How to Bootstrap Your Food Blog

[00:00:00] Marly McMillen: Hey everyone, I’m happy to have on the show today. Kristin wood, she’s with the site, moon and spoon, and yum. Hi, Kristin, and welcome to the top podcast. 

Kristen Wood: Hi. Thank you for having me. 

Marly McMillen: I’m so excited. We haven’t met in person, but you know, you sent me this email and I just feel so inspired by our discussion.

I think it’s going to be so helpful and really people are going to resonate with it so 

Kristen Wood: much.

I hope so. I’m excited about it. 

Marly McMillen: So the thing I love to start with is let’s talk about your blog. First of all, I love the name because I think so many people would have done moon spoon and yum. And you, I think that ant sounds kind of intentional.

Did you do that on purpose? 

Kristen Wood: yes. Yes. I think I did. I wrote down, you know, I just came up with my name by writing down a long list of names and just slowly going through it and crossing things out, and I just ended up with that one. And I just wanted something a little different. I just didn’t want, yeah, I just wanted to stand out a little bit and have something that also was kind of personal, too personal to me and could also [00:01:00] be kind of kid friendly because I was a new mother.

So it’s just kind of several things wrapped into one with the name. It has 

Marly McMillen: kind of a nursery rhyme field to it. Is it? Is that 

Kristen Wood: what you were going for a yes. And also I have just always been, I’ve always been really affected by the moon and its cycles. So there are just many different things that go into the moon.

And then I wanted to rhyme to be kind of kid friendly and then yum just to kind of. Yeah, signify food. 

Marly McMillen: Tie in the food somewhere. when my daughter, when I was pregnant with her, I did her room in the cow, jumped over the  moon, and it was just, I just, I went all in, I think I had the nesting syndrome took over and I was all over about the moon.

I love it. Yeah. And then of course she ended up, my daughter decided she wanted to be, NASA astronauts and she went to space camp several years. Yeah. So maybe that had an influence on her, but she didn’t end up going that direction. But I think she still has an interest in it. And who knows, 

Kristen Wood: My son, my oldest son, my five-year-old. Yeah. He’s always [00:02:00] talking about black holes. 

Marly McMillen: Wow. Yeah. That’s cool. 

Kristen Wood: It’s definitely a space theme in this family. 

Marly McMillen: That’s so cool. We have that too. My husband is very much into that. We, we’ve watched the Neil deGrasse Tyson, maybe someday.

Kristen Wood: Oh, that’s neat. Yeah. My son’s obsessed with space. 

Marly McMillen: Oh, are you really? 

is it called billions?

I think. Has your son watched that? He would probably love that 

Kristen Wood: he has and he finds little, you know, educational videos on YouTube. You know, what is the black hole? You know, what is the solar system? He likes watching all that stuff. 

Marly McMillen: Oh yeah. There’s so many cool. I, this was one thing I love about this age that we’re in, and that is all of these individuals that are baby bright in certain ways.

Like we follow some YouTube channels that do. A science or this. There’s an astronomer in the backyard guy that shows how he takes pictures of, of stars and things. That’s really cool. Yeah. Anyway, we could talk about that all day, but I think we’re here to talk about food. Right. 

Kristen Wood: Thanks. 

[00:03:00] Marly McMillen: So tell me, what was it that caused you to start your food blog?

Kristen Wood: It was really just a way of combining passions because. I’ve been interested in photography for years, but I mainly, you know, spend a lot of time shooting nature, photography, landscape photography, travel photography, and, you know, I, I’ve always loved cooking and been inspired by ingredients and food.

But, when I became a new mom, I really knew that I still needed a creative outlet. And so I just, it, it just occurred to me to something one day, like, what would it be like if I start taking pictures of my food because I’m always cooking, you know, and I’m always creating recipes. I love playing with stuff, you know, in the kitchen.

And it really just was a way of combining those passions. Food and photography. I thought it was a perfect fit and it really does seem to be a perfect fit for me. I really love it. It’s something I still enjoy and have passion for and I’m grateful for that. 

Marly McMillen: Did you love food before? I mean, were you interested in cooking before you started your blog?

Kristen Wood: Oh, definitely. Like I remember as a child, like when I would visit my grandparents, [00:04:00] my granny, I would like read her taste of home magazines and I would bring home recipe cards of hers, handwritten recipe cards, and yeah, I’ve always been a foodie. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. Okay. So that, that was just definitely a natural progression for you then.

Kristen Wood: Yes. 

Marly McMillen: When you started your blog, did you think it would have the possibility of being a business or was it mostly hobby focused? 

Kristen Wood: When I first started it, I think it was just more a creative outlet for me, but then I quickly began to learn that, okay, people are doing this and they’re taking it seriously and they’re really making a living from it, and it can become something.

So then it really peaked my interest in. I, started learning all of that I could. I made a lot of mistakes. I started out on Weebly and then I decided to move to Squarespace and only recently moved to WordPress. And, you know, I’m kind of kicking myself, but at the same time, I know, I feel like things happen for a reason.

I really believe that. And I feel like I wouldn’t have learned all that I learned if I had started out on WordPress in the first place. So 

Marly McMillen: it’s. It’s what it was supposed to be. And I love that and I really want to get into [00:05:00] that more with you, but let’s, let’s get into that in a minute. First, I want to ask you about, you know, the photography side of things.

So you, you sound like you kind of came into this with, some photography skills. Did you find food photography to be challenging at all? 

Kristen Wood: Oh yes, definitely. Because I’m used to just stumbling upon compositions in nature. Like spotting them, spying them, you know, in nature. Just like hiking. And I just see something and I see a perfect composition.

So I take it’s photo. I’m not used to styling and creating compositions myself for food. So that’s been a really steep learning curve for me. And it’s like only recently did I start incorporating props and stuff and really thinking about it more, you know, sincerely, because, I just didn’t think that way.

I used to just take head-on shots of the food in the bowl, kind of macro shots. You know, it still was okay because it was kind of focused on the food and that’s what it’s about. But, recently I’ve started exploring more of, you know, creating compositions. Flat lays. Incorporating more props, really thinking more about, you know, putting a lot more effort and thought into it all.

Marly McMillen: It is [00:06:00] challenging. I think styling to me is probably one of the hardest parts about your photography. If you ask me, 

Kristen Wood: I’ll definitely do lighting, natural lighting 

Marly McMillen: and ask you about like, 

Kristen Wood: yes, I’ve only done natural lighting, and that’s something that I’ve, I’ve always looked at throughout life. You know, I always noticed the light changing and so I’m always looking for that, but.

