Can you believe there are only two more months in this year!? These past few months have gone by so fast. We have now officially entered the holiday season. College applications are in, and school is chugging along. Thanksgiving break is a little over two weeks away and I am so ready to just relax and catch up on missed sleep.
November Goals
// School Goals
1. Create a study schedule. Schedules are a busy girl’s best friend.
2. Begin studying for midterms. Start early; finish strong.
// Travel Goals
1. Explore the city. It’s easy to forget to explore when you live in the city.
2. Take more pictures. In a few months I’ll be able to remember how fall looked in Seoul.
// Life Goals
1. Do a craft or two. Pinterest is full of great ideas.
2. Write a poem a day for Nanowrimo. Right now a whole novel is not possible, and it classifies as extra credit in AP English.
// Spiritual Goals
1. Start a daily devotional. I’m not consistent when it comes to these; but if I can do a poem a day, I can definitely spend time with the Lord.
2. Memorize a new verse each week. I memorized almost two pages of The Odyssey in three days; I’ve got this.
// Health + Fitness Goals
1. Start a 30-Day fitness challenge. The trick is to start your New Year’s resolutions before the holiday season, so it’s easier to slip back into after.
2. Start an Autoimmune Paleo diet. I have an autoimmune disease that the prescribed medicine isn’t helping. Good health starts on the inside anyways.
// Blogging Goals
1. Post multiple times a week. New ideas pop into my mind during the week, but I have to put them aside because I’ve kept to a one-post-a-week schedule before.
2. Switch from an automated, weekly update email, to a weekly newsletter. If you are subscribed to my list (or if your not :), let me know in the comments which one you prefer to see in your inbox each week.
If you aren’t subscribed to my list… come join the tribe!
New Blog Design
I can safely say that I’m a design addict; I designed and coded my blog design. When I started my old blog in 2014, I found myself in search of “the look”; unfortunately, my idea of “the look” changed every time I saw someone else’s design or got bored. This time I went in with a firm picture in my mind of what I wanted my blog to look like. Pink is my favorite color, if you couldn’t tell, and I knew it was going to be the main color of my brand. Once again however, I found myself imitating a design of a blogger that I follow because her’s looks so good. A few days ago I decided to change things up and make it authentically me. Also, imitation is not the highest form of flattery in the blogging community and I try my best not to be that person. Anyways, here’s what I changed.
// Navigation
I moved the navigation from above the header, to below it. I also removed the pink background to give it a minimalist look.
// Posts area
I removed the black accents from the posts area (behind the date, double border above and below post).
// Sidebar
Like the posts area, I removed the black accents and opted to have a pink background for the titles. It’s a light pink so it isn’t distracting.
// Footer
Okay, now this part I am very proud of. First I removed the black background from the attribution. Then I added a full-width, horizontal email form, which is no easy feat my friend. Finally, I accomplished the impossible.
If you have ever been to a blog hosted by WordPress or Squarespace, you might have noticed that some have a beautiful, sleek area at the bottom of their blog for their Instagram feed. Now, I do not have Instagram, but I have Pinterest. A few years ago I found a post on how to essentially replicate that with Pinterest on a Blogger blog. Cue the happy dance. But then I read that the code was no longer functioning and long story short, I have been searching for a way to do it ever since.
Then I found it. However it wasn’t from a tutorial or blog post, I just experimented until I got the results. After years of searching I finally have my beautiful display; and it’s fully responsive too. Scroll down to check it out.
What are your goals for November? Automated update or Newsletter email, which do you prefer? What do you think of the updated design?
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