Welcome to Carrots! I'm so glad you're back. You can sign up for my email newsletter here to stay in touch, or look me up on Instagram!
I’ve had a few readers ask me what blogs I like to follow, so I want to share a few of my favorites with you. When I became a young mom, I didn’t have any friends with children and having a window into the lives of other mothers (particularly Catholic mums) really encouraged me and that’s how I started following blogs in general.
But first, did you notice the changes I made to Carrots? New header/logo design! I asked a friend who is a graphic designer to create a logo that looked like a Victorian book cover and I really love what he came up with! Thanks to your great suggestions on FB, I was inspired to create a new “tagline” over the header that is a better explanation of what Carrots is all about: “Cultivating a Catholic family through literature, liturgical living, and urban homesteading.” Props to Molly Makes Do for suggesting, “Cultivating” (carrots…gardening…urban homesteading…cultivating, get it?!).
And I changed my photo on the left sidebar because the old one was seeming a little emo. What do you think? I’ve already had a few readers say, “Hey! I miss the old photo of the carrots!” Nobody likes change!
So if you follow Carrots with a reader, go check out the site! I also spent a lot of time updating the archive categories above the header. There’s a little bit more work to do, but it should be much easier to find your favorite posts in the archives now!
Without further ado, my favorite blogs to follow (I split them into three categories):
Design/Fashion: I don’t follow many design/fashion blogs. I have a terrible eye for design and my love of fashion has decreased dramatically since I haven’t been the same size for more than a few weeks at a time since 2008 (pregnancies!), so I’m not really tempted to buy new clothes.
A Beautiful Mess: Lots of DIY stuff I will never do and pretty outfits I will never buy. But I do try out some of their hair tutorials and everything is just so…well, pretty.
twIN STYLE: Adorable style blog by twin sisters who live across the country from each other. They connect with each other’s daily outfits through the blog and it’s just so cute. They’re dear friends from college and have classy, fun style!
Catholic: Some are primarily reflections on Catholic faith, some tend more toward the “mom blog” genre and some are both. All are delightful.
Conversion Diary: Just started reading this one by Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow convert. I can tell it’s going to be a favorite.
Fountains of Home: Christy chronicles life with many little ones, pregnancy, and lots of great G.K. Chesterton quotes. I think we would be best friends in real life.
Home to Catholicism: Haley writes about her journey to the Church and going through RCIA. She’s funny and delightful. Can’t wait to welcome her this Easter when she officially comes home!
House Unseen: I like Dwija more than almost anyone that I don’t actually know. Does that make sense? She’s hilarious and quirky and great. Lots of fun homeschooling stuff and just general motherhood Catholic stuff.
I Have to Sit Down: Simcha Fisher’s blog, mostly linking to her fantastic pieces published on the National Register’s site. She’s clever and inspiring and laugh out loud funny.
Molly Makes Do: Molly, fellow Little HolyDays host, writes about liturgical living and also simplicity. She’s being confirmed this Easter (yay!).
More Like Mary–More Like Me: My friend IRL Kaitlin’s blog about family and faith. Love it.
shouting hallelujah: Another friend IRL, Katherine, tackles motherhood, books, faith, and other delightful things in her tumblr.
Surviving Our Blessings: Abbey’s blog is thoughtful, inspiring, honest, and just lovely. Her kids are the same ages as mine (except she has a set of precious twins!) and we both have Lucys (Lucies?).
Two Os Plus More: Sarah’s blog posts about the liturgical year, DIY, and homeschooling are some of my favorites. The posts are interesting and so well-organized. Sarah’s a photographer, so the pics are obviously grand. So much of her blog cries out to be pinned!
Family/Wellness/Organization:
Kitchen Stewardship: Recipes, family health, frugality, natural living, and more, Katie Kimball puts so much research into every post. Whenever I read her, I’m so glad she did my homework for me!
Life Your Way: As a organizationally-challenged gal, I love how Mandi Ehman’s site puts everything into bite-sized pieces and I’m inspired without being overwhelmed. I also just like her immensely from following her sweet family on Instagram and love how she and her husband have managed to homeschool their four girls together and work from home.
Simple Mom: The first blog I ever started reading. Still following 5 years later.
Simple Kids: My favorite of the Simple Living Media blogs edited by Kara Fleck. I love her simple, authentic approach to parenting and her children are just adorable.
