Welcome To So Much Life Season 4!

I’m so very excited to chat with you again. I’m calling this new start “So Much Life Season 4.” Haha! 

(Can blogs have seasons? Podcasts do it all the time, so why not blogs?)

Anyhow, I gave my website a little visual update while I was away. I’ve been blogging for 6 years now, and my logo felt a little too young/whimsicle for where I am right now. So I worked with my designer to create a new custom logo and a few other little updates on the blog, and I’m thrilled with the result. It’s just a bit more chic and sophisticated than the previous design. 

Consider it my So Much Life Glow Up. 

A Look Back At Seasons 1-3

So if this is what I’m calling “Season 4” of blogging, what were seasons 1-3, you ask? Ha! Great question. 😉 Season 4 is a bit arbitrary, but it’s my blog and I get to make the rules, so why not?

Here’s what I consider seasons 1-3:

Season 1: In 2016 I decided to launch a blog…again.

I say “again” because I had blogged for years and years in the past (you can’t find that blog on the internet, so don’t even try to look…haha!) My previous blog was called www.somuchlifetolive.blogspot.com (longest title ever…) and it was a lot of fun, but it was pretty haphazard and truly just a little hobby. 

And by “hobby” I mean no one read it. 😉 It was a fun creative outlet for me, though!

So I decided to launch a blog in 2016 with a bit more intention behind it. I shortened the title, bought the domain somuchlife.com, set up a hosting site, and built a website.

But in all honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing in season 1. I didn’t even really have a niche or a focus. I blogged about my life, my wedding, my house, some restaurants… I posted instagram pictures of my in a travel outfit heading to the aiport and flatlay shots of books on my desk. I shared some food stuff, some wedding stuff, some restaurant reviews… Basically I did whatever I saw other bloggers doing, and the result was that I was all over the place. End season 1. 

Season 2: I found out that I loved exploring and sharing Austin, and that I was good at it! I hired a web designer to redo my website (which is when I got my old logo that I just updated last month), and I did a deep dive into the Austin food scene. I ate sooo much foood and took a trillion food photos. I really went all in, and 6 months later I was approached by a publishing house with a book deal. That was such a fun little shiny penny of affirmation to show me that it was all working out and I was going down the right path.

Season 2 was a hustle stage. I was newly married with no kids, and I had the time and energy to put into the blog. It was definitely a fun season of life!

Season 3: I’m just going to lump the three years of summer 2019 – summer 2022 into season 3, ok? It was a blur.

I’m calling these “the baby years.” Season 3 was morning sickness and childbirth, breastfeeding and learning how to be a mom one of first one, and then two babies. It was a pandemic and a car crash and 8 surgeries, a new house and a bunch of home reno projects. I don’t feel like I’ve been the best content creator for season 3, but I also wasn’t the worst. I grew, I learned, I definitely cried, and I became a new person during season 3. 

Season 4 of So Much Life

Season 4: what’s going to happen in Season 4? So many fun things! This is an Austin Lifestyle Blog, so you can expect to see lots of Austin and lots of Life. 

For starters, here’s what you won’t see on this blog: list-type articles of Texas travel content. This year I launched two new websites: The Austin Things and The San Antonio Things. I really love exploring, creating, and sharing Texas travel content. I’ve just found that trying to lump all of it together on my lifestyle site gets a bit messy. I would publish a heartfelt post about Milo’s birth story or my experience with DMER during breastfeeding, and then right next to that would 15 Fun Swimming Holes in Austin! Ha..

I’ve been feeling for a while like I want So Much Life to go in a slightly different direction. And of course, I’m still going to be publishing all sorts of easy-to-read roundups and maps of things to do and places to eat in ATX, but I’m gradually moving it all over to The Austin Things. 

Here’s what you will see on this site during So Much Life Season 4:

Me living my life in Austin! Hey, this is an Austin lifestyle site, so if you love getting to peek behind the curtain at an Austin family living life in one of the coolest cities in the country…welcome. I’m glad you’re here. 

