your weekend good? I hope so.

I’m finding myself feeling a little (ok, a lot) sort of blah today. I’m not sure I have a case of the Monday Blues, if I can blame it on the weather (which is absolutely horrible this week) or the the mountain of things currently on my plate, but I’ve hit a wall. A giant wall and I’m blocked. Creatively speaking, energy-wise, I feel like I’ve been hit with a stun gun. If I told you that I’m still in my pjs at 1:15 in the afternoon, would you think I’m a giant loser?

Today is one of those days where no amount of poking around Pinterest is going to inspire me and believe me, I tried. The poking around made me feel worse. Overwhelmed. Throw all the confetti you want at me today, but I’m just not flinching. And I can’t get excited to save my life. The internet feels especially GO GO GO, very mile-a-minute, take a break for just a second and you’re left in the dust. Of course the pace isn’t any different than any other day but the difference today is me and I just can’t seem to hop on board with it all. But I want to, and I have to, so it’s a pretty tricky spot to be in.

So my question for you is this: when you’re feeling creatively zapped, overwhelmed + exhausted and in need of a re-set button to hit… WHAT DO YOU DO?

How do you beat the blahs?