E. G. Bella

Hello and happy Wednesday!

You guys, it’s been too long. Little did I know when I shared my temporary blog hiatus post back in October (because I was already too busy to work very much on Cabin Girl) that two days later my life would explode into even more busyness!

So here’s a long overdue update on the last couple months of my life . . . thank you for being patient!

General Update

Let’s start with the best part! As some of you already found out a few weeks ago, I got engaged! That was back on October 23rd (two days after my temporary blog hiatus post), and obviously it’s been the biggest event in my life since.

I feel like I’m mostly over the surreal “this can’t be real, there’s no way I’m getting married” stage, but there are still so many little parts of everyday life that remind me how things are going to change and then I’m sent into that gleeful, disbelieving mindset all over again. It’s been a ride, haha.

That said, I am so excited for this change. My fiancé and I went into our relationship with the hopes and prayers of it working out in marriage, so to be reaching that point quite literally feels like a dream come true. We’ve set a date for April 1st, 2023, which is exactly 108 days from now (…but who’s counting?)!

For those who’ve already asked me how the proposal itself went down, I’ve decided I’ll hold off and do a separate post about that this weekend to avoid making this one too long. But it’s a fun story, and I’m looking forward to sharing it!

As you can imagine, life exploded after we got engaged. Now, not only is there the busyness of the holidays, work, family, and all the normal life stuff we were already doing, but we get to plan a wedding in the next four months too! It’s all very good stuff, but this blog – and writing in general – fell by the wayside until I felt like I had enough time to get back into it properly.

And honestly? It’s been okay. I’ll talk more about this another time, but when I set my growth word for 2022 (balance), I didn’t expect just how God would help me find that. Between health issues and my fiancé, I’ve really had to step back and take a serious look at my commitments, priorities, and what I sign myself up for. It’s been hard, but also great.

So the longer-than-expected break from blogging has been very helpful, and has allowed me to think about my writing goals and strategies for 2023. I don’t know exactly what life before the wedding is going to look like (except for busy), and I really won’t know exactly what married life will be like until I’m there (except for wonderful, haha).

I feel like most of this post is just me hinting at topics I’ll be blogging at soon, but from now through January, I’m looking forward to sharing some of my 2023 goals, how I’m going to be planning my content a little differently, and what my general schedule is going to look like (including some good time to settle into married life come April).

Health

The other update I wanted to give, especially for you sweet friends that have been praying for my migraines, is that I haven’t had a full-on migraine since the beginning of October! This is so huge, as I’d been having them at least several times a month from the beginning of July, and they seemed to be getting much closer together and lasting longer.

I missed quite a bit of work, as well as other bigger events, because I just couldn’t get out of bed for very long – if at all sometimes. After I had to stay in bed on my fiancé’s birthday, when we’d had a special day planned for him with his family, I started feeling really desperate.

We’d found some things that seemed to help lighten the symptoms of each migraine (Tylenol, Ibuprofen, ice packs, and caffeine), but sometimes nothing really helped, and we still didn’t seem to be solving the root issue, whatever it was/is. After some random digging and reading hopeful reviews on Amazon, I ordered a supplement called Migratone, and the day after taking it, I woke up with the week-long migraine that wouldn’t budge lightened.

Since taking it daily, I haven’t had another full-blown migraine, and by now, it’s been over two months! I’m still not sure why I was having them, and there are definitely still bad days and weird symptoms that I deal with a lot more often than I ever did, including dizziness and more frequent headaches, but I can still function. I can still work and attend things, I just need to be prepared and sometimes take it easier. I can do that. It’s manageable now.

I am so thankful for how God has provided. It’s crazy how little of the summer and early fall I remember. It all seems like a blur, and I’m so grateful that’s not an issue with wedding planning and everything right now. I’m no sponsor of that supplement or anything (I mention it by name so that anyone having similar issues can look into it if they want), but I do praise God for granting me relief right now.

So thank you for all your prayers. I really appreciate them, and am also praying for the people that have mentioned they struggle with migraines and other recurring health issues too. I pray you find healthy relief in some form as well.

Fiction

Remember that little thing that I mentioned in my blog hiatus post, about how I was taking time off to work on Cabin Girl and make sure it could be published soon?

Yeah, I hardly did anything on that manuscript. Part of me feels like hanging my head in shame, and the other half is trying hard to remind myself that it’s okay. Two days later, my priorities for the next few months completely changed.

Originally, I’d thought we wouldn’t get engaged until the spring of 2023, so I figured I’d press hard on my writing until then, and then pivot to wedding planning. But instead, the order of events just switched around. In no way am I giving up on publishing Cabin Girl, or continuing to write, but once again, I need to wait and see what that new path is going to look like.

I’ve been really aching to write again lately, so I am still working on it in little bits, but it’s safe to say January isn’t going to be the publishing month. Would I still love to publish before the wedding? Absolutely! Will it be possible? I’m not sure yet.

On the Blog

For the first time since I started my blog in 2020, I didn’t blog at all for an entire month (November). Honestly, it flew by and I didn’t realize it until December, and now I feel strange. Kind of like I’ve ‘broken my streak’, you know?

That also means that the 1.1K- 1.4K site views monthly from August through October have dropped to about 950 and 450 so far in November and December. But for not posting anything? I’m actually pretty thrilled with how I got to see my previously-published content circulate. I’m so glad people are still reading posts from several years ago!

And in addition, the time off gave me some valuable insights into how I can structure my post schedule better, and I’m glad to have had some time to refocus.

Also, I had the privilege of taking part in the Five Fall Favorites blog event (hosted by Kate Willis this year!) before my hiatus, and while posting daily for a week was a huge undertaking for me, I had so much fun sharing and reading others’ book recommendations. I’d love to do it again next year!

In case you missed them, here are those posts for October (just click on the links to read them):

~ 5 Books that Make Me Me (Five Fall Favorites)
~ My Top 5 Fantasy Books (Five Fall Favorites)
~ My Top 5 Indie Books (Five Fall Favorites)
~ My Top 5 Books With a Romance Element
~ My Top 5 Historical Fiction Books (Five Fall Favorites)
~ My Top 5 Books of 2022 (Five Fall Favorites)
~ Know The Novel – Part 1: Introduction
~ Temporary Blog Hiatus

Reading List

I don’t know if this is more or less shocking for me than not blogging for an entire month, but I didn’t finish any books either. The majority of my reading the past couple of months has been about marriage and wedding stuff (surprise, surprise), and sporadic otherwise.

At this point, I’m going to need to change my Goodreads goal for the year . . . but I have high hopes for 2023! Provided I get my schedule balanced the way I’m hoping, and the migraines stay back (because reading with migraines was not fun), I think I should be able to read a lot of books next year. Which is good, because I miss it!

Looking Forward

This has been a super long update post with about 75% of it about engagement/proposal/wedding stuff, but honestly, that’s my life right now. We’re having a family-only wedding, and want to keep things simple, but we also have a very large family between the two of us (as in 100+ people), and by nature, weddings tend to be complicated sometimes.

But we’ve been enjoying the process so far, have a lot of details figured out already, and are excitedly counting down the days until the ceremony. And as we keep repeating, as long as we’re married by the end of the day, it’s a successful wedding, right? That’s all that ultimately matters.

I’m glad to say, I have far more consistent posts planned for the rest of December and through January. Thank you for sticking around and continuing to message me, read my posts, send emails, etc. I’ve missed interacting with you as frequently, and look forward to getting back into the swing of things as I can!

What have your past couple of months been like? Has anything especially exciting happened? Have you made progress on some of your goals, or learned some important lessons? I’d love to hear about what’s been going on in your life!

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