Can you believe it, guys?? It’s already been a whole year since I sat down and wrote the first post for this little blog! I had no idea when I started this that I would ever love it as much as I do or that it would become such an important part of my life. To celebrate our first blogiversary (hopefully the first of many more to come), I made myself and my lawfully wedded husband some single serving brownies. A single candle to represent this incredible year!

I have learned SO much from blogging here in the past year, and I want to share a few of those things with you all. It has brought me so much joy to get to know so many of you and share my life and love of food with other people. When I started the blog last January, it had only been 5 months since Jason and I had been married and I was still really learning what it’s like to live on your own and cook for someone else. I’ve grown a lot as a cook since then and have tried all sorts of things in the kitchen than I ever thought I would. I started developing my own recipes, which I never thought I would be doing!

I’ve also discovered an ever growing love of photography that I honestly never knew I had. Having a photographer for a dad, I always appreciated the value of a beautiful photograph but never really saw myself as being the one behind the camera. Now I can’t imagine ever living my life any other way! It’s been so incredible to hear kind words from all of you about my pictures, and also incredible to have them recognized by sites like Foodgawker. But even if no one liked my pictures but me, I know I would still be loving it and taking pictures all the time because it’s such a fun way to express creativity!

Seeing my number of readers grow and getting wonderful reader comments makes me feel so lucky. You all inspire me and motivate me so much. There have been times were I got discouraged because I didn’t have as many subscribers as I thought I should or wasn’t getting as many comments as I thought I should, but when those feelings start to come up I just remind myself how far I’ve come since the beginning and then I can’t help but feel grateful. As long as I still enjoy writing here, and as long as some of you out there enjoy reading it, I can’t see myself ever giving this up. You can’t measure your life in page views, or else you will never be very happy. 😉

And most importantly, in the past year I’ve become dedicated to making my health and the health of my husband a top priority. We are still very young and able to take care ourselves so that we can avoid issues that a lot of people deal with as they get older. I don’t ever want to hear a doctor use the words “diabetes”, “heart disease”, “high cholesterol”, or “obesity” when talking to us, and I firmly believe that so much of that is in our control. I can’t believe how much we’ve changed our living habits in such a short period of time…it’s incredible!

I want to say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to each and every one of you. If I could come through the screen and give you all a giant hug and kiss, I would. You have no idea how much it means to me to have this space, and you all have always respected it. I know I’ve said it a million times, but I’ll say it a million more…this blog keeps me sane!!! When I blew out the candle on my blogiversary brownie, I made a wish that in the coming year I will make even more friends through this site and really find my stride in making healthy, gourmet food the norm in our house.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for reading and supporting me in this past year!

-Lauren