Eating Slowly, Transitioning to Word Press

I've gone and done it, folks; I've set up my new-and-hopefully-improved blog over on Word Press.  For now I'm calling it "Eating Slowly"  --which is kind of a misleading title given the fact that my boys wolf down their food as if they were going to a fire, as my grandmother used to say.  (And just now I realized the title already sounds lame.  So be it; it is what it is).  For a little while I'll be publishing my posts on both blogs while I'm tweaking my new one, and hopefully establishing a little bit of readership over there.  So pay me a visit, tell your friends and neighbors, and follow me!  Meanwhile, may I present my first post on Eating Slowly, "Musings of a Catholic Mom, Volume Two."

I've had a blog for four years.  I started Musings of a Catholic Mom on Blogger New Year's Day 2009, with a fairly unimpressive post about New Year's Resolutions.  Since then I've published over 200 posts (the official number is 221, but I've deleted a few now and then so I've actually posted a few more), and my blogging style has evolved over the years--for better or worse, I couldn't say.  For a while now I've been contemplating switching over to Word Press, and when I realized I'd run out of space for photos in Google's free photo sharing site, I thought, heck--now's the time.  I've wanted to find a more "catchy" title, too; after much pondering, Eating Slowly is what I've (finally!) come up with.

(Yellowstone, 2009)

Why Eating Slowly, you ask?  I wanted to have an underlying theme for my blog, but the problem is, I like to blog about all kinds of things.  Food, my faith journey, the joys and struggles of raising two teenage and one almost-teenage boys, being Catholic, books, places we visit, and the everyday ins and outs of life.  Not long ago I was thinking about the book Eat, Pray, Love; remember that one?  Elizabeth Gilbert writes about leaving her husband to go on a worldwide journey to find herself.  The way I figure, I don't need to go on some epic quest to find myself; I'm doing that every day just by living my life.  And I realized that "Eat, Pray, Love" can be a theme for my own life.  Here's what I mean:

1.  Eat Slowly.   I love cooking, and good food always makes life just a little bit better.  I try to minimize the processed food and cook things from scratch whenever I can.  I even started a whole other blog called Cooking Nick's Books--dedicated to food, and my favorite writer, Nicholas Sparks. (Although, I'm thinking Dean Koontz might soon become my new favorite writer.  But I digress.)   I'm a big believer in Slow Food (meaning, minimizing fast and processed food and serving home-cooked, locally-grown, organic, and nutritious meals instead--although I don't always practice this), and I love having a meal with my family around the table; even though sometimes one or all of the boys have someplace to rush off to right after dinner.

(Corolla, NC, 2010)

2.  Pray (insert your favorite adjective here:  Hard, Fervently, Often, Always...)  Something that we all need to do a little bit more of.  I love my Catholic faith, and I want to learn more about it and grow closer to Jesus every day.

  3.  Love Deeply.  Starting with my family.  I want to treat others the way I would want to be treated.  I want to always be reminded that every person I come in contact with is made in the image of God.  I want to think of others before I think of myself.

(Shenandoah National Park, 2011)

I hope you'll join me on this journey.  If you already follow me on Musings of a Catholic Mom, you might not notice too much of a change in the way I write or the things I write about or the photos that I publish.  Most likely I'll put my posts in both places at first, and I'm still planning to keep Cooking Nick's Books going (even though I haven't been posting there much lately), at least until I've exhausted Nicholas Sparks' novels.  I'm getting pretty close.

(Denali, Alaska, 2012)

This blog won't be just about eating, of course; although I expect there will be quite a bit about food.  I'm excited about sharing what I'm learning in my faith journey, our adventures as a family, my wonder at the beautiful world around us, and my love of God and all things Catholic.  (Perhaps "Living Slowly" would be a more apt title...something to ponder for the future, I suppose.)  And I think I have a pretty good sense of humor, so I'll mostly keep things light.  I'll leave the heavy-duty stuff for the more "serious" bloggers.  So welcome and hello!  And Happy New Year!