Kristen's Back, Alright!

Oh, hi there.  Remember me?  Supposedly, I blog around here every now and then.  That's what the rumors say, at least.  To be entirely honest, I really and truly enjoyed not putting pressure on myself to write the perfect post, to try to catch up on responding to comments, to not check blogger 85 million times a day looking to see how many page views I've had versus the number of comments per post.

Instead, we lived.

All of that time living got me thinking about what my expectations, hopes, and dreams for this place are.  Did you know that I started this blog as a fitness and healthy lifestyle blog?  As I tried to "develop my voice" I drifted far, far, far from that.  I thought I wanted to be one of those "funny, snarky lifestyle bloggers".  And that, my friends, was utterly exhausting.

I don't want to do that anymore.  I don't want to try to be successful in this space.  I want to write what matters to me.  What helps me be a better person.  What motivates me to continue on this journey called life.  I don't want this to be a place where I refuse to write a post about my butt freezing off when I run, because "people will be bored by that".  I want to talk about eating healthfully, about working out, about not working out.  About baked goods and beer.  About how to live a life that has space for joy.

I want to be a health and fitness blogger.  This space has come full circle.  It was the easiest "hard decision", and it made sense to me from the second that I considered the possibility.  Health and fitness are among my greatest passions in life, behind Ammon, Beckham, and Gunner (Ammon will debate that order, but that's his own issue).  I should have known, way back 6 months ago when I started putting out feelers to contribute professionally to health and fitness websites.  I have the credentials.  I have the passion.  I want to do something positive with all of it.  In turn, I want to feel that positivity in my own life.  I love that talking about it immediately makes me more accountable for my actions, and can serve as the motivating force to propel my personal growth and development.

With these changes, I also decided to get a little bit of a blog redesign.  Don't you love it?  Erin hooked me up in a big way with this new layout, and I'm pretty sure that I drove her crazy with all of my fine-tuning, but then end result is so much better than what I had in my head.  I also added a new page, called "Upcoming Adventures".  You should definitely check it out, I need suggestions for new adventures!

I know that some of you aren't going to be so happy with these changes that I'm making.  I get it.  Some of you are bored by workout talk and recipes.  It's all good.  But I hope you'll give it a chance.  And for those of you who are okay with it, thank you.  Thank you for sticking with me, for checking in while I was on my hiatus, for just being your awesomely blogtastic selves.  I can't wait to see how we grow together going forward!