I got my start as a blogger five years ago when I launched my food and recipe blog, Bakin’ and Eggs, and shared my dad’s chili recipe. I started Bakin’ and Eggs because I was constantly getting asked by friends and co-workers, “What should I make for dinner?,” “Do you have a recipe for…?”How do you cook…?” and so on. There was a time in my life where I cooked and baked pretty prolifically and I enjoyed sharing my experiences through the blog.

I learned so much from Bakin’ and Eggs and love every one of the 232 posts that I shared on that blog. I have endless memories of lessons learned in the kitchen, good times with friends and loved ones and amazing (and some not so amazing!) cooking and baking projects.

(the early days of PBR!)

Peanut Butter Runner came about because I was constantly asked, “How do you cook and bake like that and stay in shape?” I decided to show them in the form of a blog dedicated to a daily glimpse of what I was eating and how I was working out. I started this blog in April of 2010. My intention was to maintain several posts a week on Bakin’ and Eggs and keep PBR separate but then PBR took off, I got busy and didn’t have as much time to make and blog recipes and my updates became few and far between. Eventually I completely quit blogging recipes on Bakin’ and Eggs and when I did want to share a recipe I did so on PBR.

I put so much love and effort into Bakin’ and Eggs and I don’t want to see that content lost forever. Some of my all-time favorite recipes are on that blog and I spent half a year completing a 68 Days of Gourmet magazine project. I have been back and forth about what to do with the blog and its content and I’m finally ready to move forward with my decision. I’m shutting Bakin’ and Eggs down but before I do that I am going to re-create and/or re-post all of my favorite recipes from that site on Peanut Butter Runner.

So for the next few months I will probably be posting twice a day, one “normal” update and one re-post from Bakin’ and Eggs. It’s also worth noting that I’m going to be launching a new design for PBR soon that will include an easy and visual way for you to sort through my indexes of workouts, videos and recipes so the timing is perfect.

For those of you who have been with me since the Bakin’ and Eggs days, I cannot thank you enough for following me to Peanut Butter Runner and I look forward to reliving many of the delicious things I shared there on this blog. For those of you who are newer to Peanut Butter Runner, I hope you enjoy this content addition. As my blog continues to grow and evolve I would like to see it more focused on sharing workouts, recipes, videos, yoga stuff, career topics and so on. I am growing and evolving and this feels like the most natural progression for me.

I have touched on this topic in a few previous posts but I feel the desire to steer away from “day-in-the-life” updates. I will still do them a couple of times a week but not every day. It’s not fun for me anymore and I am much more interested in sharing my knowledge and thoughts with you around the topics listed above. I met with my blog guru this morning and my exact words to him were, “Peanut Butter Runner needs to grow up.”  

Blogging is a weird thing. Five years of my life are documented on the internet and so many things about me and my life have changed over five years. Having the ability to look back to what you were doing on this day four years ago and comparing that to now is a really crazy thing. I know it sounds cliche but turning 30 has created this feeling within me that I need to really evaluate where I’ve been, where I’m going and who’s going to be a part of that journey.

I have this amazing therapist who told me that the ages between 28-32 are known as the 30s transition and it’s the time where the most divorces, career changes and shifts in direction occur because people start to take stock of their lives. This theory was introduced by Daniel Levinson and Gail Sheehy furthers it by saying, “it is not uncommon, at the approach to the thirties, to tear up the life structure one put together to support the original dream of the twenties, and to start anew—’to create the basis for the next life structure.'”

As we were talking about this all I could think was “check, check, check but how in the world did I get here!?” I never would have (in one million years) have told you that at the age of 30 that I would be living in Charlotte, ending what seemed to be and felt like a dream relationship, working in the fitness industry, a yoga teacher (seriously!? WTF?) and owning a home on my own. This is not what I had in mind as the picture of my “real adult life” when I was in college but here I am, this is reality and I’m figuring out how to move forward from a place of peace, happiness and self-confidence.

I thought this post was going to be  a little intro on the blog changes and a recipe for a Spiced Peach Carrot Bread but I think I’ll hold off on sharing that one in another post. Again, thank you for following along in my journey whether you’ve been on board for 5 years or 1 month. I want this blog to feel authentic, true to my voice and real.

Cheers to five more years!