Yeah. Sometimes I don’t have the option of shooting during ideal times because of kids and such. So try to have the most of what I can do. But yeah, I love natural light. 

Marly McMillen: I think you live in an area of the country, and I don’t mean to downplay your relationship with the light at all, but you know, here in the Midwest, things change a lot.

But you, you’re in Arizona, so do you feel like this, you know, you have more light to, to work with. 

Kristen Wood: gosh, I don’t know, because I haven’t really explored this journey anywhere else. You know, and we’re in the mountains, we’re at a high elevation, and we, you know, it’s a temperate climate. but you know, we recently moved and that, you know, that changes things too, [00:07:00] getting used to, you know, different directions of light and windows and different windows and different setups.

And I feel like I’m relearning everything again because I had a favorite window at our old place, so. And there’s always something to learn about light. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. It’s just you would think it would be so simple, but you know, like just the time of the day that you’re shooting may change thing. Especially like you have little ones.

It’s, it’s just very challenging. We, we’ve, we eventually gave in and we got, we have a light box now, but I do miss natural lighting is really nice. I think it works really well with your style of photography too. 

Kristen Wood: Oh, thank you. Yes. I’m interested in exploring artificial lighting eventually because I feel like it could be more unproductive because I like working at night, so we’ll see.

Someday. If 

Marly McMillen: that is true, you know, we, I can even shoot like right before we have dinner and it’s, it is nice just because you have a lot more flexibility that way. Well, I, I’ve noticed that you have your own style of photography and I’m always so inspired by people like that because, I feel like, you know, it’s so easy to [00:08:00] kind of maybe craft our style after somebody else’s, but you seem to have carved your own path and I’m just curious if you could talk about that.

Kristen Wood: Well, it’s something that, That both comes naturally for me. And that also I struggle with because I’ve tried to, you know, do the light and bright stuff and I feel like it’s not. Quite me. I’ve dabbled in all these different styles that you see are more common to food blogging, and you read a lot of stuff where you know, you get the feeling that a lot of brands prefer you to shoot in a pretty straight on kind of style.

But no matter what I do, I keep going back to kind of slightly moody stuff, you know? It just seems to be naturally me and I can’t really fight it, you know? And also I’m a person, I’m kind of a restless spirit and I get bored easily, so I really have a hard time have, you know. Having each recipe have the same style be shot at the same style.

That kind of takes some of the fun out of it for me. Yes. I don’t want things to become automatic. I don’t want to be applying the same preset to every shoot. yeah. I just, that’s part of the fun for me. I love editing and part of the fun for me is [00:09:00] trying out new things. 

Marly McMillen: Right. When you said booty, I was thinking, dark, but you mean moody as in you change the style based on what that recipe’s calling?

Yeah, 

Kristen Wood: exactly. I really do things based upon the colors, the ingredients, that background I use. I just, I kind of just do things intuitively and just kind of let it flow and yeah, it’s usually not what I intended to do in the first place, you know? But I just, I can’t fit myself into a box, so I kind of given up and I’m like, I’m just going to let the creative muse take me where it will.

Marly McMillen: I love that. And I think there’s something to be said for that, I think. I think we’d all would enjoy the process a whole lot more if we could. If we could tap into that. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about your blog, because it sounds like you’ve been on quite the journey, and I think it’s a path that will inspire a lot of people.

So I, the way I describe, you know what, what you’ve gone through is, I call it, it sounds to me like you’ve been bootstrapping your food blog. Can you talk about how you started your blog [00:10:00] and how, you know, we’re, you know, what, what it felt like at the beginning. 

Kristen Wood: Yes. I started it. We were living in a studio apartment, with our son and later our second son.

very small quarters, very limited resources. I have my Nikon DSLR that I’ve had for years and years. It doesn’t have video capability. sometimes we were getting food from the food bank. I made the most of everything that we had to start this all up. I, you know, make my own backdrops. I used free editing software in the beginning.

I use the cheapest Weedly plan. I started out in Weebly. I did everything as. Yeah, budget friendly as I could. And my goal at the time was just to make enough to cover the website fees, you know, just to be able to continue this, this path. but it was tough. I mean, it, you know, I even now, you know, my kids around me, nearly 24, seven, and, you know, a large portion of the posts written there, were written while I was breastfeeding, you know, everything was, yeah, it was just a real uphill battle.

[00:11:00] A lot of challenging circumstances. 

Marly McMillen: I love that story though, because I think it’s easy for us, for, you know, to tell, tell a story about other people. Like we would say, Oh, they, they bought, you know, they had this tool or that tool. And you know, if you can’t afford those tools, then you, you have to figure a way to get it done.

And so it sounds to me like you were able to figure all that out and do it yourself. 

Kristen Wood: Oh yes. I’ve found all sorts of workarounds for things. And. Yeah. There are a lot of great free resources. Like I love the food blogger central Facebook group. You can learn so much by just, you know, searching SEO, search engine optimization in those groups and you know, you can just learn so much from other bloggers.

A lot of bloggers are really open to you reaching out to them and asking for advice too. I find it a very friendly community and it’s like where there’s a will, there’s a way for anything really. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. Yes. Oh, so you’re, speaking of resources of, of like, people who are offering their guidance and advice, were [00:12:00] there tools that you wish that you had along the way?

Like I’m thinking of things like, you know, social media sharing tools or things that would help you blog in a way. 

Kristen Wood: Well, what’s funny is something like TeleFind, I, Pinterest has always been my strong game and without telling, and I’ve done well with it, you know, throughout the years. And one, the first time I tried tell when my traffic on there totally tanked.

So then I got rid of it immediately. And it was only recently that I tried it again. And it seems to be going all right right now. But, you know, in some instances, I was excited to try things once I was able to afford certain things, but they weren’t. All they were cracked up to be for me. That’s what’s kind of ironic too.

Marly McMillen: Well, I find it interesting because I think, I think we tell ourselves this story again, that, we could do so much more if we had such and such tool and, but I wonder if it automating things kinds of, kind of disassociates us from the results. And so. You know, I don’t know. Like I, I just always think that technology can make us do things faster, but that doesn’t [00:13:00] always mean it’s smarter.

