So... yeah...

Alas, I've not fallen off the face of the Earth!

That said, I feel the need to explain / apologize for my absence of late.  Yeah, I've been working on projects and also had other things going on in my personal life that have gotten in the way somewhat, but that excuse doesn't really cut it as far as covering 2 months of not posting after a period of regular activity.

So ultimately, what it all boils down to is the question of why I blog.  For a while, I was starting to get solicitations both online and in mail form from Google, wanting me to pay them to upgrade my ads on here.  The thing is though, in years of running this thing, I've yet to see a single cent from the ads I do have.  It felt almost insulting that they wanted me to pay them for something that would really only benefit them, and above that, the solicitations made it sound like the only reason to run a blog is to profit from it.  That was probably one of the most demotivating ideas that's crossed my mind since I first started blogging, and made me take a moment to seriously look at why I even doing this to begin with.  I mean, sure the blog takes a lot of work to write and update regularly, but at what point does it stop becoming fun and turns into... work?  And potentially for nothing?  Who am I even doing this for, anyway?

And after a while of soul-searching and consideration, I remembered:  it's for my readers.  It's for you all, who might share some of the same hobbies and interests as me, or may simply enjoy reading what I write.  I guess I lost sight of that with the whole adverts thing, and also a decline of feedback on here... I just thought maybe my efforts were being ignored or worse, that these postings were an annoyance or waste of others' time.

But something changed.  Some friends of mine started asking about why I haven't updated in a while.  Said they missed the articles, and even better, were able to make use of some of my recipes!  I was floored.  I had no idea that this thing was actually appreciated by... someone, anyone.

So to those who've stuck around, and those who've given me feedback, thank you.  For letting me know there is some value in doing this, and convincing me to throw my hat back into the ring.

So for the reboot 2.0, I'm thinking maybe I should implement some sort of "release schedule" for the blog... like have certain features come out on certain days of the week or something.  I mean, it'd be great to make it so people would know when to check by, but... I kind of like not having a set schedule, since there's honestly not always something to write about.  Suggestions?