First, your new design looks fantastic
And thanks for the blog favorites! It’s funny–and maybe a little sad?–that now when we don’t know how to do something we look it up on the internet. That’s how I began following blogs as well, I realized I didn’t know how to be a Catholic mom (being a convert myself and also the first of my friends with child), and I needed some inspiration–I wanted to see what other people were doing. I thought to myself, the internet has to have the answer to this and after some googling I found the genre of mom blogs and my life was never the same again
Thanks, Christina!
I like the new profile picture, Haley! You look so happy and I’m sure you were with your bautiful baby!
Thanks for your suggestions… I love reading us american catholic blogs.
Many of your stories are about conversion and it sounds so new to me because I was born as catholic and – even if I’ve been through hard times in my journey as catholic – I’ve never had the chance to see how powerfull can be the Holy Spirit with changing someone life. I have some friends from evangelical churches here in Italy but I’ve never experienced someone else’s conversion story.
Your experience is so enlightening to me.
Also, I really love Christy of Fountains of Home. I’ve been promising myself to drop her a line someday but I never did.. so, if you read this Christy, I like your blog a lot!
Hope you’ll have a great time at BlissDom, Heley!
and say hello to the lady chickens form me! Their pics always crack me up! xoxo
Paola
ps. I want to apologize if sometimes my english is not so good.. hope you can understand!
Awww, thank you. You’re doing great with the English, Paola!
fun post! Change, it’s always hard! FYI, in my new reader, feedly, your blog no longer came up in my feeds as named; it seems that you need to do something to get your title back on the – what do you call it- top tab that opens on your browser. The tab now just has the title of this blog post instead of your blog name. I would change this as it may impact your blog readership in new readers who are scanning their feeds to see what blogs they want to read that day and fail to see that it is you (i.e. your blog name) who wrote the post.
Best wishes to you!
Thanks, Elizabeth! It’s so helpful when y’all tell me about quirks like this that I need to fix. I’m so technologically-challenged that sometimes I don’t know where to start with a solution, but I will look into it. I appreciate it!
If today hadn’t been the day we got to see our tiny baby’s heartbeat via ultrasound, I would say reading your sweet words was the best moment of my day! As it is, second best will have to do!
I’ve so enjoyed getting to know you via Instagram too!
Oh, Mandi! How exciting! I’m so happy to hear about sweet baby thriving.
Your carrot photo was fun to see, but I love how the new design reflects what you wanted to convey – a Victorian book cover – it’s sweet, cozy, and so pretty! The new profile photo is friendly and full of personality. I have a looking-sideways photo on my blog and it needs to change – as soon as I get a decent photo of myself…
Nancy, I just hopped over to your tumblr (I loved the name, so I had to check it out) and just love it. Medieval Christian art was what I was studying in grad school. We might be kindred spirits
Yes, definitely kindred spirits! How cool that you studied Medieval art on the graduate level. I was an art history major undergraduate, but at that time I concentrated on Northern Art of the Renaissance. Since then my interests have drifted back to early Medieval and Byzantine.
Don’t be too impressed, Nancy! I only stuck with it for a semester before deciding to stay home with Benjamin and have baby #2. But it will always be a passion.
Thanks for the blog suggestions- it’s always fun to find new ones!
Just started following you and I’m looking forward to reading more!
Thanks, Francine
This is my first visit to Carrots, and I already love it. I found you via Dwija at House Unseen. Come by and see me at Home In Douglas!
Thank you so much
Thanks so much for including me on the list! I’m honored! And I love that header. It looks great.
Thanks again and have a great weekend!
Thanks, Jennifer! I’m loving your blog
Thank you SO much for your kind words about SK. What great company to be in
I’m terribly flattered!
Also, I hope you’re having a fantastic time at Blissdom! Perhaps some day our paths will cross at a blogging conference? I’d love to meet you in person
Having a great time at BlissDom, but so wish you were here!
Okay, so had to click over (yes, I use Google Reader, and yes, I’m mourning its soon-to-be demise) to see the new design. Beautiful! And have lots of new blogs to check out now. Thanks!
Thanks, Karen! I’m so sad about Google Reader! I need to get on the ball and switch over to something else before it dies.
I think it looks great! But I do miss the dirty carrots, and I liked your emo picture!!