After almost 4 years of solid blogging, it’s time for me to slow down and focus on my family and myself.

Blogging has been a great adventure and I’ve “met” some fantastic people. I’ve enjoyed cooking around blogging events, expanding my culinary horizons, and working with fun companies during themed weeks.

I’ve been feeling the pull to step back from Sew You Think You Can Cook since before last year’s holiday season. But how could I take a break during the busiest cooking and baking season of the year?! I couldn’t!

A little over a year ago I thought I’d attempt to monetize Sew You Think You Can Cook, but I never managed to find the time to put towards exploring that side of blogging. And truth be told, making money had never been my goal.

I started this blog almost 4 years ago as a way to stay busy. My husband and I had been trying to conceive for over a year and I simply needed something to help take my mind off it!

Since we’d been married in 2010, I’d been perusing Food Network, food blogs, and foodgawker and cooking unique dishes each night. I’d type up the weekly menu as well as each recipe and send that Word Document to my mom. I’d include how I planned on changing up each recipe. So in a way, I’d already been blogging. I just wasn’t photographing every little bite!

My site will not be dead. I’ll keep my eye out for some blogging events that I simply can’t pass up and join in the fun. In the mean time, I’m going back to my old way of menu planning and going back through these past 4 years of cooking and remaking some family favorites. Odds are I’ll be re-photographing them and updating some old posts. Because, can I really cook something and not photograph it anymore?!

So what are my plans now?

This summer we have some travel time on the calendar, Firecracker’s 3rd birthday, and some VBS fun at two different churches.

Healing my sprained wrist is also a major priority! I tripped over a soccer ball in April, landed on my weak wrist, and two weeks later I found myself at the doctor’s office receiving a brace. Another two weeks later I returned to the doctor’s office to get an X-ray, as my wrist was getting worse. Latest news: it might be fractured. I have an MRI scheduled next week. Either way it’s going to take a while to heal. Raising two young active toddlers doesn’t exactly allow me much recovery time. Which brings me back to needing to take a break. Doing too many dishes aggravates my wrist and typing isn’t the easiest thing to do either.

The biggest and newest project I’ll be tackling is homeschool.

The cost of preschool is quite high here in the South Bay of Los Angeles and after some serious discussion, we’ve decided that I would homeschool Firecracker for a year. If it goes well, maybe for two years. Three if Treat stays home with me until he goes to Kindergarten, too!

I know the time I used to set aside after bedtime for blogging will need to be preparing our curriculum (aka crafting prep!). Who knows, maybe this blog will be turning into a crafting blog with some cooking instead of a cooking blog with some crafting.

As an exhausted mom, I can’t tell you how much I was looking forward to sending Firecracker off to school a couple of days a week. However, the more I’ve been thinking about our schooling plans, I’ve been getting a little excited. I think it will be fun to figure out what Firecracker really is interested in and finding ways to use those interests to help grow his brain.

I know I’m going to miss having alone time with Treat, but other moms have assured me that he really isn’t “missing out.” Besides, he’s going to learn a lot by watching his big brother!

I’m looking forward to seeing where my little bit of “R&R” will take me. I’m hoping for more relaxed playtime with my boys. For more “me time” before crashing into bed each night. For less distracted time with my husband.

I’d like to thank my readers for stepping into my little world of the internet and I hope to see you again, soon!