Last week, we were in Austin at a conference and I missed Casual Friday. Like, truly missed it. But, at the same time, we learned so much at our conference that was put on by our ad network. It was our first time attending a blog conference (which shocked everyone!) and the blogging world is vast and so smart. There are so many people in our network doing incredible things and I tried to soak up every ounce of their knowledge. We got to learn from major players in our field, like Randi Zuckerberg, or Sarah Carpenter from Google or Enid Hwang of Pinterest (their 4th ever employee that’s still with the company and a complete delight). As home bloggers, we were definitely the minority, both in attendees and in traffic. Ha! The amount of traffic food bloggers get is mind-blowing. And while a lot of their practices are vastly different than ours (ie. our site would never work in the magazine format, as it’s more story/timeline-based), I learned that just because we’ve been doing the same thing for 9 years, somewhat successfully, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for improvement. We’ve never paid attention to SEO, or sent out a newsletter or improved past posts. We picked up a lot of pointers and shared a bit of the tips we picked up along the way, too. But more than anything, we came home reignited to work hard and put out our best content for you and continue to build this community that’s been around this corner of the internet for nine years and counting.

Other fun things this week!

• Our bathroom renovation starts on Monday! Eeeeeee! But also, eeeek. I’m so excited but also nervous. Will it all go as planned? What is the thing that’s going to go wrong. We’ll definitely update you in real time here, but it’s not going to be our fastest project. We’re projecting it taking one month and we’ll be demoing our closet at the same time. Which means–we have to move all of our clothes and bathroom stuff of our room this weekend, and design a closet asap. Chaos and clutter generally stresses me out faster than anything else, so I’m trying to think of the best system to implement for our clothes in the meantime. The excited part comes from when I look at our plans and when packages start arriving and when about 25 of you send me this photo. Can’t wait for our own deep green tile!

• We ordered a new outdoor rug for our deck this week! I made a Pinterest board of all my favorites right now (check it out here!) and decided to go with this blue one. The forecast is looking good for us to set up our deck soon, too!

• @sararosedesign’s black version of the built-ins we have in our basement are making me want to paint ours. SO GOOD!!!

• Did you catch the CLJ Q&A this week on Instagram? We are answering your questions every Wednesday evening in Stories. I added it to my Instagram Highlights if you missed it (I’ll swap out the new one every week.) This week we chatted about kitchen cabinet colors, painting tile, Chris’s Smile Direct, My favorite scents, Our financial situation and even had a good laugh over wedding pictures and more! We love chatting with you all!

• I’m on the hunt for a more fitted black moto leather jacket. Spring is trying to show up around here, but it gets chilly at night in our desert climate for months more and all I have is a light black trench–which goes with a lot, but not everything. My friend has this Michael Kors one that is stunning! but my heart basically stopped beating when I saw the price. Is it worth it? Here are four more budget-friendly ones I’m looking at:

I’m leaning toward this one, from Express, (that’s on super sale!) but would love to hear your favorite or if you own another one that you love!

• Hope you have a Happy Easter! We’re hosting, so I’ll definitely be doing napkin bunnies again! And if you missed it, check out Chris’s easy overnight ham recipe here.

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