The Curvier Carrot.

Boom.  Shazam.  Ta-da.  Voila.

May I introduce to you, my dear friends, the new and very much improved Curvy Carrot.

If you hear squeals of joy and endless applause coming from the Milwaukee area, it’s me. I’ll admit it.  And it’s not incredibly coincidental that this unveiling of my new face-lift (no, not like Vicki Gunvalson on RHOC) lands on almost the exact anniversary of the birth of this little blog.

It’s been three years, and boy, have we come a long way.  (And, yes, by “we” I mean the blog and myself.)  I’ve lived in three different states, had three different jobs in my training field, changed my legal tax filing status (single), and haven’t apparently slowed down to take a breath.  The blog has truly been a labor of love:  days I loved it, days I didn’t love it so much, but one thing was always guaranteed-the blog has brought me a lot of pure joy.

Going through all the old recipes/photos got me a little sentimental over this past weekend.  I’ve seen my writing improve, my photos improve, and I’ve seen a growing circle of “internet” friends get a lot bigger.  I’ve been inspired, I’ve been hurt, and I’ve been able to revisit each and every single post.  I can tell you the exact feelings I was experiencing for each post: some days I was sad, some days I was happy, and some days I was just really really hungry.  It’s a virtual diary.  To you, it’s a recipe and maybe a picture or two.  To me, it’s a personal and transformative journey.

So, it brings a little tear or two to my eyes to see my vision come to a very graphically and aesthetically pleasing new design (let’s be honest…the old version was embarassingly pathetic.)  I have to thank Ryan at Second Street Creative for being able to literally transform my swirl of unorganized requests into something that magically is everything I wanted it to be.  And, of course, I have to thank Annie for pushing me to even start this blog in the first place.  She always believed in me, even when I wholeheartedly did not believe in myself.  And that means everything.  Everything.

So there are a lot of new features here that I hope you play around with.   I’ve updated several of the recipes to include them in various categories.  My favorite part of the new look?  Click the “Categories” tab on the top of the page.  Click on any kind of dish you are looking for.  And then you will get a full catalog of every single photo with direct links to the actual blog posts (so you don’t have to scroll through umpteen other entries.)  There is a “Search” function here which works waaaaaay better than the previous site.  The majority of the recipes can be found with a simple search.  You can link directly to Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest at the top of the page.  The image at the top of the page will be a scrolling image file (sit and watch it for a few seconds like I have…over and over and over again…), and you will be able to directly link to the posts that are featured at the top. I have updated my About Me page (although I cannot guarantee that my hair color is still the same).

I debated for a really long time about adding more advertisers at the side of the page.  Yes, this is a revenue-producing hobby.  But, no, I’m not all about the money here.  I wanted something clean, classy, and although having an ad is something that is nice and able to help pay the bills each month, I refuse to let this blog become about money/revenue.  I wanted something unobtrusive.  I am not a fan of blogs who have 18 different ads on their side bars.  I’m just not about that.  So, after a long back-and-forth battle in my brain, I am going to stick with just one ad so that you can find and enjoy the reason why you came to visit this site in the first place: the food.

Regular posts will be up and running very very soon.  I can’t express my thanks and joy to you for coming to this site.  It means a lot.

Now, let’s eat!