Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Hello internets! So, yeah, we changed my blog. I’ve had the exact same blog design for 4 1/2 years, and we decided it was time for a change! Justin has been sweet enough to do all the design and technical stuff for me, so I just get to do the fun part.

This new template has its quirks, though… some of my photos bled out of the edges of the frames on the front page, so I’ve had to go in and manually change those. I haven’t gone back very far to change them (I’ve posted a LOT in 4 1/2 years), so if you see something funky in an archived post, please just ignore it for now. I’ll get to it eventually. 🙂

I had actually considered taking a blog break. Lately, it’s been harder and harder for me to get excited about posting here. This weekend, I went back through my archives and read posts from a year ago, two years ago… and I seemed so much happier then. I realized that I’ve been editing myself a whole lot more lately on this little blog. Recently the people I work with (and I work with a LOT of people) learned about my blog, and so I’ve felt the need to keep it surface-level and polite and embarrassment-free. There have also been several public relations companies who have found my blog, and I’ve also been writing with them in mind. But all that has basically made me disconnected from MY blog… the space I’ve worked hard over so many years to create. And it’s made writing for this blog quite boring.

So I decided to reclaim poco-cocoa. I’m writing this blog for me, and for my mama, and for my friends and for readers who have been with me forever. I’m writing for people who like to read about life in Austin, and cooking at home, and great books and films and crafts. And if other people happen to read it, and form an opinion about me from it, so be it.

Another thing that recently happened that spurred on this change is that I’ve stopped eating meat. When I say recently, I mean, like, a few days ago. I was a vegetarian a few years back, then slowly started adding meat back into my diet, and lately I’ve been eating a heckuva lot of meat. I still rarely cook it at home, but when we eat out (and you all know we eat out fairly often), I usually choose meat.

Last week I read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. It brought all the reasons I originally became a vegetarian back up to the surface. It made me question why I eat meat, and how comfortable I am with the situation. I don’t know if I’ll be a vegetarian forever. I don’t know if I’d eat animals if they were locally and humanely raised. I don’t know where I’ll officially draw my line (leather? wool? cheese? eggs?), but I know that at the moment, I feel better not eating meat. So that’s where I am today.

So, lots of changes around here. Hopefully for the better. I hope you all enjoy the new design (I think it’s so fun), and I hope you stick around for 4 1/2 more years, at least. I know I’m going to try to. 🙂

6 responses to “Ch-ch-ch-changes!”

  1. UH OH!!! No more pork belly? Love you!

  2. wow! blog update! love the concept of this design. Justin did a great job. It reminds me of a newspaper! And i understand the conundrum of ‘real life’ people finding your blog. Can I maybe make a small suggestion? is there a way to make all the posts the same size? its a little hard to find the flow.

  3. Michelle, I know! It’s a tough decision.

    Connie, thanks for the suggestion! I’m not sure it’s actually do-able with this template, but Justin is working on making it clearer which post is newest. Maybe even making the dates larger or bolder? I dunno, we’ll see. 🙂

  4. Hi Crystal,
    I’m one of those who learned about your blog at work and I LOVE it!! Keep up the great blogging and don’t worry. Congrats on going veg!! The only thing I didn’t like about the blog was the abundance of meat photos (being veg, too), so this makes me happy for me and for you!

    1. Oh, Sarah that makes me feel so much better! Thanks so much. 🙂

  5. Love the new layout. I had to peak at it for a few days before I could decide and I think it looks great! I hope it’s the inspiration you need to keep it coming. I am also looking forward to your veggie blogs! Let me know how it goes.. it’s a bit of a strain on brent sometimes as it makes things harder for us to eat out. I’m hopeful you have some useful solutions. (I’m not purely veg but only eat local meat).

    Anyways, congrats!

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