• Blogging,  Life,  Magpie Writes

    On Blogging Seriously (and Being Seriously Overwhelmed)

    I’ve wanted to blog seriously for years. Honestly, 10+ years ago when I first discovered bloggers like Alicia Paulson of Posy Gets Cozy and Jane Brocket of Yarnstorm it quickly instilled in me a nagging want. To be a blogger. To take this seriously. To make this world of creativity a serious part of how I lived my life and made my living. But there was always something holding me back. Lack of time, lack of inspiration, lack of money, lack of my own space, an overabundance of fear… the excuses were and are many. First I was in college and had classes and trying to graduate a year early…

  • Life,  Lists

    Liebster Award and Blogger to Blogger Personal Tag

    It’s been a very hectic week here at Magpie Making Do (for a variety of personal reasons that I’m not going to get into here, including a death in the family), and I’ve noticed myself feeling very guilty about not posting in more than a week and a half – which is nice, because it’s been a while since I had even enough energy to feel guilty about my absences. The guilt makes me feel like I’m FINALLY getting back into the swing of consistent posting! But anyway, I don’t have a huge amount of time this week, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve done a “get…

  • Life,  Lists,  Making Do

    May Wrap-up and June Goals

    Well, hot damned. It’s June. Already. I find myself saying that a lot these days. “Already!?” “It’s summer already!?” “It’s [insert month] already!?” And the busier I am from day to day, the more I seem to be saying it. And May was a VERY busy month. It always is. From wrapping up and ending the semester, grading final papers and exams, getting final grades in, and working graduations not just at my own institution, but at a couple others in the region as a musician… Then add in all the holidays and anniversaries – Mother’s Day, a major family member’s “cancer free” milestone anniversary, my birthday, trying to shop…

  • Baking and Cooking,  Life,  Magpie Writes,  Making Do

    The One Where Magpie Hates Healthy Eating

    So one of my biggest goals for this month is a total ban on take-out and fast food. Over the last couple years as I’ve added job after job, my eating habits have basically found themselves going right down the toilet. Whatever was quick, easy, and convenient was what was on the menu. I drive past Dunkin’ on this day, the Thai place is right around the corner from where I work this day, etc… etc… My location determined my meal. Which sucks for a variety of reasons. The biggest being, of course, that my wallet AND my waistline both take issue with the habit. My waistline has continued to…

  • Life,  Lists

    April Misses and May Goals

    So it’s time for my monthly wrap-up! Who knew it was going to be May so soon? It completely snuck up on me, and unfortunately I didn’t really meet all my goals for April as a result. To recap what I wanted to do, you can find the full post here. I was able to control my spending on take-out even better this month, but pretty much all the other goals were either misses, or near-misses. I wasn’t able to get anything done in terms of knitting, and while I read more this month, I stalled out about 75% of the way through my second book. And keeping up with…

  • Life,  Magpie Writes,  Making Do

    Reassessing for 2017

    So any of you who have been around for a while know that my blogging over the last two years has been… sporadic at best. I’ll have a month or two where I’m really consistent, and then go on radio silence for three. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years trying to figure out why I can’t seem to break this cycle, and honestly there are like, a thousand reasons. I originally had a massively long post typed out listing them all, but I scrapped that because it all just sounded like I was making excuses. And that makes this feel like less of a hobby…