a little closure.

This post is a long time coming, but a hard one to write. It's my kinda, probably...goodbye... I think...post. You may have already guessed from my near complete disappearance over the last few months that I had moved away from the blog world, but I feel like I should confirm it. As if I'm some kind of celebrity who has to make an official statement or something, right? Ha. But it DOES feel like I need some kind of closure.

Thanks to Pinterest and Google and the crazy connecting world of the internet, I'm still getting 3,000-5,000 hits to this site A DAY (what?!?!) and have almost reached a MILLION total views. This blows my mind! And leads to a mix of emotions, from gratitude to discomfort. I never expected that many people to make their way to my little blog.

I put a lot of time and effort into the recipes and posts on here, and I'm so glad blogging was a thing -- albeit, a transient thing -- for me. Having this blog inspired me to try new things I wouldn't have otherwise tried, enhance my recipe development skills (that I still use often!), open up and share with the world in a new way, and connect with people I would have otherwise never known existed. I'm really grateful for these things. Plus, now I have an electronic compilation of most of favorite recipes! This definitely comes in handy :)

Okay, so then why am I stopping? Well, I said when I first started this blog (and several times after that) that I would blog for as long as I felt inspired to blog. That I would not turn this into a job or a duty or a hassle (I have enough of those). And the truth is, that inspiration has gradually gone away. I still feel passionate about health and wellness... but the process of measuring and recording and posting and linking to social media has become less enticing. When I WAS writing on this blog regularly, it felt fun and interesting and energizing... and it also felt authentic to me, at the time. But now? I just don't feel particularly genuine as a "healthy food blogger" anymore. I'm so glad that lots of people have found their way here and enjoyed my content, but that has also come with challenges that I didn't necessarily expect.. like regular comments asking about the exact number of calories in things or "clean eating meal plans." The truth is, while I've provided this type of information on the blog before, I just don't have any desire to do so anymore. I don't CARE about calorie counts or sticking to an eating plan. I just care about treating my body well, and listening to its cues. But more importantly, I care about enjoying a fulfilling, mindful, vital life filled with dinner dates at pizza joints and excursions to breweries and hikes in the mountains and meditation and pasta making and vacations. It started to feel like that part of me... the biggest part of me... wasn't alive on the blog. Instead, it began to feel like I was wearing someone else's stiff and ill-fitting and uncomfortable jacket -- and like I was only wearing the jacket so that others could see it. To me, this is a flashing red sign that I should move on. And only wear jackets that feel perfectly comfortable.

Could I transform the blog to be more in accordance with my true values? Sure. And maybe I will at some point. But for now, I most likely won't be posting anything new, at least for as far as I can see. I will also be slower to respond to comments or emails, if I do at all. I certainly plan to keep the site up for as long as possible though so that you (and I!!) can keep accessing the recipes.

Thanks for reading, friends. And I hope you all are wearing your perfect-fit jacket, too :)

xx Taylor