My Organized Chaos 2011
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!
I have been away from the blogging world for the holiday season. I feel a little out of the loop and out of sorts, being gone for so long. Yet, I am eager to get back into writing and sharing my stories with you – it’s great to be back!
I hope your holiday season was full of merry and bliss. For the most part, ours was…
On the 27th, the Twins got the flu and I spent the entire day doing laundry and running for towels and buckets. Now, that was a test of parenthood right there, both mentally and emotionally! Not only is it stressful trying to bathe the puke off one toddler, while trying to hold a bucket for another sick toddler – but cuddling and soothing two is heartbreaking as well. Especially when they each want Momma for themselves. Yet, thankfully, it lasted only the day. Thankfully.
Then, there was the Christmas dinner incident…hubby is allergic to nuts and had a reaction to store bought 3 pepper blend, peppercorns. The container wasn’t marked as possibly having traces of nuts and there was a bit of chaos running around the city Christmas night looking for Benedryl as to avoid a trip to the hospital for Anaphylactic Shock. I found some, sending many thanks to my dear friend for being home and having a bottle on hand. So, a trip to the hospital on Christmas Day was avoided, and my hubby slept off the reaction until late the next day. I am still so fuming mad about the unmarked container, from a popular brand that should know better than to not list possible ingredients. But that’s a whole other rant in itself ..
So, other than those 2 episodes of chaos, our holidays were quite relaxing. And, much time was spent playing with all our new Christmas toys and enjoying each others’ company. New Years Eve {and my birthday} was much the same – movies, cake and champagne. Bliss!
And now – I focus on the new. It’s a new year after all!! I have personal goals set for the upcoming year, which I will explain in another post. Yet, I do have some blogging goals for My Organized Chaos for 2011 as well.
First and foremost, focusing mainly on reviews and giveaways for the 2010 Holiday Gift Guide has left me a little dazed. I feel like not having the time to post that many personal posts has caused a little identity crisis and made me feeling more like a blog-robot than anything. I want my blog to have personality! So, while I’ll still do my regular review and giveaways – I will be focusing more time on personal posts, articles and stories. And, I’m excited about that!
If you have been a regular reader for years, you’ll know I always change my blog look and organize it’s bits at the beginning of every year. It’s become a tradition of mine! It’s my time to take a step back, re-evaluate the direction I want this blog to go and organize and design the look to suit. Actually, January is a very exciting time for me, I love to change up my blog.
I’d love to make a couple of big changes to my blog look, and am debating on whether to tackle those myself or hire a designer. One of my accomplishments in 2010 is that I have become a lot more CSS savvy {patting myself on the back for learning this whole other strange language}, and I may attempt these changes myself, depending on if I have the time. I actually changed quite a few things myself over the holiday season, toying with the coding here and there. Can you spot the differences? Small changes but a great effect!
So, 2011 is already a buzz with fresh ideas for me, a time to de-clutter, refocus and start new projects.
If you have any suggestions or feedback about the organization or look of My Organized Chaos – let me know! I’d love to hear opinions from my readers!!
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HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I hear you. I enjoyed my blogging break and am ready to get back to normal blogging. Glad to hear that overall the holidays went well. Did you write the company about the peppercorns?
not yet, Nolie. It’s on my list for tomorrow!
I’ve started to think the same thing, I never started out blogging for making money or doing reviews. It was a place to share with my family and friends about my life. I want a healthy balance between the two in 2011. I think change is good…. I’m thinking about changing the look of my blog too.
Ditto Shash!
😉
Happy New Year to you too! I can’t wait to see what 2011 brings with your blog… I enjoy reading your posts and look forward to another year of following!
Thanks Jennifer!
Happy New Year! sorry to hear about all the sickies over the holidays!
Happy New Year!! Hope the little one (and the big one) are doing much better now! How scary! Your blog was one of my “original” reads, and I am looking forward to seeing what you bring to 2011.
Happy New Year, Tammi!
The nut thing – OHMIGOSH! My daughter is allergic to nuts and I would have gone ballistic! WOW!
I just did a bunch of work on my blog in June when I moved to Blogger, so I’m still feeling ‘attached’ to what I have there. That will probably wear off. LOL! Part of it, though, is that I always have done most of my own ‘designing’ even with my meagre coding skills, so what you see (for good or bad) is representative of my own hard work.
I have no idea what to even suggest here, because I am often looking here for ideas of my own. I love your blog and I love the look, but if you do change I’m sure I’ll love that too! 🙂
I would never have imagined that there would be traces of nuts in peppercorns. Thank goodness your friend had some Benedryl. Shopper’s Drug Mart has some stores that are open 24 hours a day in case you ever run into a situation like this again. They were even open on Christmas Day. I have been reading your blog on a regular basis the last 6 months and enjoy how positive and upbeat it is. The reviews and giveaways are a fun bonus too. Best wishes to you and your family for 2011!
Happy New Year! I really like your blog. Maybe just a spot on the entries to stumble the post. Not everyone stumbles, so you could do or not do that.
That’s too bad about the sick kids and hubby! I hate when kids get the tummy flu especially since you have 2 of them! I’m not allergic to nuts, but had a severe reaction to sulfa in antibiotics. My face went from narrow to round. I was on the couch for 2 days and shaky from the shot of steroids I got. Not fun at all! I hope everyone in your family is in full recovery mode!
We had a great holiday. The kids loved everything except Isaak thinks his super hero cape is a blanket. My sister gave us a scare. She had her amnio and ultrasound. They found out the baby has a club foot and thickening of the neck. The final results haven’t come in, but they are 95% sure the baby does not have Trisomy 18/Edwards Syndrome. She’s a rare carrier of that. We’re anxiously waiting for the final results to come in! That 5% is important! Then her and one of her son’s got pink eye. I’m very close to her, so I felt awful for her.
Happy new year! I’m sorry your little ones were so sick.. my kids were sick two (2 of 3) but no barfing thank goodness!
Happy New Year, That sucks that the twins had the flu! I’m having a hard time getting back into blogging today. Oh and I never finished out what I was supposed to do last year. So woo hoo, starting the year behind. Oh well. At least the sun is out today!
Well I don’t know if this is something you CAN change… But I know I find it really helpful when I’m entering giveaways if the “Leave a comment” pops up in another window. That way I can keep the giveaway post scrolled to the list of extra entries open, and I don’t have to post a comment, scroll back up to see what other extras there are, scroll back down to post, etc. Don’t know if that’s a possibility, but there’s my 2011 feedback! 😀