Kristen Wood: Yes, yes, exactly. You know, I, it took a long time for me to dive into video because I don’t have video capability. I’m a camera and, I eventually just jumped in and said, you know, I need to do this. Even if the quality is kind of crappy with my phone. And I did, I jumped into it and I love it. And yeah, the videos aren’t perfect, but I think it’s helped the blog grow quite a bit too.

So sometimes you just kind to hold yourself back by thinking you have to have the next great thing in order to get started on something. But instead, I’ve just kind of forced myself to start things without. Things being perfect, you know? 

Marly McMillen: Yes. I hope people hear this message. I mean, it’s so easy to want to be a perfectionist.

Again, I think we compare ourselves to the top 5% of bloggers that are out there that are doing just an amazing, maybe they have a team who’s working with them, who knows, but, you know, you can get out there and do some amazing things with the tools that you have available. 

Kristen Wood: Yes, yes, exactly. I love 

Marly McMillen: it.

Okay, so let’s talk about that migration process because you started out on a different [00:14:00] platform. It sounds like you went through two different platforms before you got to WordPress. Can you talk about that? 

Kristen Wood: Well, when I started out on Weebly, I. I enjoyed it. I mean, it was easy to use and, but you know, eventually I learned like, okay, wait a minute.

What are recipe cards? What’s this business about? What’s, you know, what’s this whole Google friendly stuff? Having them read your recipes and you know, what’s this code? You know? Eventually it took a while, but I learned about that and I didn’t, I, that’s, that’s when I decided to move to Squarespace and. I cause I learned that you could still place the skimmer, you know the Jason LD, Jason LD code into the post on Squarespace.

You could still make a Google friendly. You didn’t have an automated recipe card generator, but I found lots of work arounds with Squarespace for just coding things myself. And it worked. And I grew a lot on that platform, but, it was a lot more work than it needed to be because once I moved to WordPress, I realized, Oh, it’s so great that I just, [00:15:00] I just entered this here and it automatically does it for me.

It’s saving so much time that I was putting hours and hours into one post, you know, on, on Squarespace. And, it’s really helped me be more efficient. We’re presses amazing. All the plugins that do things for you. Instead of going back to every single post and having to enter things individually, it was just amazing to me.

What you could do with WordPress 

Marly McMillen: was the transition, difficult the migration 

Kristen Wood: as much as I expected. on a move from Weebly to Squarespace, I did things, I copied and pasted every individual recipe with, from Squarespace to WordPress. My host excludes who I love, migrated everything for me, all of the content.

and so that was great. It was a lot easier than I expected. I wondered why I’d held off for so long. I’m sure there was a little bit of cleaning up to do here and there. And I, you know, I’ve obviously went back and entered all the information to recipe cards, but I’m still, it was, it was, yeah, it wasn’t bad at all.

Marly McMillen: Right. And I, I’m not aware of the difference. I’m S I should probably know more about Squarespace. Was there [00:16:00] a fee involved or what was the, what was the reason that held you back from moving to WordPress? 

Kristen Wood: I was attracted to Squarespace. I liked the look of their websites. I wasn’t sure what I would be getting into with WordPress.

I was afraid it would be a little overwhelming for me at the time. And I just, I really like, I do still like Squarespace. It’s just, it’s harder to grow on that platform. It’s, you know, and it’s a lot. You have to put a lot of work into making things SEO friendly, compared to WordPress. But, it’s still a great platform.

I think it’s great if you have a, you know, a store, you know, more of a static website and you’re wanting to display just your photography, a little gallery. But when it comes to coding and you know, like I love Yoast and I love, being able to use recipe cards and table of contents and things like that that make things your, your posts more Google friendly, that’s all great.

And Squarespace doesn’t offer that. And. So I felt like 

[00:17:00] Marly McMillen: really it’s the plugins that really make WordPress so good in some ways, 

Kristen Wood: and it makes you more efficient. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. But don’t you think as a result of having gone through two different platforms before you arrived at WordPress, that it gave you some insight into, I guess what I would describe it as, as user experience maybe a little bit more?

Kristen Wood: yes. Well, I. You know, I got a lot of feedback from when, I mean, another reason I moved is getting feedback from, from readers wanting certain features that I didn’t have on my side. And, I found workarounds for as much as I could. I even found ways to insert ratings, you know, ratings codes into my posts, but it was a lot of work.

But, yes, I feel like I’ve learned over the years what my readers are actually wanting and what makes their experience easier. And WordPress definitely helps with that. 

Marly McMillen: Exactly. What is the post structure that you’re looking for when you’re doing a [00:18:00] WordPress post now? 

Kristen Wood: Well, it wasn’t that long ago that I learned about headings and subheadings and breaking things up that way, you know, offering as much information to the user as you can so that they can make it perfectly the first time.

And so I try to break things up that way. I like, you know, sometimes I explore, you know. W let them know why you’re using this ingredient, why it’s important. I offer substitutions, tip sections, now, sometimes how to process shots and, now video as well. And what I learned too is when I first started really optimizing my posts and seeing a lot of growth, now I now realize that I kind of over optimized.

So now I’m actually going back and kind of modifying some of the headings as I edit posts, 

Marly McMillen: because 

Kristen Wood: you know, we’re always learning something new. There’s always something to do. There’s always something that needs to be changed. And there’s always work to be done. So that’s another, you know, task is, I’m always going through like every single post and tweaking something, and it takes a long time, but it [00:19:00] usually pays off.

Marly McMillen: It’s true. I sometimes feel so discouraged about knowing that what I’m doing today, in a year or two, I’m going to go back and go, wow, why did I do that? And I have to change it. 

Kristen Wood: Yeah, exactly. 

Marly McMillen: It can make you feel discouraged about the work you’re doing, but Oh, well, you just have to go with it, you know?

Yeah. So how often do you blog in a given week? Do you, did you try to post on a consistent schedule? 

Kristen Wood: You know, I’ve tried that, but it doesn’t really work out for me. Sometimes. Once, once yearly wants, at least once a week, sometimes twice and rarely three times a week. And a lot of that stick tainted by my kids.

And how. Things are going here. How much are you able to get? How tired I am because I try to do a lot of work after they go to bed, but you know, some nights I’m just too tired. I can’t work even if I have to, so I just have to accept that it’s just part of the journey. It’s part of it all and I just have to surrender to that too.

Marly McMillen: Yes. That’s so true. I think, it’s easy to have these goals and try to push ourselves. And in reality, we have to remember we’re working for ourselves and we need to [00:20:00] be a good boss to ourself, you know? 

