Blog About It

Because it's what I write about and love, I generally gravitate towards design blogs. When it comes to writing about myself, however, I tend to have a very difficult time. I've never been to much of a public sharer - I have a facebook page, but rarely sign on to it, much less post on it, and twitter is pretty much out of the question - and while I've now been blogging for over 2 years, I feel like I'm still trying to work out a good balance between just writing about art, craft and design and sharing personal details about my life. As I want this blog to be a positive space, I like to keep the personal bits as upbeat as possible, rather than sharing about any of the bad times. I know that this is an issue for many bloggers, and I don't think it's necessarily either a good or bad thing in and of itself, just something that I think is important to consider. But it's for these very reasons that I'm totally in awe of the people out there who do use their blogs as a public forum, sharing their thoughts on life, work and family in a candid fashion. For today's Blog About It, I wanted to two of my very favorite personal blogs with all of you: sweetfineday and Pacing the Panic Room.

Sweetfineday is the blog for Whimsy & Spice, Brooklyn-based confectioners whose cookies are as beautiful as they are delicious (my personal favorites are the honey lavender shortbread and rose & black pepper thumbprints - try them, you won't regret it). Jenna, who's a freelance designer, uses sweetfineday as a public journal, sharing her thoughts and beautiful photographs about everything from running a business (along with her pastry-chef husband, Mark), to freelancing, raising a family, living in Brooklyn, and pretty much everything in between.

I greatly admire Jenna's honesty in her writing, regardless of the subject. She's written about being the breadwinner in the family, the ups and downs of freelance work, even about sharing personal details in such a public space, and it's exactly this honesty and openness that I most admire about sweetfineday. While I've only been following sweetfineday for a little less than a year, it's a daily read of my mine that I always look forward to.

(Images copyright © 2008-2011 Sweet Fine Day)

I first discovered Pacing the Panic Room, the blog of Florida-based photographer and videographer Ryan Marshall, through the maternity series of photographs and letters that he created when his wife Cole was pregnant with their daughter Tessa.

 

What originally started as a public forum for Ryan to candidly discuss his growing family has evolved into a space to share bits of his life, personal and professional photography work, and stories about balancing being a freelancer, husband, new father, and step-father of a child with SMS. Ryan is a hilarious storyteller, and his combination of honesty, the ability to laugh at himself and absolutely incredible photographs have made Pacing the Panic Room a favorite of mine for the past 2 1/2 years.

(Images © by: Ryan Marshall 2008 - 2011 Pacing the Panic Room)