Kickin’ the Plateau and a Giveaway

I feel like this post has been a long time in the making.

Despite all the yammering I do before recipes, when it comes to this little blog I love so dearly, I feel like I don’t sit down and just… write. So I’m going to make up for that today. Yes, I understand how exciting this is but please refrain from bouncing off the walls. Hard. I know.

You simply must understand how much I love you. Yes, you. You the thinking, individual, wonderful person you are. You take the precious time out of your day to read something I wrote. I don’t know what I did to deserve this honor, but I can’t tell you how grateful I am for it. Thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

You also must understand how much I love this blog. As much as its purpose is for me to share what I have learned from my transition to healthyland with the world, only when looking back on my days as a fledgling blogger can I truly understand how emotionally vested I was, or rather am, in this blog. When I hit ‘publish’ on my first post on that fateful day back in June 2011, my mother was in the pit of chemotherapy. As I continued to hit publish on posts for months and eventually years to come, we would endure rounds of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

This blog was as much of an emotional outlet as it was a haven. I was safe. Surrounded by amazing beyond amazing people and the very idea of healthy living and food that I am so passionate about, I had found exactly what I needed at that point in my life.

At that point, I was able to glide through school with ease, dedicating almost no after school time to it. This meant that I could dedicate almost 20 hours a week to blog improvement. TWENTY HOURS A WEEK! That’s a lot… and I absolutely loved it.

But I am not at that point anymore. I am in a different school with different people… and I absolutely love it too! However, this does entail some difference of circumstance, and something had to give.

Going into my high school career, I refused to give up the blog. Walking away was, and still is, simply not an option. I love it too much. I love you too much. So I had to come up with a viable solution.

I was going to keep this under wraps, but I have a feeling you would like to know what my solution was? Yes? I’ll tell you, but try to keep it to yourself, mmk? (I’m awesome at keeping secrets.) I tested and photographed recipes like a madwoman over summer vacation, not to mention all the techie stuff I tackled as well. I took about a month off, I stuck my head in the ground, and I just did it. And you know? I loved it.

However, my primary occupation as a fourteen year old is indeed to be a student, and I love that very much as well. I have known fully well that going to this school would require a much greater time commitment than my previous school, and as much as I enjoy it, I simply cannot put a twenty hour work week into the blog anymore.

So. What to do? I am well aware I have been coasting in regards to the blog for the first few months of the school year, just posting every three days and responding to comments in emails with a ridiculously slow turnaround, but that was most certainly the right decision as I became acclimated to my new school. But I believe the blog has suffered.

I got a little bit of feedback that my recipes were becoming too repetitive and similar in nature, and although I didn’t think anything of it as first, it makes perfect sense now. I wrote all of these recipe at the same time! Of course they’re similar!

Also, my traffic has plateaued. Although I wasn’t getting nearly the traffic a year ago as I am getting now, it was growing very rapidly. I am happy with my numbers, but I am not happy with the lack of growth.

Again, this is not surprising as I am doing little to grow the blog.  But now, as I am more settled in, when faced with the question of taking on more random extra activities or actually doing some decent work with you fabulous people, there was not a doubt in my mind of what I should do. I need to get back in the blogging world!

This has actually come at an opportune time as I have let a few pounds creep back on me, and I have hit a different kind of plateau in losing them. You better believe I am going to kick these plateaus and you are going to hold me accountable!

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to test more recipes. Unique ones. I’m going to try to respond to every single comment you leave. If you take the time to not only read something I wrote but give me feedback, the least I can do is thank you! I will try to have a larger presence in the blogosphere as a whole. I will do more giveaways (you deserve them!). Starting now.

The lovely folks over at Manitoba Harvest sent me a bag of Hemp Hearts (shelled hemp seeds), and are going to send a bag to a lucky Foodie Fiasco reader! Hemp seeds are “packed full of protein with 10 grams of plant-based protein per 30 gram serving size. Hemp Hearts are a great way to get an ideal ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3‘s including the rare EFA known as Gamma-Linolenic Acid (GLA).” (Source)

How to enter:

Leave a comment with an unhealthy food item you would like to see be health-ified. A fancy desserts? A fast food? Lay it on me!

For 1 additional entry each (leave a separate comment for each thing you do):

1. Like Foodie Fiasco on Facebook

2. Follow foodiefiasco on Twitter.

3. Follow me on Pinterest.

4. Add me to you blogroll. (I feel weird asking for this, but know I would love to add you to the family page!)

Thank you so very very very much for entering (not to mention making it out alive after reading this post!), my friends, and I bid you good luck!

Enjoy!

Kelly M.

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