I knew that things were going to be different when I “quit my day job” back at the beginning of 2022. Truth be told, I didn’t really quit anything – I started my own company, started freelancing, and working for myself 100%. That doesn’t mean that I just somehow gained a bunch of free time. In fact, I have far less time to use today on ‘The Gnarly Gnome’ than I did back when I was still working at the old job.

This isn’t a bad thing. I get to spend a couple of days home with my kids each week – which as frustrating as that can be some days while you’re actually trying to get things done is something that I know I’m going to look back on and appreciate someday.

But the point is that with less time to work with, more podcasts, more blog posts, and more projects – at some point something was bound to break. It did. Actually, a bunch of stuff broke all at the same time, and I didn’t have the mental (or physical) bandwidth to get it all back up and running, which really smacked me over the head when that realization hit me.

Where I Went

One morning I woke up to a website crash… which is always fun to deal with. I spent an entire day with my web host trying to get it fixed (that turned into a week of trying to get it back up and running, in the end). As I was in the middle of the stress of dealing with that, it hit me that I hadn’t recorded an episode of Cincy Brewcast in two weeks – I hadn’t done an episode of Drinking With The Gnome in a month and a half – I missed three weeks of my live show on Monday nights.

I wasn’t even being the Gnome – one of the things that enjoy the most. I had a lot of things that needed fixed – and the only way to fix them was to turn the switch off and sort of rebuild it all from the ground up.

Rebuilding The Gnome

When I started this blog I didn’t know what I was doing. I barely know what I’m doing now, truth be told, but none of this was planned out. Over time I just started tacking things onto my weekly schedule, just started figuring out new things that I could do, or that I wanted to do.

Now that life is more chaotic than ever, and now that things were going off the rails a bit – I need to be more deliberate with how I do things. I spent several days breaking down the systems that I have in place, analyzing how they work, how they don’t work, and what I need to do to make this machine run a little more smoothly.

One of the biggest things that I wanted to do when I started working for myself last year was to find more ways to bring The Gnome, and me together. These two sides of my life don’t coexist, they aren’t even really two sides of my life anymore. It’s who I am. I have spent this “rebuilding period” figuring out more ways to make that true. I am a better Gnome today than I’ve ever been.

So. I go through all of that to tell you that it’s not very exciting. I’m not burnt out, or losing passion or any of that. It’s actually quite the opposite. To put out the content that I want to put out in the quantity that I want to do it – I have to be extremely deliberate about how I make things happen, when I do it, and how it all twists and ties together.

Where We Go From Here

As you’re reading this – you’ll see a new Cincy Brewcast episode. Volume 9, Episode 1 is here. A new episode of Drinking with the Gnome is coming, the weekly live show (The Weekly Pint) is back this week. Regular blog posts are back (including a new series called Watering Hole Wednesday that features a new local bar every single week). This year’s new merch will be debuting on the store “soon” including some really great stuff that I’m liking a lot.

I can do more now than I did before. I can do it better. I can do it smarter.

I appreciate everyone who supports this stuff that I do. I appreciate every one of you who reached out to see if they could help when all hell broke loose.

I might be the Gnome… but you guys are all Gnarly. Now, let’s do this!