After my last up date on my November anniversary, life just got even crazier and I carried on not having time to be a tourist in my life and actually having to live it! Tax season meant I was flat out at work and tired when I got home. JT’s eldest dropped out of college and moved in with us, with her bf before Christmas. They struggled finding work and the original, promised, two months stretched to four, before they moved back to their mother’s in Wisconsin. Christmas came and went and the winter snow stretched on well into April and through Spring Break (Easter). JT’s job was also stressful and busy and I felt a bit lost still. JT’s youngest had some behavioral issues and gave us a few scares. And on top of all that we had my 2 yr green-card paperwork to do. In amongst all that we also started renovating the kitchen, celebrated two birthdays, watched my team lose Super Bowl, celebrated UK mother’s day with a weekend staycation and had a flying pre-valentine visit from my sister.
As I’ve said before, to quote another movie title, Something Had to Give, and in this case it was this blog. I’ve had to do some real soul searching as to whether to come back to it: Do I really have something to say given the number of other blogs out there that are so informative and more importantly, committed? (One of my favourites is Between England and Iowa) Do I even have time?
So to answer the first question, yes I still have something to say. How many middle aged, suddenly full-time, step-parent, immigrants are out there writing? (Can we say “niche” children?) I am still as committed as ever to my crazy theories about being in love in the movies. I am just writing for a different group now. I am no longer the single female traveller of my twenties and thirties, I am now middle aged and I go everywhere with an entourage of children and dogs. In addition to immigrant adventures , I now also have step-parent adventures, family adventures and frankly, mid-life crisis adventures. (And yes I’m using “adventure” to sound upbeat and avoid the word “issues” !)
What I do have to accept though, is that I am not a travel blogger, not in the sense I had the option to be while I lived in the UK, where international travel is cheaper and easier, paid holidays give you freedom and better wages give you financial security. If I don’t work here, I don’t get paid and that always has to be factored in to any trip as an expense. I can be a local interest blogger though, and that is where I have decided to focus, along with my observations of small town America. With regards to time, I am going to commit to one blog a week and one local attraction review a month and if I can’t manage that for the next, three, summer months, I am going to hang up my blogger hat.
Time to live up to my commitments. Wish me luck!
The Commitments is (scarily) a 1991 (!!!) movie , directed by Alan Park that chronicles the rise and fall of a Dublin soul band. back in my day it was requires watching for any musician, along with the Blues Brothers and Spinal Tap! I’m not a huge fan, but the music is very well done and you can’t fault the acting. I think at the time I watched it was just to close to the dramas of my real life, perhaps I should give it another chance.
Trumbley, Madly, Deeply 
Good to see you back as literate bloggers with something worth saying are like hens’ teeth…if I am to judge by accidental forays into WPs ‘discover’ section….accidental because eye and finger have not co ordinated their action when looking for ‘search’…
I blog when I can…not at all regularly…and am always quite surprised and pleased that people still read and comment.
Thank you very much! You are very kind.
Welcome back! I think it is OK to have the nature of your blog evolve. I started my blog as a way to reflect on the experiences I was having and observations I was making as an immigrant to America but, as time has passed, my blog has also become a bit of a mixture of things. For instance, I write about the travel we undertake as we explore more of America as a family, and I blog about some of my art stuff. I just found that I enjoyed the process of writing and the interaction with other bloggers so I have stuck at it. It’s your blog so you can feel free to just write about whatever takes your fancy.
Thank you! It is the variety and authenticity of your voice that I love about your blog. So maybe I should be less scared of finding my own and accepting where I am now. It is certainly not where I imagined myself at my age. But I wouldn’t change it 🙂
Thank you. Life definitely takes some odd twists and turns, that’s for sure.
Yay! I’ve been wondering when you’ll post again! I agree with the whole travel blogger uk thing…i’ve had to focus a lot on Iowa/local travel which sometimes feels like i’m shouting into an empty room! I’m lucky in the sense that the 3 summer months now mean a break from school for that time so i’ll actually be getting to leave the country a few times in the coming months! I’ve also started (trying) to think of my blog as if I can reach/inspire/help just one person then i’ve succeeded. Like you said it’s tough to reach the masses now! I recently wrote a post about everything I love about my hometown in England, shared it in a Facebook group about the town and it went crazy, it was one of my most viewed posts in months! So it’s also very much about finding the right eyes to put these things in front of! Thanks for the mention!
You are brilliant at picking and researching your audience. I’m wondering about reaching out to my local tourism organisations, but I want to see if I can commit before I make any rash statements lol. And I love your Midwest travel items, because they are actually reachable for me lol