2017 is here, folks! Can you believe it? I seems like just yesterday I was making plans to kick off 2016. So much has changed since then! I doubled my number of blog posts, hosted my first recipe linkup, and am expecting a baby by the end of this month. So much excitement!
Every New Year, I like to share a review post detailing the most popular recipes of the previous year. This year I’ll also include a summary of the changes you can expect to see on the blog in 2017 (many of them are baby-centric changes). So in true New Year’s spirit, whip yourself up a cocktail, and let’s get started! I recommend our most recent recipe, a nonalcoholic cocktail called Sugar Plum Punch:
Do you have your drink? Ok. Let’s start by revealing last year’s top ten posts! The winners are…
Thank you to everyone who shared, liked, and commented
on the recipes above…and to all our readers!
You guys are the greatest! 🙂
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What have we got planned for the new year?
With my baby due in a matter of weeks, things are gonna start working a little differently around here. Here’s the 2017 game plan:
- I’ll be taking February off from recipe posts. This is probably the biggest thing to make note of: I won’t be posting new recipes next month. I wanted the weeks following the birth to be as low-maintenance as possible in terms of blogging, and planning to take February off has allowed me to work ahead in other things. However, I’m writing a few posts now that I can schedule to publish in February after the baby’s born. So even though there won’t be book recipes, you can expect to see a couple Valentine’s Day posts and probably some Top Ten Tuesday linkups (provided the February prompts are posted before my baby’s born).
- Later mornings. To make blogging after baby a little easier, all my posts will publish at 11am CST (instead of my Tuesday posts going up by 9am).
- We’re changing the Tuesday post lineup. Last year, I did a different post every Tuesday, alternating between tea premieres, reading kits, Top Ten Tuesday linkups, and a post on a random topic. The random post is being cut in favor of a holiday post, provided there’s a relevant holiday each month. I’m still going to try to post something every Tuesday, but I’m not super married to the idea. So you can expect a post 3 Tuesdays out of the month for sure (tea, reading kits, and TTTs), but I may have a “free Tuesday” when I don’t post anything. It will just depend on what my schedule looks like each month.
- Monthly Reviews and Photo Hints are taking a new form. To save me time once Baby gets here, I won’t be doing Month in Review posts this year (since it’s hard to write them in advance). Instead, on social media at the end of every month, I’ll share the archive page for the latest menu and the photo hint for the upcoming menu. These will be posted on Twitter and Facebook, so be sure to follow me if you’d like to keep getting that info.
- Blog Aesthetics. I’d LOVE to update the look of the blog, but that may not happen. If it does, you’ll probably see it change bit by bit (a font here, a new banner background there). I don’t have a clear idea of the changes I’d like to make, which makes choosing a style a little difficult for me. Hopefully we’ll be able to get a fresh new look at some point, though! 🙂
And that about sums it up! Let me know if you have any questions at all about the upcoming changes,
and thank you to everyone who completed our survey. It was a major tool in helping me decide on schedule changes!
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What are your big plans for the New Year?
These sound like reasonable changes. I’m glad you’re keeping up the blog while having a baby. ^ ^ And I’m looking forward to the new recipes! 😀 I just made Milday de Winter’s Butternut Squash soup for the third time on Saturday. I love your recipes. ^ ^
storitorigrace.blogspot.com
Thank you! I LOVE that recipe. Although I was looking at it just now and realized I didn’t say when to add the bacon—a travesty! But don’t worry, I fixed it. ^.^