A little TCB this morning…

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You might notice the new look at the top of our blog.  There’s a reason we’ve done a little makeover on our banner business.

When we started out back in October, we had some ideas about what we’d blog about and why, but we were open to whatever might come of it.  Our primary goal was to play, have fun, and see what we could see.

Since then, we’ve realized a few things about what we’re not going to be:

Your online source for DIY how-tos
So many others are already doing this, far better than we’ll be able to (or want to).

white stripe top measure 730x485 A little TCB this morning...

Remember when we showed you how to paint a stripe on a wall? Yeah, there's a reason that one isn't jumping out of your memory banks. (Though we still think it was a great good-enough solution to our problem.)

A home decorating blog
It’s not that we don’t care about the looks of our house (we do), but decor is not our passion.

christmas mantel 730x485 A little TCB this morning...

It's not that we don't ever decorate. We sorta do, sometimes. But as you can see here, ours is not the kind of pretty in most decor blogs.

A great collector of resources and/or tips for making a home
Sometimes we pull together resources or come up with lists of things you might like to try, but we’re finding we can’t deliver a steady diet of that kind of content, either.

kitchen 730x488 A little TCB this morning...

Cane did write the epic feast of all cork-flooring posts, with links to every resource you might ever want, but we're not doing that kind of thing as much as we once thought we might.

A font of original, innovative ideas
Oh, we come up with ideas all the time.  Things we think are just awesome and clever and totally new.  And then we Google them and find out they’re awesome, clever ideas that a lot of people had back in 2010.

christmas stocking 730x973 A little TCB this morning...

Nope, I wasn't the first one to think of making a Christmas stocking out of a sweater. Didn't keep me from doing it and blogging about it, but did help me realize how hard it is to be first with a great idea.

So what are we?

We’ve had a hard time coming up with a pithy tagline that captures all we want to say about what we are and hope to be. But we were able to get a few ideas on paper (yes, real, old-school paper) as we talked about it this weekend:

We’re about family, home, and living intentionally.
We’re much more interested in a happy home than we are in a beautiful house.  Our main categories are house, family, and health because we think these are the foundations for home.  As we build our home, we want to do things on purpose, and we want to share our questions, discoveries, and epiphanies with others who are looking for the same things.

christmas dinner 730x547 A little TCB this morning...

No, we are not a picture-book family. But we have fun and love each other well. That doesn't happen by accident.

We’re about story-telling and metaphor.
Yes, you’ll still see list posts from us–but even those will likely tell a story. Or they’ll be embedded in story. I’m a poet and Cane’s an artist. Everything is metaphor and symbol to us.  When we’re writing about our house, we’re never just writing about our house.

docs 730x488 A little TCB this morning...

You can bet there's a story behind these boots. (Check out the October archives if you're interested in hearing it.)

We’re about the why and how more than the what.
We’re as much in search of the what to do as much as anyone who’s fixing up their home/life, but it’s the why  and how of things that fascinate us.

Why should we…How could we…Why do…How do…

These are all beginnings to questions we like to ponder.

playing at kitchen table 730x973 A little TCB this morning...

We weren't driven to create this art wall by the desire to fill the space (though we did want to fill the space) but to answer the question: How can we foster and showcase our family's creativity?

We’re about the 4 R’s:  restoring, renewing, revising, redoing.
Maybe it’s our age, but we almost always love the old more than the new. We believe in second chances–for objects, for people, for dreams. At one point, our lives were as battered and shabby as the furniture we love to restore. We’re glad we didn’t toss them out when they were broken.

light fixture 730x488 A little TCB this morning...

We love the old lights we're putting in the house.

We’re about play and fun.
We’re not as serious as all this talk of metaphor and meaning and battered lives might lead you to think. We’re irreverent and sometimes snarky and we like to poke fun at things (especially ourselves). Life is wonderful and amazing and absurd. We laugh at it all the time.

aa1 730x547 A little TCB this morning...

How can you be all serious when this is your life? (Answer: You can't.)

And where are we going with this blog?

Our primary goal is still to play, have fun, and see what we can see.  What that looks like now is a little different from what it looked like in October, though.

We’re ready to get a little more serious about blogging.  Part of the fun of creation for us is always seeing how well we can do something.  We’ve learned enough to know that we want to dive deeper into the play of blogging and social media.  So, we’ve got a few new things here:

Like us on Facebook

We’ve created a Facebook page so that we can share links to posts and quick ideas about making a home. We keep finding things we want to share that don’t merit a whole post–and we don’t have time to write posts about all that we think our (growing) audience might be interested in.

So, if you like our blog, please Like us on Facebook.
(This is what my friend Andrea calls “making the ask.” Not so comfortable doing it, but another thing we’re about is pushing at our comfort zone.)

We’ve made it easy for you to like us–all you gotta do is click.

Knowing how many fans we’ve got might help us with some other ventures we’re thinking about.

And we’ve joined the Pinners of the world

We’re also pinning things you might like on Pinterest.  Wanna see ‘em?

follow on pinterest button A little TCB this morning...

There’s not a whole lot there.  Yet.  Cane is one of the few men in Pinterest land, and his guy’s perspective on what’s pinnable is…interesting (of course).  You can check his stuff out here.

Regulating ourselves

We’re also trying to get a little more purposeful (read:  professional) in our publication schedule and content.  We’re aiming for a regular schedule of Monday/Wednesday/Friday.  We’re going to try for more of a balance in terms of house, family, and health.  (Ideally, one post on each topic each week.) But don’t hold us to that just yet:  We’re posting this on a Tuesday, and we both have demanding day jobs. This is still strictly a hobby.

We hope you like the changes.  If you do, please subscribe, like us on FB, and/or follow us on Pinterest.  It might help us out in the future, and it for sure will make us feel good right now.

Any great ideas to help us grow?

If there are things you’d like to see (or not), let us know by leaving a comment or posting to our FB page.  We’d love to hear from you. For reals.