Texas Blogger Shoutout Heather From Sprittibee Blog 

Welcome, to a new feature I had wanted to start at the beginning of the year but life kept throwing Road Blocks at me. This morning as I was going through emails I found Heather’s feature and I knew it was Gods way of telling me its time to get this new series started. As it isn’t doing anyone any good in drafts. Let’s welcome our Texas Blogger Shoutout Heather from Sprittibee.com!

I started blogging back in 2005 when people thought a blogroll was a sort of dessert. There was no Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the term “Social Media” wasn’t even invented yet. Blogging is a creative outlet for me and took the place of scrapbooking, giving me a way to use my writing and photography skills and capture the moments I was living with my kids and share with other moms online. Since we homeschool, blogging was also a sort of “teacher’s workroom” where I shared ideas and got valuable feedback from other moms and teachers.

Over the years, stats and numbers became a thing and drained the joy out of blogging. I decided to keep doing it and ignore the “rat race” with those consumed with turning their blogs into businesses. Some of them found success, a great number of them ended up sacrificing their marriages and relationships with their kids on the altar of self-promotion. If you do blog for money, you have to find a happy medium, as with anything in life… and I chose to put my time and effort into photography (because it took less of my time away from my family and offered more financial reward for my hard work), and left the blog to tag along with me as I was able to give it attention.

Even though I don’t blog every day anymore, I still consider myself a blogger. I lean a lot heavier on social media these days, too… and probably like Instagram just as much as blogging.

About me and what I blog about:

I’m a native Texan, a lover of gourmet and healthy foods, a cancer survivor, a wanna-be farmer and gardener who is moving from the suburbs to start my own tiny rural Texas farm and plant nursery this year, and I dabble with art and DIY renovating and projects. We renovated our suburban home with a “Chip and Joanna” rustic cowgirl flare (which matched my pointy Texas boots nicely) and didn’t even have to put the house on the market before it had two contracts. Right now we are in the process of selling and praying hard that all goes well for us to be in the country by April!

We will still be in the Austin area. Austin is the capital city and heart of Texas. It may not be bigger than some Texas cities, but it is – in my experience of over 40 years – indeed the most exciting and unique (and weird) of them all! The Texas Hill Country that surrounds the Austin area is gorgeous (something you would miss if you stuck to interstates in Texas). Even the surrounding areas are pretty under spreading “big Texas blue skies.” I am partial to the farmlands in the central Texas area because my grandparents were cattle farmers when I was growing up.

If you want to visit the Austin area, spring is a great time. It warms up here, and the Austin area is usually sunny and problem-free for travelers and tourists. So many things to see and do in Austin. The Congress Bats, Enchanted Rock, the Cedar Park Train. Ethiopian Food – a current crush of mine (and so many other ethnic varieties – you can’t beat TEXMEX). Baseball games at the Round Rock Diamond, UT campus, South Congress (SoCo District) food trucks, Lick Icecream with wild flavors including BEET and CARROT, Marble Falls Sweetberry Farm berry picking. Corn Maze and pumpkins in the fall. The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum with three floors of everything that is great about Texas. The Laguna Gloria Art and Sculpture Museum and Grounds. The Military Museum at Camp Mabry (with annual reenactments and tours). The Oasis restaurant that has hundreds of wooden decks off the side of Lake Travis and boasts that it is the sunset capital of the state (where you might also run in to film stars who live in the area). The 360 bridge and overlook, the LBJ Presidential Library, Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail. Umlauf Sculpture Garden, Barton Springs Pool, Zilker Park, bluebonnets and other wildflowers at Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The Texas State Capitol Building, the Governor’s Mansion, the Moody or Zach Theater. Austin City Lights, Salt Lick BBQ, Mount Bonnell, The Thinkery kid’s museum of fun. Town Lake for boating and water sports. The Texas State Cemetery, the Blanton Museum, the amazing murals and street art, 6th Street pubs and restaurants. The strangely used goods at Uncommon Objects, fireworks over Lady Bird Lake, Longhorn Caverns, the Austin Nature & Science Center, all the fantastic hill country wedding venues. I could go on and on!

Seriously, there is no place in the world with as much amazing food as Austin, Texas! The tacos are unbeatable at Tacodeli. Tex-Mex is defined by whether a restaurant can make it here.

I’m a foodie at heart so living close to Austin is a must. Houston and Dallas also have great restaurants, so don’t lament if you can’t get here. I find that as a cancer-fighter who eats organic, Austin has the best options for food-allergies, restrictive diets, vegans, vegetarians, Paleo eaters, and those who want to eat natural food.

There’s something for EVERYONE in ATX! Austin is the melting pot of Texas – a little of everything in one ultra-groovy place with a beautiful Texas rugged landscape.

I’d love to share my healthy eating, homeschooling, plant-loving, city-girl to farm-girl lifestyle blogging journey with you. You can find me online everywhere under the name “Sprittibee,” which was my Blogger blog (that dates me for sure) title that STUCK. Rather than re-brand once I had more than a hundred readers, I just went with it.

Look me up on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or just pop in at Sprittibee.com!

Happy trails!