Kristen Wood: And I’ve also discovered that things really don’t fall apart. If you take a little bit of break, it’s, it’s okay to step back when you need to, you know?

Marly McMillen: Exactly. So I, the other question I wanted to ask you about this migration from these different blog platforms is. Tell me the dates. And did you notice like, so when did you start your blog and when did you migrate to WordPress and did you notice a big jump in traffic as a result? 

Kristen Wood: yes. so in December, 2015 is when I started the blog on Weebly, and I believe it was, let’s see, I think it was around October of 2000.

18 that I moved to Squarespace, so it was on Weebly for a long time, but I also wasn’t taking it quite seriously yet. I was still learning that this was something that could really turn into something. 

Marly McMillen: Right. 

Kristen Wood: And when I moved to a Squarespace, I did see a jump in traffic, and that was partially because I had just then started [00:21:00] really putting effort into SEO at the same time as well.

Optimizing posts, thinking about the user headings, providing more information. My posts used to be quite short. And I think I maybe made it up to 10,000 views monthly when I was in Weebly. And when I was, yeah, I mean, I put a lot of effort into it, so you can still, I mean, Google is still read things. Even if you don’t have, you know, schema in place, it’s still, you’re still able to get somewhere, even with very little, you know, not as far, but, you know, it’s not impossible to still.

You know, bring a little traffic in. But when I moved to Squarespace in 2018 yeah, things really started to take off, but I also was putting more effort into everything. It was like a fresh new start, and I was grateful for that journey. I learned because of that, I learned a lot about what’s actually going on the back end instead of, I’m more aware of what the plugins are actually doing on WordPress.

I’m aware of what kind of code they’re writing into your post of, you know. What it’s telling Google. So I learned a lot about that because I had to code, learn how to code things on Squarespace, [00:22:00] myself, and I’m grateful for WordPress. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. That code makes a difference. I mean, I think, the, the code that’s used kind of adds to the page speed, doesn’t it?

Kristen Wood: yes. 

Marly McMillen: Makes every knowing what’s what’s going on there is it’s actually very important 

Kristen Wood: again, for Pinterest too. 

Marly McMillen: Yes, exactly. So I think it’s an example of how bootstrapping can be a really great way to go about it. It’s almost like learning math by hand versus using a calculator. I think you’ll learn it better when you’re, when you do it by hand, 

Kristen Wood: and you’re also more grateful once you have these tools at your disposal and you’re in a better place.

Like I just have a lot of gratitude and I’m glad that things got easier rather than harder. 

Marly McMillen: No long. And so now your blog is doing great. You’re, I love that you, you know, you’ve turned this into a great success story for you. And can you talk a little bit about some of the things that has happened in your life?

Like, did you say you moved to a new apartment because of the income you’re making from your blog? 

Kristen Wood: Yes. when I was on Squarespace, it was about a year ago that I was able [00:23:00] to, apply for media vine. And that was a big deal because I was like, what? I, I wasn’t sure I would ever get there. So that was a big milestone for me.

I was grateful to be able to apply to media vine at around 30,000 page views. I’m now up to nearly 250 K page views a month. Wow. This year. And I attribute some of that to WordPress and also just me having learned more and applied it, you know. 

Marly McMillen: So, wow. It took you like three years to get to 30,000 page views a month and then a year to get 

Kristen Wood: there from here.

I was like, well, if I started on WordPress, who knows where, you know? That’s all part of the journey. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. A message of exponential growth, which is awesome. Yes, I love this, and so now you’ve got a bigger space in which to work, which probably is helpful as well. I would think. 

Kristen Wood: Thanks to, I was with this media vine, I just recently moved to add thrive.

Still seeing how I liked that. I mean, they both seem great. They both seem, you know, I’m pretty equal ground there from my own experience so far. But I’m so grateful to now be making a full time [00:24:00] income from my blog, to be able to, yeah. We went from, you know, we never went without the most important things, but we certainly didn’t have a budget for extras, you know, so now we’re able to go out to eat.

I’m able to buy, you know, a backdrop. I’m able to, you know, buy. Paid plugins for my side if I need to. I’m able to invest a little bit, my blog, if I need to or I feel the need to. And, it’s such, it’s a relief for our family as well to be able to provide more for the family. it’s, it’s, it’s wonderful and I’m so grateful for it.

I could pinch myself, you know, I’m, it’s like a dream come true and I’m also feeling more inspired. I mean, the more growth and results that you see, the more inspired you feel to keep going. And. And I’m just grateful to be living a parish. And 

Marly McMillen: yes. Have you read the book? Virginia by Virginia Wolf called a room of one’s own.

Kristen Wood: I haven’t, no. 

Marly McMillen: It’s so good. She’s got so many a wonderful lines and there’s, there’s this section in there where she is, I don’t know, I honestly don’t know much about the book, whether it’s autobiographical or if it’s fiction, but this [00:25:00] character gets a stipend from her aunt, and as a result, she says she’s.

No longer, no longer like having to be nice to people. She doesn’t even, I used to her, you know, I’m not saying we shouldn’t and nice to people, however, it’s just the freedom, the financial freedom that comes from having money is, I mean, you know, there’s a lot of theories on happiness related to money, and I guess around 75,000 a year, you know, things kind of even off.

But leading up to that point, money can be very powerful. 

Kristen Wood: Yes, and I’ve, I’ve had periods of time in my life where I’ve had a lot, I’ve had very little, and I realized that, you know, money isn’t everything at all. You know what I mean? It’s not the most important stuff, but when you have very little, it becomes more important, you know?

Yeah. 

Marly McMillen: I’ve been there too. I, we grew up, I was very, very poor. And so it’s like, I mean, as a child, I don’t think you even think about it. You’re just living your life and running around. But you know, you do realize the difference between what’s, what’s happening to you. And I think growing up in that kind of mindset, you have [00:26:00] to work your way out of, I think if you’ve ever been poor you, you really have to kind of work to get your mindset right.

A healthier mindset around money. Let me say that. 

Kristen Wood: It’s still hard to even, it’s still hard for me even to purchase things that I’m not used to purchasing. And 

Marly McMillen: yeah, to realize you have the freedom to do that is just amazing, you know? And I imagine it’s gotta make you feel so proud to realize that this was your hard work that made this happen.

