Well, first of all, I’m sorry for not posting about this sooner, but if you know me, you saw the pictures and posts about it on Facebook and Instagram, at least. But I felt it deserved a blog post as well. See, the story actually starts at the end of 2012. I had considered volunteering for a dog rescue when we moved to Arizona earlier that year, and so I had added a few of the local ones on Facebook, specifically dachshund rescues. Well, they are always posting pictures of the dogs they have available for adoption… and one day I fell in love. Happy Tails Dachshund Rescue posted a photo of a dog named Charlie Brown, named just because his paperwork from Animal Control only said “brown dog”. So I ended up taking Sophie (our other dog) to meet him, and Ricky agreed, so Charlie soon became a part of our family. And life has never been the same!

So I think I might have figured out one reason that I got burnt out on blogging last year. I was starting to try to get a bunch of hits on my blog in order to try to monetize it. And I just didn’t get there, probably because it became too much of a chore, and I ended up just not blogging. Planning my blogs, installing plugins to try to optimize SEO for each post, worrying about keywords and all of that… it just got to be too much work and took the fun out of blogging. So, I think I’m just going to blog for fun for the time being. If I get hits or followers, then I do. If not, then I don’t. I actually had someone at one point kind of insult my blog, saying that no one reads it. I think at this point I get enough comments to know that people do. But if they don’t, oh well… I’m really blogging for me, no one else. If you enjoy it, great. If not, then don’t read. No biggie.

On that note, I was trying to think of some things to blog about. In light of the name of my blog and because it’s what I enjoy writing about, I think if I had to give a one-word explanation of what my blog is about, I’d say “experiences”. Whether it’s traveling across the world, going to a beer festival in town, or even just watching a movie, I like sharing my experiences. And I kind of think people actually do like reading about them. So that’s what I’m going to continue to write about (along with anything else that happens to strike my fancy, of course!).

So thinking through it, I thought I’d give you all a bit of a teaser of what you can look for in the coming weeks and even months of the kinds of things I’m planning that I hope to blog about. Doing this also holds me somewhat accountable for blogging about these things and not just being a slacker. So, here is what’s coming up on my calendar!

Wiener Mania
This is a local fundraising event here in Phoenix at a horse racing track. It’s a fundraiser for Arizona Adopt a Greyhound as well as Happy Tails Dachshund Rescue, which is where I adopted Charlie from. I didn’t know that Happy Tails was a sponsor of the event until after I’d signed up, but it’s awesome that they are! This event includes a wiener dog race, which is something I’ve thought about entering Charlie in for a while now. I’m not sure how well he will race (or if he will even do it – haha) but we will find out and have fun either way!

Chandler Ostrich Festival
I may or may not be visiting this one. My friend Tom and I have talked about it before, and I think he’s actually been. I haven’t, but he sent me an email about going, and I’m free on Sunday, so we may hit that up this weekend. What’s second best to watching wiener dogs race? Watching ostriches race, duh!

Phoenix Film Festival
You’re all groaning, right? I have attended this the last few years that we’ve been in Arizona, and it is always a blast. The movies are great, and I usually end up meeting some really cool people. I’m hoping to attend as press again this year, which means I will be writing reviews of some of the movies I see. And there are always plenty of great movies there. I can’t wait.

Las Vegas Trip
I’ve been to Las Vegas several times now, but my friend Stacy has never been! She and her husband are going in May, and Ricky and I are meeting up to hang out with them there. It should be a lot of fun, and I think Stacy will enjoy it. Maybe I can get her to write a guest blog from a first-timer’s perspective.

Europe Trip
Ricky and I are planning another trip to Europe later this year as well. This time we want to visit Berlin, Amsterdam, and some places in Belgium. This is still in the planning stages, but you know it will include beer.

So those are some of the things I have upcoming. Hopefully this will hold me accountable, and I will be blogging about some or all of these experiences. Just stay tuned!

Wow. It has seriously been a while. My last blog post was 10 months ago! What the heck. I guess I’ve just been living life? Nah, actually my reasoning is a bit different than that. I have been living life, but I just honestly haven’t really felt the motivation to blog in a while. My interests have just been taking me elsewhere. So… let’s catch up and talk a little bit about that.

The last post I made was about planners. That’s kind of what led me astray, maybe. I got a planner, then really got into the world of decorative planning. If you don’t know about it, I’m sure that sounds pretty strange. But there’s a whole subculture around this, basically. Lots of women (and some men) are really into it. There are tons of Facebook groups, YouTube channels, and Etsy shops dedicated to materials and stuff involved in planning… stickers, planners, inserts, paper clips, etc. I even ended up setting up my own Etsy shop making stickers. It kind of took off for a while, but lately I just haven’t put nearly as much effort into promoting it and updating it like I should. Hopefully that will change at some point. It was fun and a nice little source of additional income. Like I said, it hasn’t really been updated lately, but if you’d like to check it out, you can find it here.

So besides the planning, what have I been up to? Well, I did travel a bit last year. Ricky and I headed to Europe again, with a big focus of the trip being Oktoberfest in Munich. We had a blast, as usual. I should blog about that at some point and post some of the pictures I took there. Maybe I’ll get around to that too. Man, I really sound like a slacker, don’t I? Anyway, we also visited a few cities in Switzerland near Zurich as well as going to Prague.

Something else that took of quite a bit of my time and energy last year was one of my dogs, Sophie. I had Sophie since July 2008, about 6 months before Ricky and I started dating. She was a wonderful dog and I loved her so much. She had some health issues, though, and they got more serious right around the time we went to Europe last year. It turned out to be the beginning of the end. Her health began deteriorating to where she was on four different medications, kept getting bloated (poor thing), and had trouble walking to where I had to carry her around a lot even. Rather than prolong her suffering, we made the decision to let her go right before Christmas. It made the holidays rather difficult, and we ended up going to San Diego over New Years just to get out of town and have a change of scenery. It’s still taking some adjusting to going from having two dogs the last 3 years to only having one. She is missed very much.

Since the holidays, we’ve been just a bit busy with goings on around here and such. January through May is a busy time in Arizona, as that’s when our weather is best and we have more visitors than usual (we call them snowbirds, people who come here to get away from the cold and yuck in most of the rest of the country). There are a ton of festivals and events going on during that time. One is the Phoenix Open, which we volunteer for every year. Another is Arizona Strong Beer Fest, which we also go to every year. Stuff like that has kept us pretty busy, but having fun.

I’ve also been trying to read more lately. I’ve gotten kind of behind the last couple of weeks or so, what with trying to catch up with some other things, but I’m really trying to make my Goodreads goal of reading 40 books this year. It was my goal last year, and I didn’t quite make it, so I’m determined to get it done this year. I did good and got a bit ahead last month, so I’m still ahead of schedule, but I need to get a bit more momentum going soon in order to not get behind. I’ll work on that.

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately. It’s no excuse for not blogging, really, and I hope to get back into it. I just got a new, very portable MacBook, so I want to put it to good use. Hope to blog at you again soon!