I haven’t shared many daily life posts, but they’re always my favorite to read on other blogs! I think it’s fun to see the normal ins and outs of a lifestyle. Even the boring stuff (morning routines, normal school days, typical date nights, weekends with the kids) are so much fun to read about.

I’m going to make a point to share more of this stuff. Lord knows my photo stream has a million photos of our life in this city.

Austin recaps. I do so many fun things in Austin (date nights, kid-friendly adventures, exploring new parks, long walks/hikes, bike trails, food festivals with Nate, and of course trying sooo many new restaurants.) I want to share more of my Austin recaps with you. 

Season 4 will have a lot of recaps like this fun overnight stay we did a f ew months ago and the cute memories I’ll cherish forever.

Productivity. I added a new category called “productivity.” I also considered calling it “inspiration” or “fitness.” But “inspiration” felt a bit vague, and it’s not like I’m going to be sharing outfit inspo or anything like that. And “fitness” is a category I had in the past (because I love pursuing a life of keeping my body fit so I can enjoy each day), but fitness didn’t encompass everything I want to share. 

I love finding and sharing little ways to be more productive in various facets. I love making my brand sharper, my will stronger, and my body fitter. I’ve always had a strong sense of motivation in each day, and I wake up most (not all!) mornings excited about the day. I have an achiever personality (not necessarily by choice – I think it was some combo of nature/nurture that gave me this personality trait) and it has some pros and some cons. I’ve been hyper aware of all of the negative parts of being a type-A/goal-oriented person, and I’ve softened some of my edges in the past few years. 

But recently, I’ve come to embrace some parts of myself. I do love goals, and I am really good at pursuing something with intention until I create the life I want. I’m not saying that I am a perfect model for life or that I have everything figured out. But I believe that every human on this planet has strengths to share, and we can all find the best parts of ourselves and let them shine. My strengths are my ability to feel motivated and excited about each day, accomplish a lot in a short amount of time, and create my own intrincsic motivation to get myself fired up when there’s nothing external motivating me. And so I want to find ways to share more of that on the blog. 

I’ve hemmed and hawed about this for fear of sounding braggy about something I’m good at. I’ve thought about sharing some other mainstream content that’s popular, but let me tell you this: the world benefits exactly ZERO from me sharing a makeup tutorial. Haha. Not my thing! But there are tons of people out there who are absolutely fabulous at sharing makeup tutorials, and when they fully step into their genius and share their gifts, people benefit from that! And the same is true for you, and the same is true for me. My genius is finding ways to get motivated, stay motivated, accomplish goals, and check things off a list. It always has been, and I really feel excited about sharing more of that with you. 

Travel and motherhood. Two little tidbits that will pop up! I love writing a travel recap, and I’ve shared so many of them throughout the years! This trip one of my favorites. My sister trip last summer was one for the books. And this funny trip recap still makes me lol. Oh, and I can’t about this item that I finally checked off the list! Oof. 

I have a few trips coming up this year, and I’ll share some fun travel recaps when they’re over. 

And of course, motherhood is a central pillar in my life now. I have a life outside of being a mom, but motherhood is something that takes up the majority of my brain space. I just don’t see a way around that. And I won’t share about motherhood every single day, but it’s pretty much impossible to share a lifestyle blog about my life without inserting a few little posts about motherhood here and there. 🙂 

Ask Kelsey. A new series for season 4! I’m so excited! I’m calling it Ask Kelsey, and I’ll share it once a week or so. As anyone who blogs can attest, when much of your life is public, you get asked a lot of random questions. There are certain Qs that show up in my DMs more often than others, so I’ve compiled a list of those and I’ll answer those in depth on my website. I’m sooo excited for the first Ask Kelsey post coming up this week! 

And that’s going to be So Much Life Season 4. I’m so happy you’re here! Let’s get going.