Eight Months, Eight Excuses

I have to admit that I've been a complete blogging slacker for the past 8 months. I more or less dropped off the face of the proverbial blog map in August, with nary a goodbye or a farewell post. Sure, I posted a few pics to Instagram, but who uses Instagram these days, anyways.

I didn't stop blogging because of the constant requests to guest post on my blog, or the spam comments. And I certainly didn't stop due to lack of post ideas (have you seen Mandy's blog lately?). I mainly stepped down "to pursue other opportunities."

What were those opportunities? Here's a rundown of 8 reasons, one for each month, that I was MIA.

8. Land Fever - suburbia's been good to us, but it's beginning to cramp Mandy's crafting style. I mean, you can only do so much on a city lot. The real crafting starts with acreage, and that's where we're headed. Think bare-foot crafting, chicken coops, and real foxes and owls. At least that's what I tell Mandy. I'm more along the lines of Doomsday Preppers. Last August (right when I took my leave of absence from blogging) we worked a deal to buy 20 acres in rural Missouri, with intentions to build.

7. Fizzled - As if building a house wasn't enough, I decided to throw a career change into the mix. After months of negotiations and intense competition, I gave up on my bid to replace Jay Leno as the next host of the tonight show. They said I didn't know enough A-list celebrities, and I was like, "I'll be Jimmy doesn't know Kimbo." That stumped them, so then they said my ties were too wide and I wasn't BFF with Justin Timberlake.

6. Quitter - Even though I lost out on the Tonight Show, I still had the "career itch." Technically, it was a "resignation" as opposed to quitting. At least, that's what I tell myself. After five years of having the coolest job in the world making ammunition and blowing things up, I decided it was time to move on. See reason #5.

5. A New Hat - Since my ultimate goal is my own famous craft blog (or something), I decided that I needed to move away from an industry centered on destruction and move into one centered on creating. I now get to craft for a living, though we call it "construction". It's basically the same thing, without the wreaths.

4. Pinterest - or more accurately, Houzz. We've been pouring over design ideas constantly, in search of the perfect match of size, style, and price. Unfortunately, it doesn't exist. Except in the magical worlds of Pinterest and Houzz.

3. Negotiations - when you're designing your own house, you can't blame things on the previous owners. Mandy and I both have ideas on the definition of "dream house" and we did a lot of negotiating over the past several months. Mandy scored the biggest coup by getting a craft studio on the main level.

2. Lost in Design - you've all been there. You have this great idea of how you want your project to turn out and you can kind of picture it in your mind, but you can't reign in the details..."gingham or chevron, glue it or pin it, Tweet it or Instagram it...". That's how its been with us, only on a house designing scale.

1. The Ultimate DIY - with so much experience helping Mandy hang frames, cut out foam letters, and paint stuff in the yard, we figured I was ready to start a project on my own. We decided it was "go big or go home" time, so we're taking on the ultimate DIY - building a house with me as own GC.

Looks like this post got a little long. I could have summed it up with "new job and building a house," but that would have cut down on my average session duration.