Kristen Wood: Yeah. I mean, I. I think I feel that a little bit. I’m trying to get there. Yeah. I think it’s, you know, I still haven’t really taken a step back and I think I looked at it fully, but I get a lot of good feedback from friends and family and it encourages me. But yeah, I just, you know, I’ve always been a very driven, passionate person and I’m just grateful that, I think with the right attitude and really, it just takes a lot of persistence.

You can really get anywhere you want to be with persistence. He just needs to not give up because there are a lot of ups and downs in this blogging game [00:27:00] too. And you need to not be discouraged by the downs. You know, you just have to keep at it. 

Marly McMillen: And sometimes you can be discouraged by the downs. Just don’t let yourself stay there.

Right. Because I have definitely experienced the ups and downs and, you know, it’s terrible when you’re in the downs, but you know, you either walk away or you, you. Like you say you’re, you persist and you realize, okay, this is, I’m doing this because I want to do this. Not because you know, I have to. 

Kristen Wood: Yeah.

Sometimes you have to block out all that noise and kind of other influences and get in touch with why you’re really doing this and try to enjoy the process. And for me, when things stopped being enjoyable, then I stepped back and take a break. Yeah. That really helps me gain perspective again. 

Marly McMillen: Do you have goals for where you’re going or are you just trying to, you know, be flexible and go with it?

Think about it 

Kristen Wood: too much. I just would, it would be, I would be thrilled just to sustain where I am. You know? There’s also a kind of the alphabet fear of like everything being taken away from you too, because. So volatile. You know, you hear a lot, especially in last year, you’ve heard a lot of other bloggers talk about your traffic completely tanking.

And I’m like, ah, I [00:28:00] have to think about it. But I try not to think about the goals. I just kinda try to stay present and in the journey. And kind of seeing where it leads and I’m grateful for the opportunities that come up. I’m grateful. Like now at the traffic level I’m at, I have a lot more options when it comes to sponsored posts.

If need be. Like if I’m not happy with my ad income, I can kind of boost that income a bit with sponsored posts and other other things. You know. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. Exactly. let’s talk about Pinterest for a second. You mentioned that people come to you for advice about your Pinterest strategy, and I love that. So, I’m just curious, what do you think has worked so well for you there?

Kristen Wood: I’ve always tried to do kind of a 50, 50 of my own pens and other people’s pens. I’ve always optimized my boards. I have a good mix. I’d probably 50 50 of my own boards and group boards that I’m a part of. I deleted a bunch of, a few years back. I deleted a bunch of boards that had less followers than my own account has.

And really the whole thing about new pins really makes a big difference. It can be kind of a pain to create new pins all the [00:29:00] time, but I really have been seeing a big boost every time I create a new pin for an old post or a new 

Marly McMillen: post. How often do you think you’re doing that? 

Kristen Wood: I try to create a few new pens a day.

I don’t put pressure on myself to create a ton. I know there are people out there doing 2030 new pens a day and they’re seeing extraordinary growth, but I’m, I don’t have a whole lot of time for that, but I try to do it wherever I can. Whenever I think of it. Or if, if a certain post seems to be gaining traction because of the season, then I try to go back and create a pen for that.

To give it more traction. So what I’m 

Marly McMillen: curious about is with, you know, let’s take the example of somebody creating 20 to 30 pens a day. My understanding is they, Pinterest doesn’t want us having so many scheduled, you know, so many posts per day now. So I guess they’re not scheduling those out to different boards anymore.

Do you know what I’m saying? Like w we used to use tailwind to like schedule to a bunch of different boards, but do you just post it on Pinterest and put it on the one board? 

Kristen Wood: I do a mix of uploading directly in Pinterest and posting. I usually post there [00:30:00] initially, and then I also schedule and Tallinn using the integral, scheduling.

so I try to space it out by at least three days, my pens by at least three days. And it varies, but, and it just depends on if something, I feel like something’s really, Important to get out right now because it’s popular right now than I, you know, due to too. Sometimes I go down to two days if I really want it to get attention right now, but if it’s not so important, I want it to be kind of, it’s kind of evergreen content, then I space it out longer and it seems to work out well.

I, I think I’m down, I go spend about 40 pens a day. Okay. On average until end right now 

Marly McMillen: until one has this new program where they basically kind of give you an alert when you’re pushing the boundaries. 

Kristen Wood: I find that helpful. Speaking of which, the second time around that I joined Talwin recently, my account veteran’s account was immediately suspended because I’ve kind of had that luck with tele and, and it, but I’m really trying to stick with it because it got to a point where I realized I really need the help scheduling.

I was doing everything manually and they got to be time consuming and I realized my time needed to be spent elsewhere as 

Marly McMillen: well. Yes, you [00:31:00] can spend all your time on Pinterest and then you don’t have time to, or the bandwidth, even just to recipe tests and do other things like that. 

Kristen Wood: So I do think it’s important.

One thing that’s helped me is. Acting as a regular Pinterest user within the app pending from the mobile app. Just things. I have lots of boards that are personal to just things that I like and I pin those and I think they like seeing that you’re an active user as well and not just promoting yourself.

Marly McMillen: Yes. Nicole Barker, I just had her on the podcast. She is a Pinterest VA, so she, she actually. Does like almost 200 a blogger. She is their Pinterest person, and she mentioned that too, that I’m actually getting into Pinterest and using it as a user and, and sharing pens directly from your feet makes a difference.

Kristen Wood: Yeah, 

Marly McMillen: that’s, I’m glad to hear you say that. You agree with that, so that’s good. Definitely. Yeah. Okay, so it sounds like you are creating new pens every day. Are you using any particular software to do that? 

Kristen Wood: I like Canva. I 

Marly McMillen: love Canva. 

Kristen Wood: It’s easy. It’s simple. It [00:32:00] gets the job done. Yes. I find it to be more efficient.

Marly McMillen: I have a few templates that I use. I, you know, I kind of spent, my husband’s a graphic designer, so I had him develop for me a couple of, you know, templates that I really like, and then I just upload photos and plug them in. 

Kristen Wood: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 

Marly McMillen: And if it’s an old post, I may have to brighten the photo or crop it in a little bit, but it, it still works.

Kristen Wood: Yes, definitely. 

Marly McMillen: I just had an old post that I did that went slightly viral and it kind of kind of shocked me that like what, what happened here? Cause I just, you know how you just kind of get busy and you’re doing things. And then I, I was on Pinterest and it, it has like 247,000 engagement or something like that.

