Catching Up and I’m Curious …

Hello! I wanted to share an update on life happenings and hoped we can catch up a bit. How have y’all been?

Since I work on Saturdays, I took a personal day today and worked through the morning at home. I feel good signing off for the day and thought it would be the perfect opportunity to sit down and chat here on the blog. I miss you all so much.

First things first, I owe a big thank you to all who took the time to fill out the survey I put out there last week. There were over four hundred entries, which is amazing to see and read. Your feedback means a lot to me, as I try and make an conscious effort to create the kind of content the majority of you like to see.

That said, here are some of the results.

The majority of LIL readers have been following along for over two years (so much love to you!), don’t leave comments, and don’t run a blog themselves.

Most of you ask to see 1-2 new blog posts per week, or to blog as much as I can. You don’t mind sponsored posts and are pretty neutral about giveaways.

I was really happy to see that nearly ninety-seven percent of you prefer to see a casual day-to-day posting style over professionally photographed content. Truth is, if that’s what you guys like to see, I was going to make it happen … but let’s be real – ain’t nobody (who works 40-50+ hours outside of the home) got time for that. My goal is to throw in posts with the help of professionals from time to time, but by no means is that what you can expect on a regular basis around here. It’s just not realistic!

Something that surprised me was to see the following ranked from most to least popular:

• Personal Posts (Weekend Recaps & Life Updates)
• Friday Favorites
• Coffee Talks
• What I Ate Wednesdays
• How To and Tutorials
• Beauty
• Fashion
• Recipes
• Workouts
• Blogging Tips

I’ll be sure to include new workouts here and there (some of you said you miss them!), and I’ll probably only continue to share blogging tips if I receive questions on them. I would love to get back in the kitchen more, which in turn, would produce more recipes to share as well. I cover a lot of the other topics in Friday Favorites and could easily craft more WIAW posts.

I also want to document more of our adventures in NYC. There’s so much to explore out there, and some of you said you actually bookmark things I share for future visits. Now I feel bad for not including a lot of what we’ve been up to this year. All. the. things!

Most of you don’t have a preference on a theme upgrade, and it’s not something I’m in a hurry to do right this second, but I think it would be fun to take updated pictures and install a header that didn’t include me. I originally wanted it to be obvious why I named the site Life In Leggings, so I thought the picture was necessary. But, maybe it’s time for something new.

I really, really enjoyed reading your comments. It made me smile so hard to read paragraphs of feedback from some, and your words included both praises and constructive criticism. Thank you for that! One of you said that LIL is your favorite blog to read which completely made my week. It also gets me motivated to get back at it!

A lot of you noted that my style of blogging is extremely relatable, which excites me. I’ve never been one to fake how I’m feeling or put on charades “for the blog”. I took a few hiatuses from posting frequently because I needed to, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you all are still here, reading and participating in surveys to help me improve this space.

It was so refreshing to read that most of you recognize that blogging is not a full-time job for most people, and you’d much rather have me pop in with a “fresh set of rambles” than spend hours and hours worrying about a workout looking exactly right. In fact, some said that you mainly skim over those posts. Noted. I actually chose to stop sharing workouts for a while because I didn’t think they compared to others out there who always accompanied them with professional photo breakdowns. I know it seems silly, but I felt like you all deserved to have that, and if I couldn’t produce it, I shouldn’t put my workouts out there at all.

This whole evaluating process has taught me a lot. And a lot of your comments reminded me that this is my space to do what I please with it. I guess it is!

All of that being said, I’m going to do my best to say hello on a consistent basis and share what I think you would like to read when it makes sense.

Today, that includes the most random smoothie concoction because it was delicious and I’m curious …

• banana
• blueberries
• watermelon Greek yogurt (<- um, delish)
• low-fat cottage cheese
• splash of almond milk
• ice

Do you ever use cottage cheese in your smoothies?

I love the extra punch of protein and added thickness. Try it sometime!

There’s a lot more than today to catch up on, but I’ll try my best to cut it down to a paragraph:

Work is busy! The studio is hitting record numbers and our workouts are full! I haven’t taken Roadie running in a long time, mostly because he’s getting older (we think 8ish — remember he was a stray, so it’s a guess) and I get nervous to go further than a mile or two with him. He’s still the sweetest and I need to share more photos of him.

And the girls.

Scott is currently in London working the IAAF World Championships! He’s been gone since the end of July and doesn’t get back until next week. (Woof.) He helped create a mascot character for the event named HERO. A recent stunt was actually trending on Twitter, so I guess you could say it’s going well. I’m so proud of him! My workouts have slowed down quite a bit for now, but not forever, and I’ll be back to share more updates on that soon. The City still never sleeps, and we’re doing our best to soak in as much as we can!

Thanks again for the valuable feedback, and I’ll be back on the blog sooner than later.

Have a great week!