Going Out in a Glorious Gif-straviganza

I've put some though into how to deal with my blogging predicament and you may all be wondering if I'm going to take that next step to becoming legitimate.

That's right.  I purchased a doman name a few days ago and I am taking yet another small step toward making this whole homesteading/CSA/Education center a reality.

After doing some research I decided that I'm going to move my materials over to Wordpress, where I was told there is a steep learning curve but the ability to customized is greater than here at Blogger.  My initial examination of Wordpress and it's dashboard left me enthralled, especially the tool that allows me to use previous posts as templates (meaning all of my vacation posts or recipe posts or garden posts can follow their own individual formats without me having to remember how I formatted everything).  

But on further examination and getting themes, posts, and pages around...I've found I'm at the very base of that learning curve.

I've spent six hours over the last two days trying to get a look going, an "About" page with pictures in the right places, and my first content filled post.  At this rate I will have to quit school to get anything good to happen over there.

However, those two days are over and I have things the way I want them for now, though there will be changes throughout the next few months.  Some of the posts from this blog will be reincarnated over there from time to time - mostly the archival garden updates and recipes.  This current blog will remain in existence for some time.   So now I will share with you, for the first time: 

Om-Nom Acres

I would love it if you joined me over there.  You can follow me on Wordpress, add me to your reader, like Om-Nom Acres on facebook, or just check in from time to time.  Yeah?

Go ahead, do it right now, I'll wait.

For those of you coming with me, thank you!

For those of you thinking you'll pass, I'll miss you.

A Blogging Predicament: Branding

To my six or so lovely readers out there and those who straggle in from facebook on occasion to see if I've changed my template lately, first of all.... how you doin'?

No, sorry - anyway, thank you for being here.  I have a blogging predicament: the split personality.  I have two blogging motivations.  The first is to document my life for me and anyone who cares to tag along.  The second it to be a resource and information center for small scale agriculture and sustainable food systems.  Right now with school taking up obscene amounts of my time I'm not really very committed to either, but that rises and falls with my reading load.

I am not skilled or disciplined at crafting relevant blog posts (but I would like to be).  I was recently asked to write a guest post on Detroit's local food initiatives for the University of Vermont's food blog and while I feel like I know a lot of what is going on around here, I feel woefully inadequately prepared to write such a post or to have a post link back to my blog, where I'm not really doing much of anything.  But how can I let such an awesome opportunity escape!?

I want to rebrand a little, especially now that I'm taking more serious steps toward getting my suburban homestead in place.  Om-Nom Acres now has a facebook page with 10 likes! We are also holding a community event on November 3rd.  We have a dozen people coming by the house to help us relocate and critter proof our compost bin, close our our current beds, build several more huge beds with decorated concrete bricks, fill everything with compost, and plant garlic, cover crops, and spring bulbs. In exchange for their work they will be fed breakfast (mini omelets), lunch (sandwiches and sides), and dinner (tacos!) and they each get a portion of our harvest next summer.  Kind of like a mini-CSA.  We are also holding a raffle where in order to enter you need to submit a proposed logo and slogan for Om-Nom Acres - no money exchanges, only brilliant creativity.  I'm hoping to have actual shares for sale in the 2014 season and would like to add canning workshops to the calendar next summer.

I'm wondering if I should take the steps to shift my blogging over to an Om-Nom Acres blog.  I already have the url for blogger in place, but I might be ready to rent a domain name in which case I will need to figure out who will host it and how to build it!  I don't know what to do with this blog, or how to combine posts about my personal life, community food organizing, agricultural awesomeness, Om-Nom Acres goings-on, and whatever hell else I post about without boring some readers or looking incredibly unfocused, but I know I won't be able to keep up with two blogs.  And can I be a professional blog with gifs!? Because seriously, that's a monkey on my back that I'm not ready to let go of just yet.  I just don't know what to do with myself.

Those of you who have blogs or have ever had to "brand" yourself professionally, how do you deal with it?  Those of you who read here, what are your thoughts?

Sick sick sick

I'm sorry for the lack of posting.  I spent an awesome weekend in Chicago followed by a slew of midterms followed by a gross cold.

Most people lose weight when they're sick, but not me:

I'm trying to get homework done:

And I get kind of grumpy when I'm sick:

 But tomorrow needs to be a serious cleaning & work day:

This is a test. This is only a test.

Figuring out how to use gifs in my blog.  Pew-Pew.

A peek at some house changes

Right off the bat I need to admit that I am absolutely terrible at before, after, or progress pictures.  Its probably because I'm not a real blogger.  I'm a journaler and an erratic one at that.  Moving on: this summer Sammit and I redid our dining room from a pale icicle blue to a jewel navy tone on top with white wainscoting on the bottom.  The wainscoting was a pain-in-the-butt to install but I love it and am incredibly proud of it.  

But that isn't what this sneak peek is about - this post is about my dining room chairs.  My yellow oak dining room set was a hand-me-down from my parents-in-law and both Sammit and I are very thankful for it.  I wanted to do something to make it ours though.  At first I was nervous about making changes so I did a really basic upholstery change.  

Using about $30 in fabric and an industrial staple gun I went from gray diamonds to navy and white awesomeness (Devin is modeling).

When I decided to redo the dining room, I wanted something less WASP-y and a little more funky.  After a few trips to Jo-Anns, a few sample swaps, and a consultation by my mother, I decided to go diamonds again.  I also decided to paint the yellow oak white.  I think it looks awesome.

Jewel Blue walls, White Wainscoting, White Funky chairs.

Sammit convinced me to keep the table its natural oak color, not white like our chairs and our old china cabinet-turned-buffet.  At first I thought it was silly but it meant less work and after a few days I fell in love with it.

Oddly Cat Camouflaging Rug

The biggest problem was finding a rug that wasn't boring but didn't clash with the chairs.  Oh yeah, and one that wasn't $1000!  I was lucky enough to find a showroom display at Ikea for 50% off the original $500.  It is plush, well made, and hides my black cat like he's the ninja he's always wanted to be.

I'm playing around with some fabric for curtains.  I'm also trying to figure out walls.  There are a few definites like my giraffe watercolor and the "my home is clean enough to be healthy but dirty enough to be happy" tile, and a shelf holding some of my wedding china, but the rest is kind of up in the air.  I'm also piecing together storage after turning our big china cabinet into a buffet.  I'll try to post some more updates soon, probably around Midterms when I'll be avoiding anything that is school related.

 FYI: I learned everything I needed to know about painting furniture from All Things Thrifty and Young House Love.