I’m like, what happened? I had no idea because I like those kinds of little gifts that happen every now and then. 

Kristen Wood: Have you ever noticed sometimes like there’ll be a post that you really don’t expect. To gain any intention, but then it ends up being really popular. That happens to me all the time. 

Marly McMillen: And then I have these ones, I think, Oh, this nailed it.

This is gonna be 

[00:33:00] Kristen Wood: good. And then curriculum. Yeah, so definitely I don’t have that figured out yet. 

Marly McMillen: Well, that’s where it feels to me a little bit like a soccer match I had. You know, the more times you make an attempt at goal, the better your chances are winning the game. So just, just keep, just keep kicking the ball, you know?

Exactly. That’s what we’re doing. Why throwing things up on Pinterest, and obviously you’re kind of attuned to paying attention to your audience, so you know, to get in there and look and see what’s working and what’s not. 

Kristen Wood: Yes. And I just thought of something to add. from earlier. It’s that one thing that I think helped me grow too isn’t just incorporating roundups recipe.

Roundups that’s something I put off for a long time, but my audience really likes Roundup posts, whether it’s around up of my own recipes or other’s recipes. They really liked that. 

Marly McMillen: Wow. And why do you think you were resistant to that? You didn’t like the idea of them? 

Kristen Wood: I think I was trying to keep everything just, I felt funny.

I didn’t know a whole lot about it at the time. And I had [00:34:00] thought. Well, this is my blog. I’m just going to keep it with my own recipes, you know? But, but then I learned that, okay, this is a great way to network with other bloggers and support other bloggers and, and, you know, it’s, it’s actually fun now to go visit other bloggers sites, see what they’re doing, you know, give them some promotion and traction as well.

It’s kind of, you know, you both benefit from it, so it’s a win win. Do 

Marly McMillen: you discover other bloggers to include in your roundups through, I know there’s a lot of Facebook groups where people do those roundups. Is that what you use? 

Kristen Wood: I use those. And also just fellow blogging, friends, bloggers that I talked to a lot.

Yes. I think at this point 

Marly McMillen: you have an idea of the people that you like to, you know, like maybe this style is similar or has a similar type of recipe that kind of works well for you. Yes. I didn’t actually ask you about the niche of your blog. I think your blog is vegetarian. Is that right? 

Kristen Wood: It’s, yeah, it’s gluten free vegetarian.

I also do like if you, nature inspired craft posts, I do some product reviews. I do a few different things on the blog as well, but you know, [00:35:00] my primary focus is gluten-free vegetarian food. 

Marly McMillen: Do you do keyword research? And I’m just curious if that’s, if that’s, so, do you, do you struggle with finding topics in that niche?

Kristen Wood: I don’t struggle with finding topics. I have lots of lists. I write things down on paper and lose them all the time. It’s not very organized. I have lots of little pieces of paper, of recipe ideas, research to not research that I like to do. And I do do cure keyword research. It took me a while to get there.

I started doing that when I was on Squarespace and I used the free keywords everywhere, Chrome extension at the time, but I think it’s paid now, but it was free at the time and I was like, wow, this is neat. No, I just, this whole world was out here getting all this data about what people are searching for in Google, and I think it helps a lot.

But I still don’t really intentionally create recipes around a keyword. I make what I want, but then I research it to give it the best possible title basically. If that makes sense. 

Marly McMillen: Yeah, that makes absolute sense. So you kind of follow your gut on what you’re going to make and then basically, I totally get that actually.

Cause I bet that was some [00:36:00] old posts where obviously I, I was just making something and, and. You know, like I made one recipe called Neapolitan brownies and you know, probably nobody’s searching for that, but it’s easy to go into the keyword research and try to figure out if there’s a way to, to rename that.

Kristen Wood: That’s what’s kinda helpful for going back and updating old posts for sure. 

Marly McMillen: Yes, exactly. So let’s talk for a second about your approach to Instagram because I think you have kind of a unique process there as well. I like how you described that you’re, you’re really. You know, free spirited, I guess I would say about Instagram, is that right?

Kristen Wood: Yes. I feel like it’s can be kind of a time and soul sucker, you know? And I. It doesn’t bring the traffic. So I don’t, I really tried to put a focus on, okay, at any given time, anything I’m doing, and I’m like, okay, is this really contributing to the growth of my blog? Is this useful? So I try not to spend too much time on there because it’s really hard.

As you know, I’m, you know, many of us know to really see any growth, real growth on [00:37:00] there these days. And I kind of just gave up. I was like, it would be nice to get to 10,000 just to have the swipe up feature, but I’m not going to kill myself doing it because I’m doing pretty well on other platforms and I think my focus should be there.

So I use it more. It’s kind of more personal because I share some things in stories, but also I share my nature photography on there. I was like, why not? I take all these other photos too. So I just kind of alternate with sharing some that my nature photographs and also whenever I have a new recipe. Yeah, I share it on there, but I really try not to kill myself over the whole platform and trying to get anywhere on it.

You know? 

Marly McMillen: I love that. It can be very freeing, isn’t it? 

Kristen Wood: Yes, yes, definitely. 

Marly McMillen: Because I mean, if you make yourself feel bad, if you’re, you know, if a post only gets 30 likes or whatever, it’s just, it’s just, it’s just wasted energy. 

Kristen Wood: Yes, exactly. Yeah. That’s not a value of your worth. And. You know, 

Marly McMillen: there’s 

Kristen Wood: a lot of other things going on.

There’s a lot of other stuff to manage with this blogging thing outside of Instagram. But you know, having said that, it’s also a great place for community. I’ve met a lot of other great bloggers, you know, supportive blogging friends through that platform. So [00:38:00] it’s, it’s not all bad to 

Marly McMillen: Oh, exactly. Oh, I totally, and it is a great way to stay in touch with, you know, your blogging friends are doing.

That’s kind of fun, I think. I like that. 

Kristen Wood: Definitely. 

Marly McMillen: So you have little ones at home. How, I’m just curious how you prioritize family with work. 

Kristen Wood: That’s a tricky one. That’s an ongoing process. Trying to strike that balance because there’s always so much to do and I, you know, my old self tends to be quite a perfectionist and workaholic, so I’ve really had to teach myself how to unplug a bit, you know, prioritize, of course, prioritize my children.

you know, sometimes some days I feel. Some days I do much better, you know, it’s just all over the place, but I try to do as much as I can at night after they go to sleep. I try to do what I can during the day when they’re independently playing and occupied. But I also make it a point to unplug, you know, for large chunks of time throughout the day to just be wholly present with them.

