Greetings and salutations, my dearest blog readers

It’s been a bit over a week since last I updated. The holidays were hectic, as was the prep for them, and then of course, the holidays themselves. I had the ever-important choice of forcing myself to do things like work on the blog, or avoid burn out and catch up on some much needed rest, so I opted for the latter.

I can’t push myself too hard because I am doing too many things to risk burn out, and therefore, sometimes, self-care has to come first. This was a choice I thought I would regret, but then when I started work Monday, I realized it was a good thing to do. I didn’t sleep as well the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so I was already tired, and was feeling under the weather, so when work was INSANELY busy, I was grateful I had opted to relax over the weekend. Had I pushed myself, I would have been no good for my job, versus rising to the challenge and getting myself ahead for the week. The rest of the week looks to be fairly busy as well, so it has been hard to squeeze in writing time for creative or blog writing, but I am managing a little on this, my lunch break Tuesday afternoon, while I work on the soup I am making for dinner. If it turns out well, I will likely post a blog post all about taking dried navy beans and making a delicious, vegetarian soup out of it.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the blog, the future of abbigrasso.com and of course, myself, while taking that down time, and I am glad for that time too. I have been working hard to “stay consistent” on the blog, but more and more that feels silly. I like being consistent, sure, but the main reason to do that is to please the algorithm gods and “grow my audience”, but if I am being sincere when I say that growing my audience isn’t as important as finding my true audience, then I need to not lean into the trendy ways one would “grow” an audience, and instead lean into what is best for me, so when the right people do find me, they see me doing the things I actually want to do, and writing in an authentic way to showcase it.

So, it’s been busy, so busy that I haven’t even posted my birthday blog post, even though I have had it written since the Monday after my birthday. I could have probably carved a few minutes of time to make the cover, edit the blog, format it, and upload it, but, like I mentioned, it has been important to indulge in some self-care, in this case meaning relaxing and recharging. The next month (the month of December, that begins today, the day I am posting this) looks to be fairly busy, between birthdays for friends and of course the winter holidays, there may be more weeks with few to no blog posts. This is because ultimately, in the effort to time balance, some things take priority, and in my case, things like therapy, journaling, working out, preparing healthy meals, keeping a clean house, and working on side projects, like FCM, or the eBook for Flake City, are taking a bigger priority. I also have several KDP projects to finish and work on, along with redesigning some other digital art things, and of course, the redesign of some merch samples, mostly for Flake City, but some for the blog.

I know I am not a “big” blogger or writer, to warrant merch, but, to me, if it is something I would wear, it is worth making. On top of all of this, I have my weekly Dungeons and Dragons game, which begins a new module this weekend, with JT acting as the DM, and that tends to take up most of the day, more so with me making healthy sleep a priority. I have suffered from bad sleep for so many years and sleeping is one of the more important things you can do for your health, so I have made it a priority.

This means not only going to bed earlier, but being off my phone earlier, and away from most screens in general before bed. It means long baths to relax and unwind, it means tea and journaling before bed.

My mornings are now spent doing coffee and journaling, while also making my to-do list for the day to set my intentions and tone for the day. I work on stretching while I look over emails and such, and then much of my day is spent working on work stuff, before I log off, do some chores, and take my after work walk. After the walk, dinner, then bath…and you see how quickly I run out of time.

I am also making sure to make time for friends, and all of it compounds. So, with all of these day-to-day things, along with the extra pressure of birthdays and holidays, there may be more time I miss blogs, and I will NOT be doing Blogmas. I do love blogmas, but I would rather be a supporter of those who do Blogmas and Vlogmas, than risk burning myself out trying to do everything I am trying to do.

So, I guess this blog has mostly been explaining where I have been the past week or so, but it also begins to set the tone for my plans for the new year- a topic of which I will continue to write about this month.

Thank you for reading,

Abbi