The End

Dear Friends,

It’s been seven years since I started this blog. I started as a young mother who needed an outlet – a community. And I found it.

Then when I found my current lifestyle, it transformed into a food blogging/Paleo/CrossFit/Gluten-Free/Family hybrid blog.

It’s opened doors for me – professionally and personally – and for that I am grateful.

But last week, the day a monster took a score of babies from their parents, I was out of the house working a 12-hour day at a competition. I couldn’t get to them to just hold them, feel their squishy foreheads under my lips, protect them from anything. I realized I hadn’t seen them since the morning before and only an hour that night, before I retired back to my home office, putting in another 16-hour day which has been the norm more lately than not.

I called Mike and asked him to pick them up and bring them to me so I could see them, hug them, because my god, it could have been MY babies.  I got home late that night and laid in bed wishing for sleep and only barely succeeding at keeping the sting of tears from overflowing.

I hadn’t seen my kids all week, all month, for the last year it seems. What if it was MY BABIES? If they were taken from me, would I have any peace knowing I spent as much time with them as I could, that I gave them my full effort? I stared at the ceiling, knowing my answer.

I did this to myself. I put too much on my plate and a hobby that I once loved became just one more thing I had to get done – one more deadline. It became work.  And when a hobby becomes a job that takes time away from my children, it is no longer worth it. I don’t want to be that parent that wishes they were more present. I don’t want my kids to think the laptop attached to my hands is more important than coloring on the floor or going to see a movie.

I don’t want to be an observer in their lives. I want to be there with them living it.

Something has to give.

And, friends, it’s this. And this decision does not come lightly, trust me.

This website has always been something that brought me joy and humility, and I am so incredibly humbled to have made a difference at all to anyone, even a little bit. I’m going to leave the website up so people can access the recipes, at least until I can convert them all into an e-book PDF for free download.

I’ve learned a lot about myself: my strengths, my weaknesses, what I really want from this life.

I want to write. I will continue to do that, personally and professionally.

I want to play and live and cook and create and love.

Thank you for letting me be a part of your lives for the last seven years.

Thank you for believing in me.

With much love and respect,
AndreAnna