Because, you know, obviously they are the most important thing. They come first. [00:39:00] So I, I do as much as I can when I can and I just try to let the rest go. And you have to, 

Marly McMillen: I love that. Is that, I mean, I know there are a lot of people these days that are into your boat now where they are at home and the kids are at home, is to, is, I’m curious if you have advice for people that are, that are going through that.

Kristen Wood: Gosh, I don’t know if I have advice, but, you know, I think it’s. It’s good to, you know, allow yourself to just do what you can do to give yourself grace and time, you know, to just give yourself credit for what you’re getting done. And try not to sweat the rest of it because, you know, family’s important and when children are at home with you, you know, you really shouldn’t be enjoying that time with them.

That really is most important. And you’ll still grow. You can still grow. You may not be wrong as quickly as you want to, but you know. You can still get enough done with your children at home to grow, to do both. You can do both. 

Marly McMillen: It goes by really fast. I mean, people would always say that to me. I’d be like, what is, no, no, no.

But yeah, my [00:40:00] daughter is out. So, you know, it’s, I mean, I guess, can’t believe it cause it just seems like the time when she was little was. They’re in perpetuity and it’s not. They do grow up and they’re thrilled to leave. Let me just say it that 

Kristen Wood: way. 

Marly McMillen: I used to love little kids and now I see them and I think you’re just a little heartbreaker is what you are.

Kristen Wood: You’re 

Marly McMillen: going to break your mama’s heart. It’d be excited to leave. But, but I would say just as a followup to that, that that does get better. And you know, you do just form a new relationship. It’s just those years are really hard. Yes. 

Kristen Wood: Yes, they are. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. So, I love the concept of organization and workflow, and I feel like you probably have a process that you use.

Can you describe your process for organizing your work? 

Kristen Wood: Well, I feel like I’m not nearly as harmonized. Many bloggers. I, I’m a pen and paper person. I like writing things down on pen and paper. I tend to write to do lists nearly every day and try to work through those, and [00:41:00] if I don’t get to it all, I get to it the next day.

I really just, I keep a lot of things organized in my head. You know, I’m kind of aware at any given time what my next focus should be when I have the time. So I’m not one for giving creative advice and organizing things because I don’t use a lot of those computer programs and such for writing it all out.

I don’t have a content calendar for myself. I really just, I work a lot through just intuition, like gut feelings and. And what I’m most interested in at the moment and what I think will bring the most growth. I just kind of bring myself back to, okay, what should be a priority right now? And then do that.

What should be a priority then do that, you know? If that makes sense. 

Marly McMillen: Yes, it totally does and I’m really jealous. I wish I could be that way, but if I don’t have a, if I don’t have things written down, I feel like I’ll just get into this LA LA land where it’s like I’m all caught up and that’s not true at all.

Kristen Wood: You’re a little different with sponsored posts though, cause you know, you usually have a deadline. So those, those tend to throw me for a loop sometimes. You know, especially with kids like, okay, I have to get this done. Oh my [00:42:00] gosh, it’s almost, do you know? So yes, 

Marly McMillen: I become, there’s a lot of pressure. Yeah, 

Kristen Wood: yeah, exactly.

It’s different than just doing your own thing. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. And do you find you like one better than the enemy? Some people like having that arbitrary deadline does, do you like 

Kristen Wood: that better or not? I don’t. I don’t like, okay. But I do enjoy sponsored posts now. I, at first I didn’t, I was like, okay, this is odd. Am I, you know, I don’t know.

I was always worried about producing content that they would actually like, because I know that my style is all over the place. You know? I don’t feel very consistent in that way. But it’s, it’s done well for me, and it’s been kind of fun. It’s kind of a fun, creative exercise when someone’s presenting you with ingredients and saying, okay, make something, do this.

And it’s kind of just, I view it as that a creative exercise. And so now I enjoy it. I’m like, okay, let’s fun seeing what I can come up with. Your sponsor posts, 

Marly McMillen: how would you describe your monetization buckets without going into numbers or anything, but maybe percentages of like, is ads 50% or how, how would you describe your, 

Kristen Wood: Oh.

[00:43:00] Ads are probably like 90 or 95% of everything right now. Yes. I in some affiliate income with that and, then sponsored, yeah. Posts, I mean, that sponsored poster picking up right now, so I’m not sure what that’ll be like your shortly. Yeah. But yeah. I once celled, I, you know, on Squarespace I started, I can get be all over the place with things.

I get really inspired and I’ll have an idea and I’ll implement it immediately. So I was selling some Lightroom presets on there and branching out into other things. But when I moved to WordPress, I really tried to niche down and kind of, you know. Clear out all that clutter and put more of a focus on the food.

Marly McMillen: Yes. Well, clearly that’s paid off for you, right? 

Kristen Wood: Yes. I think it’s important to, yeah. I just have to kind of hold myself back a bit because I have so many interests and stuff. It’s like easy for me, like I want to do this, start this. I sometimes have other ideas for blogs, but I’m like, you know. That’s good.

You’re doing well right now. Just stick with this. Don’t get too scattered. 

Marly McMillen: I feel the same way. I always have a thousand projects that I want to, you know? But at some point, you really do have to kind of [00:44:00] hone down on the one that you’re working on 

Kristen Wood: and it does help. It does help with growth. I find. 

Marly McMillen: But when you stay focused.

Kristen Wood: Yeah. And you just kind of, put a main focus for your blog and produce that content. It’s good, I think. I feel like Google likes that too. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. And then your audience knows what, you know, they’re coming through your site for that reason. Yes. So if you were talking to somebody today who said they were thinking about starting a food blog, what advice would you give them?

Kristen Wood: I would say, I would tell them to enjoy the process as much as possible because it can be a fun learning journey. And. I think you don’t want to get too caught up into, you know, wanting to be the next greatest influencer and make a ton of money. I think you really have to have a passion in this business in order to see, sorry.

It’s a seed and yeah, I think it’s, you really have to enjoy it. To really get anywhere. I feel like because you have to wear many hats and you’re scattered many different directions and you have to be, I think also you have to be good 

Marly McMillen: at multitasking, 

Kristen Wood: but [00:45:00] yeah, I think that’s all I have to say. You just really try to enjoy it as much as possible, and if you just keep working at it, you’ll, you’ll get somewhere.

