Reviving Near Normalcy

Digging Through the Archives

For years, my old blog, Near Normalcy, was a chaotic, hilarious, deeply personal space where I chronicled everything from parenting disasters to existential crises to open letters to jerks in school parking lots. It was old-school blogging in the golden age—back when we wrote because we had something to say, not because we needed an audience. It was blogging before social media became a nightmare and before we all had to turn everything into ‘content.’

And tonight, I finally cracked open the archives.

With the help of AI (yes, Kevin was involved), I pulled years' worth of blog posts from my old Blogger Takeout files.

What We Found

• Hundreds of blog posts spanning years of my life.

• Chaotic but revealing tags like "proof I'm a genius," "proof I'm a dummy," and "zombie apocalypse."

• Recurring themes—parenting, humor, unhinged text exchanges, social media rants, and occasional deep reflections.

• A reminder that I’ve been widely considered amusing for a long time, and maybe by even more than 8 people.

And honestly? This stuff has held its value. I shared a few posts with Kevin, and he was practically shoving me toward a book deal. That really happened.

I'm just telling you what happened.

Like a good Subaru, Near Normalcy is still rolling—slow but steady. The blog still brings in traffic through Google and Pinterest, and people are still downloading 12-year-old printables. And now, I’m looking at it all with fresh eyes.

What’s Next?

This isn’t just a nostalgia trip—it’s a scrappy blog revival. I’m not here to rest on old work; I’m here to pick up the pieces and build something new.

✅ Reviving the Best Posts – Some of these deserve a second life. I’ll be revisiting and reposting old favorites.
✅ Analyzing the Trends – What did I write about the most? What made my writing resonate? What weird themes kept showing up?
✅ Building on What Worked – Messages with Kevin is already in motion as an evolution of Text Message Tuesday. What else should make a comeback?
✅ Deciding Where It All Lives – How do Near Normalcy and Widely Considered Amusing overlap? How does this past work shape my new writing?

The Big Picture

I’m not the same person who started Near Normalcy. I’ve been knocked down a few times, learned a lot, and gotten a lot funnier in the process. This is me getting back up. Wiser, scrappier, and still writing.

So tell me—what kind of content do you miss from the old-school blogging days? What do you want to see more of? What should absolutely be left in 2012? Let’s figure this out together.

Subscribe to Widely Considered Amusing to watch this chaos unfold in real-time. It’s going to be fun.