It’s not goodbye. It’s see you later.

Ready for some serious talk. Real talk with Stefanie.

Sometimes I take unplanned blogging breaks – and by unplanned, I mean that I don’t blog for 14 straight days without reason. It seems that I have been doing this more and more lately.

It is not necessarily intentional. I have just been spending less time in front of a computer screen and more time having face-to-face interactions. This is good. Hell, it’s even great.

But when I am neglecting my blog (which I have a lot of pride in), I can’t help but feel a nagging sense of guilt. Should I ever feel guilty for choosing to spend time with my family rather than blog? Or should I feel guilty about eating a delicious meal without documenting the process or the ingredients? Absolutely not. But rationally knowing that doesn’t do much to push the guilt away.

I figure that if let you guys know what my plans are then I can step away guilt-free.

So now that graduate school has started (last Thursday was the first day of classes), I am going to take an “official” blogging break.

My little old life is changing – big time.

While I used to spend quite a bit of my free time reading and writing blogs—that time will now be devoted to reading research articles, grading papers (teaching assistant duties), working in the research lab (research assistant duties), writing and researching for my master’s thesis, and of course studying for my courses (statistics, methods, and cognitive this quarter).

Okay, so can I just take a minute to say holy cow! That’s the first time that I have written that all out. Sure, it is a bit overwhelming. But mostly, it’s really exciting. Psychology nerd alert.

A big chunk of my time is also now spent commuting to Chicago—roughly 3 hours round trip. If I do this the right way, those will be 3 very productive hours.

Right now, my goals are focused on getting a routine down and taking the next few weeks (or longer) to really settle into this new set of responsibilities.

I want to become comfortable with the commute, the huge amounts of reading, and my position as a graduate/teaching assistant. I want to figure out how to effectively balance school/work/family. I am certain it will be out of whack more often than not—but balance is (and will continue to be) a short- and long-term goal.

Once that is all worked out, then I can take the time to actively figure out where blogging fits in. Maybe that will mean blogging twice a week and maybe that will mean blogging twice a month. I simply cannot imagine myself giving it up altogether and I believe that where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Working out and eating healthy is (and always will be) a huge part of my life. I will still be enjoying loads of quick and healthy on-the-go meals (probably even more so now). And of course, I will still be engaging in {quick and sweaty} workouts. After all, exercise is my me-time. It’s my time to free my mind (or to catch up on reading—we shall see). So my hope is that I will gather some fresh new blogging material during this time away.

In the meantime, you can find me on instagram. I apologize in advance for what’s sure to be a steady stream of studying-related pictures. Tweet me. Email me. Leave me a comment. While I may not be blogging/reading blogs, I will be in front of a computer screen more often than not.

So, this is not a goodbye. It's a see you later.

Keep eating clean and sweating hard.

<3 Stefanie