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Amber Hinds

Georgetown, TX
Blogging, Life
/
August 24, 2020

Hello, Is Anyone Out There?

It has been 1 year, 9 months and 3 days since I last published a blog post on this website. At that time, we had just moved from Colorado to Texas and I thought that I was going to revive my blog. I wrote a handful for posts, but then life and business got in the way and I let the website fall silent again.

Over the last 642 days, a lot has changed in our world – and I’m not just talking about the craziness that is COVID-19. There have been changes in our business as we grew our team and adjusted our focus. We achieved our dream of purchasing a travel trailer and spent two fabulous summers traveling the middle and western half of the country, and even filmed an episode of a TV show, Going RV.

Perhaps the biggest change is that last November, we grew from a family of five to a family of six with the surprise addition of our sweet little Vivienne.

Chris holding Vivi up in the air while the rest of the family looks on

Once A Blogger, Always A Blogger

Parenting and entrepreneurial demands took up most of my attention and kept me from posting anything more than occasional Instagram posts, but when something big or interesting would happen, I would say to Chris, “I really should write about this.”

It was passing thought, mostly, easily set aside with the notion that there were other more important ways to spend my time. But the truth is, when you spend so many years of your life documenting things as I did, it’s hard not to feel called to write more.

In the past 6 months, our world turned upside-down and we were dragged, kicking and screaming, into the alternate universe that is Coronavirus. As 2020 progressed, I’ve found myself thinking with increasing frequency that I ought to be blogging about this unique time.

I should be documenting what is happening and how it’s impacting my family. There should be some record the girls can look back on, and I can’t help but thinking that perhaps I can bring something to the important conversations happening right now.

Redoing My Site

Finally, three weeks ago, I put the kids to bed and decided that it was time to work on my website instead of doing anything else. And so that is what I did.

Somewhat sneakily I took the website offline (or so I thought, there might have been a notification, or (gulp) 12, that spammed people when I imported demo content… oops; sorry).

Over a week and a half, I redesigned and rebuilt the theme and I adjusted page content to better represent me and where I am in my life right now. I powered through the “fast and dirty” way, cowboy coding right on the site in a manner that would horrify the developers on my team, but I got it done and pushed it live all without really telling anyone – outside of the few people who noticed my little Lorem Ipsum content import goof.

Then I spent 15+ hours combing through old blog posts fixing broken images from a previous poorly done migration years ago (I can only blame myself) and cleaning up deprecated content (like broken pins in my Saturday Surfing posts that are in an old format no longer supported by Pinterest). There are 848 posts on this website, so I’m only halfway done with this task, but I’m happy with what I’ve accomplished thus far, and I’m hoping to chip away at the rest of them over the next couple of months.

And Here We Are

The whole time I was working on the new design for the site, I mused on what my first post “back” should be. It’s hard to know where to start when I’ve been away so long and so much has changed in the world since I last wrote. On top of that, there is so much that I want to say.

Tonight, I think I’m going to leave it at this – a quick re-introduction to who we are and a promise to come back and write more, but with absolutely no promise of when that might be. In the past, I have tried to commit myself to write posts on a specific schedule. Outside the early days when I was blogging as a stay-at-home mom on Nantucket, it never worked.

Now I’m older and wiser, with 4 times as many children, and so I’m going to stick to reality and be okay with it. I can’t promise you how frequently I’ll write, but I will find my way back into the saddle, and I hope you’ll join me for the ride.

A Reintroduction

In case you’re new here, and really because it’s been so long since I last wrote, it seems only fitting to sign off with an updated photo of my family from last week. Here we all are:

The Hinds Family

Me, my hubby, Chris, and our four beautiful daughters: Nora, almost 11, Zara, 7.5, Adelaide, 3, and Vivienne, 9 months. I’m looking forward to sharing my story with you.

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  • Allena Gurley
    August 25, 2020

    I’m excited to be along for your blogging journey! I still blog 2-3 times/week and think I would miss it a lot if I stopped. My website definitely doesn’t look as nice as yours (but I’m a CPA, not a coder ha), but I do love my little internet space. I really like how the family picture turned out – the colors all go together really well, y’all look great!

    Reply
    • Amber
      Allena Gurley
      September 5, 2020

      Thanks, Allena! I didn’t realize that you blogged! I’ll have to check it out!

      Reply
  • Sheron
    August 25, 2020

    Hi Amber, I loved reading your “first” blog post in quite a. While and look forward to reading more. You have a beautiful family!

    Reply
    • Amber
      Sheron
      September 5, 2020

      Thanks, Sheron! I’m excited to be blogging again.

      Reply

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Our 1,000 piece project and today the girlie on the right turned 8. 

 I was in and out of calls all day so was more than a little shocked by the ridiculousness in the Capitol when I finally saw the news at 4:55 pm. Sometimes life feels so surreal. It was a normal work day and it also wasn't a normal day at all. There was... an attempted coup? Out of control protests? Whatever we call it, at the least, it was a day that is likely to have long-lasting reverberations in our society (maybe not all positive) but it was also day of celebration and joy. Not just for our birthday girl but also for a friend and a cousin who both had babies today too.

It's hard to know how all these pieces fit together and what to make of life right now. Every day feels a bit like a roller coaster. It's crazy but I guess we just have to try to enjoy the ride and trust that eventually we'll be able to see the whole picture.

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I can post a #Christmas picture the day after New Years, right? Because that's totally where I am right now. Months behind on the socials from my work hard/play hard life during which I was either glued to my computer working to launch our new plugin or being a total luddite ignoring my phone. I  barely even took pictures of the kids. 😮 

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#newyear #thowback #throwbackthursday #tbt

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Happy first birthday to my little Vivienne. There was no themed birthday party considering the times we're in, but that's alright. Probably, if we're being honest, for a baby, that's preferable. No weird things messing up her routine, just a nice day at home with the family, fun crawling around outside in the leaves, and then pumpkin cake after dinner.

At one, Vivi is such an incredible delight. She laughs so much more than any of the other girls did as babies - she'll even start laughing if she just hears the word "funny." She keeps us all smiling all day long. She's pulling herself up on things, but isn't doing too much stepping yet, so I expect we're going to have another late walker. She knows a handful of words, loves to quack at ducks and neigh at horses, crawls all around the house finding things to get into, dances when she hears music, and loves pretty much all food (making up for her early days). I think she looks like Zara.

It's been a whirlwind year, but I most certainly could not have asked for a better tiny human to share 2020 with or to be part of our family. ♥️
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