Marly McMillen: I love that. And you know, I think it’s, I’m from Missouri and it was Mark Twain that said, if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. Yes, exactly. 

Kristen Wood: And you don’t want to lose sight of your reasons for beginning something. I think you want to stay close to those roots. It’ll help you along the way.

Marly McMillen: Oh, that’s such great advice. Okay, so I love to ask these fun questions at the end of the interview. Are you game? 

Kristen Wood: Sure. Yeah, definitely. 

Marly McMillen: Okay, so tell me about your favorite food. 

Kristen Wood: I love Indian food takeout. I love vegetable korma. That’s like my favorite. I love Indian food. And even at home I’m always making Curry.

Marly McMillen: Yes, yes. You know, Indian food cracks me up because the first time I was exposed to it, I, you know, I grew up in a small town in Missouri and lived in Missouri my whole life. So just kind of just imagine kind of a sheltered eater, you know, like just not experimenting a lot. And. I met this couple, they live next to me, [00:46:00] and they were Sikhs, and so they were from India and they took me to visit their temple ones.

It was just a fun thing to do with them. I’ve really enjoyed it. And afterwards they served Indian food, had never tried it before, and I thought it looked disgusting and gross, but I didn’t want to be rude and I ate it. And it was the licious. Yeah. Yeah. It is so good. So flavorful. 

Kristen Wood: Yes, and I love flavor. I love using way too many spices and things, 

Marly McMillen: you know, getting that naan bread and scooping up all the good stuff at the bottom of the plate.

Yeah. That’s good. So tell me again, what was your favorite Indian dish? 

Kristen Wood: I love vegetable korma. Veggie 

Marly McMillen: karma. Yes. Do you make that at home? 

Kristen Wood: I do, yes. Yes. That’s not nearly as good as takeout. I haven’t achieved that yet. They do something cool restaurant that I can’t replicate. 

Marly McMillen: Exactly. I love that. Okay, so what’s the favorite app on your phone?

Kristen Wood: I would have to say [00:47:00] Spotify. I love music. It’s a music app and yeah, music cause something. I enjoy listening to all editing photos provide some inspiration as well. And I like how easy that app is to use and to discover new artists and create playlist and yeah. 

Marly McMillen: Do you find that music kind of helps your mindset as you’re working.

Kristen Wood: Yes, I find it can be a bit of a motivator. Yes. Yeah. Just as podcasts can, like your podcast is motivator for me. I should add that. if I’m having a hard time with the blog and I’m not feeling very motivated, I often listen to a podcast to try and find some inspiration again. 

Marly McMillen: Yes, I do the same thing. I love listening to podcasts and sometimes in the middle of my day I just, I need to go have, get a walk because I do think, you know, you talk about creativity a lot.

I think physical movement is a very important part of creativity. And so going for a walk really helps me. And if I listen to a podcast that inspires me, that makes me feel even better. But music, Oh my God, I, I forget about music sometimes and, I’ll just, if I put on, I’ve [00:48:00] got some great playlists that are, I can’t listen to just anything and work.

But if I can get the right playlist going, Oh, it just makes, it just really gets me going. 

Kristen Wood: Definitely. 

Marly McMillen: Yeah. I love it. I think Spotify is a great app. I also, you know, since my daughter is a musician now too, I kind of understand the business side of music now, and I made a point to make sure to buy music from the artists that I like, because I think, you know, that helps them too.

I used to always buy music, but now I hardly ever so trying to get back into that. 

Kristen Wood: That’s a great point. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. It really helps them a lot. Otherwise they’re, they’re basically creating, it’s spending thousands of dollars to create these songs that, you know, they have to put out there for free. It’s very hard on, you can apply 

Kristen Wood: that to blogging too, and people reach out to you wanting you to produce work for free or in exchange for, you know, products, you know, 

Marly McMillen: with hope.

That’s, Oh, this is going to be exposure, so this is going to help me in the end. But yeah, it’s the music industry is definitely, it has some dark sides. [00:49:00] Yeah. But I love, I love what I use Spotify for then, or, or actually I have the Amazon prime music, that’s what I use, but I just use it to test the waters to see if I really liked that artist.

And you know, like you might like one song and I would be happy just to buy the one song from them. Or if I want to continue with the whole album, then I kind of test it out and see if I like it. And then, yeah. So I would say maybe for the bigger artists, like, you know, to an Eagle song or whatever, I think they’re probably doing fine.

So I don’t worry about them, those smaller artists that I 

Kristen Wood: like to support. 

Marly McMillen: Okay. So do you have any time for our TV or reading at all? And if you do, what’s your favorite. 

Kristen Wood: As far as reading, I wish I had time. I used to love to read, but I, since blogging and motherhood, I haven’t, I probably read a handful of books to completion, but I used to enjoy reading a lot of reference books, like, how to identify local plants, animal tracks, a lot of nature books.

I’ve also been a lot into metaphysical books, new age genre, [00:50:00] or my favorite books is illusions by Richard Bach. I love anything that kind of questions reality. And, Helps you contemplate things. And as far as TV, yes, I, that’s like pretty much the only recreation I have in my life with my significant other is we enjoy watching TV at night after the kids go to bed watching episode here and there.

And my recent favorite show is called dark. It’s a German science fiction show on Netflix and it is really great. It’s just really, well, 

Marly McMillen: I’m going to check it out. 

Kristen Wood: That’s great. Yeah. 

Marly McMillen: My husband loves science fiction, so I somehow, I imagine he’s probably already watching it. Yeah. 

Kristen Wood: Oh, I also love the great British baking show 

Marly McMillen: at all.

Kristen Wood: I find that just to be comforting, like comfort food, kind of in the form of TV, you know? 

Marly McMillen: Yes. And those people are just so endearing. I love that show. I have a friend doing her own Facebook quarantine baking show right now. That’s great. It’s really cute. Yes. We just share recipes and she is not a Baker at all, so she’s, it’s been fun [00:51:00] watching her do that.

Yeah. So how can people find you online? 

Kristen Wood: At Moonen spoon and yahoo.com on Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, all at moon spinning. Yum. 

Marly McMillen: And just to clarify that and is spelled out right? 

Kristen Wood: Yes. And spelled out. 

Marly McMillen: Yes. Well, Kristen, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me today. I had a wonderful 

Kristen Wood: time.

Thank you so much, Marley. The pleasure’s all mine.