That’s right, I have moved all of my cooking, crafting, and soaping posts over to a new domain – charitytensel.com.

Right now, it looks almost identical to this blog, but I will be changing that soon.

I will no longer be posting at this site, so please update your feed readers or bookmarks.

I will still post a link on twitter when I have a new blog post, so if you follow this blog that way, you don’t have to do anything!

This blog will stay up, since the posts I imported to my new blog will still contain links that come here.  But, all new content will be over there.

So, what are you waiting for?  Come on by!

I should have told you this last weekend, instead of leaving you hanging.  Sorry about that.  I hope you and yours had a fun Independence Day weekend.

I’ll be back next Sunday.  Stay cool!

I figured I would start out with the point of this post, before I launch into the long story.  So, if you want to stop here, you’ve already got the important information.

I have struggled with this blog for the longest time.  I had another blog, which was a political blog, and I made some okay money through advertising on it.  Well, paid links, actually.  I hate the look of advertisements.  But it always bothered me that I couldn’t seem to get this blog going enough to sell as many links on it.

The reason is that I am never consistent.  The reason I am never consistent is that I always want to do more than my life allows for.  (For those who don’t know, I home school my three sons, one of which has ADHD and a mood disorder.)  So, I end up setting goals I can never reach, then I just do nothing, which is foolish, I know.  I should at least do something.  Anything is better than nothing.  But, for some reason, I always get easily discouraged by this blog because I want so badly to have the time to make it the way I want it.  But, the fact is that I don’t.

I keep thinking that, now that my oldest is a teen, I will have a little more time.  Ooh, boy, was I wrong!  Come to find out, teens require more work, more time, and more attention – and loads more patience – than any other age past toddlerhood.

This business with the blog has been on my mind a lot lately.  I have done a lot of thinking about the blog and I keep trying to do more with it – like all the Easter posts I promised – but life keeps getting in the way.

But, the thing is, a lot of my favorite blogs only update once a week.  There are blogs that get tons of readers and are great blogs, yet they only update once a week.

The question I had to ask myself was: do I want to have one good, quality post, that readers can reliably expect once a week, or do I want to keep on trying to do more posts, only to end up doing nothing?

The answer was pretty obvious, but it is hard for me to let go of things sometimes.

Then, I read a post on Soap Queen the other day with tips on social media from a talk Anne-Marie gave at a social media conference.  She outlines the six rules for social media engagement and one of them is routine.

That sealed it.  I knew what I needed to do.  So, I sat down and outlined the minimum commitments I would make to all of my social media platforms/blogs, and I decided that I would focus on posting here once a week, so I can give you guys a good quality post that is worth reading and I will be satisfied with what I am doing here.  You know, instead of saying I am going to blog and then never doing it, and feeling like this blog is a total failure.

Unfortunately, this is my post for this week.  My six year old was very sick all week, so I just wasn’t able to put anything together.

If you made it this far in the post, I am both surprised and flattered!  Thank you for reading All Things Hold Together.

You can also follow me on twitter, where I will share interesting links I find throughout the week.

I had planned on doing lots of fun St. Patty’s Day decorations, crafts, food, and of course desserts, but then I realized that today was the day we would be leaving for vacation.  No corned beef and cabbage for me.

I did manage to make some festive cupcakes, though.  I already had bought the papers and napkins before I realized we wouldn’t be home.  Nothing fancy.  It’s a box mix with canned frosting.  The sprinkles were from Christmas.  I picked out the red ones.

I guess I will just have to make Easter that much more extra awesome!  Starting when we get back.  Two weeks of Easter goodness.

I am not 100% happy with it, but I never am.  I decided to leave it and spend the time blogging!  What is the point of having a nice looking blog, if you never post?

Things might look a little funny around here, but I promise it will all be over soon.

Then, I can concentrate on holiday craft blogging.  Yea!!

The design of the blog does not really reflect the content, so I am going to update things and refine my focus.

This blog, origionally called “Crafty Mama,” started out as a craft blog.  Then, it morphed into a homeschooling blog, as well as a craft blog.  Then, I added posts about cooking and, eventually, about my life and my faith.

Of late, this blog has returned to its roots, as a crafting (and cooking, too!) blog.  That is where I want it to be.

So, over the next week or so, I will be redesigning the layout and updating the blog rolls with my fav cooking and crafting sites.

I am sure that I will still post cute pics of my kiddos from time to time, but I have another project that I am working on that will be focused on my family life, homeschooling, and the challenges of raising a son with ADHD.  I will share more about that with you when it is ready for the big reveal.

I can’t promise when I will start posting again regularly, but if you want to chit chat and see what I am up to in the meantime, you can also friend me on facebook.

My hands are doing much better.  It turns out that I have joint hypermobility, with is a fancy way of saying that I am double-jointed.  I tend to hold my hands (and knees) in funky, unnatural positions and at my old age of 33, my tendons are very angry about it and fighting back.  I have to wear wrist braces and re-learn how to position my hands.  My tendons are much happier now, though I do get flare-ups now and then.

I stopped doing Weight Watchers, so there will be no Weight Watchers Wednesday.  (I know!  That was short.)  I am using a holistic – whole body/mind/spirit – approach to overall wellness.  I feel wonderful and have lost 7 pounds.  After I have been doing it for a while, I will tell you all about it.

I am sorry that I stopped blogging (again).  At first it was my hand, but now it is the summer!  We have been out so much.  Blogging will be sparing for the next month or two.  Gotta grab those Vermont summers while they last.  They are quite short!

I am no longer going to be doing my political blog, though, so I will have more time for ATHT and for connecting with you all.

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a wonderful day!

I just wanted to do a quick post to say ‘hi’ and to get the previous post off the top.  I decided not to enter that contest.  I wanted to take on the artistic challenge, which I did, but I decided that that particular contest was not really my style.

I am still going to do the tutorial, but the soaps will be a more traditional Valentine’s Day flavor.

I love Valentine’s Day.  No so much the day itself, but the red and pink and heart-y stuff.  I hope to get at least a few crafts and recipes posted for that.