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Ta da….welcome to the brand new look and feel of A Gutsy Girl.

I’m feeling all the things today as I write and then publish this post. Sunday is sometimes thought of as a “bad choice” for releasing important posts like this, but I decided on today because I want to get real, raw, and personal with you.

The post is likely to be a little bit longer than the standard, so grab yourself a cup of coffee, bone broth, or hot water with lemon, lounge back, and come along with me for the story….

Let’s back up for a second. If you were to head to the top of this page and enter in “A Gutsy Girl” in the search bar, up will pop 278 pages full of content where A Gutsy Girl has been mentioned.

But never in the history of this blog have I had a clear vision for exactly what I’m doing and exactly who I am trying to serve, even though I thought I did.

During this past year of deep soul searching and understanding the difference between all these different paths I’ve traveled, I have finally arrived.

Born in Sedona

Did you know that A Gutsy Girl was born in Sedona, Arizona back in April of 2012? It’s true. Go read the blog post HERE via The End of This Road.

In the post, I only told part of the story when I said,

I spent months and months thinking about my site – the good, the bad and mostly why it was I needed to change it. In the days to come, you will learn so much more about this process and everything that will encompass the site moving forward (but the gluten-free recipes will not be leaving:) ).

In the end, I fell in love with, A Gutsy Girl.

I did spend months and months thinking about the site, but I didn’t just haphazardly stumble upon A Gutsy Girl. Instead, early one morning in 2012 while drinking coffee in Sedona, I began having even more discussions with my insanely talented friend Brian Gardner (who has always been the backbone for my websites). 

An apple, carrot, or some other “healthy” food was what I wanted for my branding and website name. Remember, before that I was blogging on blogger.com with Confessions, Truths, and the Mis-Fortunate Journey of a Foodie-Fitness Junkie – my God! Maybe I was tying to fit in with all the other healthy living bloggers, or maybe I was just hungry at the time. Whatever it was, Brian saw something very different.

Ding, Ding, Ding

He suggested, “What about The Gutsy Girl?” His reasoning: I talked a lot about my gut healing journey, and I had just gotten through with that vicious IVF cycle. Instantly, I loved it so hard. The problem? We typed it into the search bar; someone already had it. (In fact, she has a book on it today titled, “The Gutsy Girl.” It’s so much different than the way I use the term, though.) 

But we stayed with Gutsy for a few moments. He looked up agutsygirl.com and BOOM! It was open. I grabbed it immediately. 

Sedona, in 2012, was life-changing in so many ways. I have all the feels when I think of Sedona.

A Gutsy Girl Gets Lost

From 2012 through most of 2018, A Gutsy Girl got lost. It wasn’t on purpose. Life happened. If you’ve followed along here for quite some time, you know the story.

From 2013 when we got Samarah until now, my life was not only consumed by the gut and all issues surrounding it (thyroid, low-functioning adrenals, severe acne, and anxiety). It’s also been consumed by the move from California to Minnesota, my dad’s Cancer diagnosis, finding faith in crazy-awesome new ways, adopting 3 children in 3 years, landing in our forever home, hitting my near rock bottom, and so much more. 

Instead of staying focused on the foundation of A Gutsy Girl, I got super random. I am super random, and it’s because my mind, naturally, runs a million miles an hour. I have thoughts upon thoughts, and I (literally) sometimes have no place to put them – but here, on this blog….or so I thought.

So I meshed all the things in one place.

But during these past several months, through deep, deep, deep soul searching (also energy sessions, therapy, mentorships, friendships….) and figuring out what it is I’m really wanting and trying to do, everything became crystal clear. 

My vision for A Gutsy Girl and all the other things is so strong that making decisions and moving forward has been a piece of (gluten free) cake.

Separation, Not Divorce

[Oh man, I really hope people read this full thing instead of just those words, separation and divorce. Ha! Rumors will start flying that Ryan and I are on the rocks. Lord, no. (Side note: Ryan is still the biggest A Gutsy Girl fan ever!)]

When my vision became clear, I knew that I had to separate gut and (my personal) life. I never wanted to, but the reality is that this gut stuff is huge! Hundreds of thousands of people read A Gutsy Girl because they want to dig deep into all things gut and gut healing for themselves and for their children. 

And they may or may not (usually may not – shocker – I know 😜 ) care about adoption, faith, our home, raising babies, etc. 

But as I removed those categories from the site, one-by-one, my stomach physically hurt and my heart literally felt a pain.

Without those topics in my life and that outlet for connecting with people and sharing stories and that journey, having success with A Gutsy Girl seems very non-important, if you want the truth. 

For me, there is no desire to make money or have my passion topics serve any purpose except the purpose to inspire, share, and heal – myself and anyone who enjoys those topics, too.

What was my solution? 

A Thyme for Milk and Honey

Ahhhhh……took forever but during a 1.5 hour Bible devotion early Thursday morning, it came to me so easily. 

A Thyme for Milk and Honey

Now you’ll never need to come back to A Gutsy Girl ever again if the gut is not your thing. 

Separation, not divorce, was the answer.

Second Birth in Sedona

Oh, as they always do…..things come full circle. A week ago I was in Sedona again. I believe that everything happens for a reason and in its time. As I’ve been going through this deep change in my life again, heading to Sedona was just perfection.

While there, I breathed in the air every chance I got. I sat with my thoughts, and just dug real deep to envision what this site, A Gutsy Girl, looks like today.

When I returned home, I made it come alive.

A Gutsy Girl

The site is far from perfect. Brian Gardner and his team at Authentik once again did all the things for me. They re-routed everything that was pointing from agutsygirl.com to sarahkayhoffman.com BACK TO agutsygirl.com as the main URL with sarahkayhoffman.com merely pointing to it. With years of content, this was no easy task.

[Note: Some would say that because the A Gutsy Girl Instagram is growing rapidly, why even put the time, effort, and money into even more growth on the website. Why? Easy. I’ve said it before (like in 2010) and I’ll say it again, “We (I) do not own Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or anything else. We can and do own our own websites and platforms.” Also, I could never provide my readers the things via social that I can on my website. So this is really for you!]

And then, Brian activated my new website theme (which is Essence Pro by the way, if you want it, too). I hyper-focused all categories and content down to just all things A Gutsy Girl. I removed those things that will now be found (moving forward) on A Thyme for Milk and Honey. (Note: you can still find them here if you were to “search” for them, but they are not visible otherwise. In other words, they are not completely gone, just not a focus and no new content on the topics will be produced here.)

I added new features like: Gutsy Children, Gutsy Book Club, Gutsy Lifestyle, Certified Gutsy, and more. It’s not all built out yet, and I have a ton of work to do to re-route current posts to their appropriate places. For example, you’ll now find “SIBO” underneath Gut Healing.

The image sizes are all different, too, so I need to work on re-sizing and updating the look. And more to come as well, you’ll see…..

Finally, my beautiful, talented and loving friend Makayla (once again) did pictures for the site. I feel beyond grateful to her and her massive talent. For anyone in the Minnesota area, I cannot recommend her enough. She’s forever going to be my girl for all pictures – whether she likes it or not.

Thank You

My brave, Gutsy friends – THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart…..for sticking with me these past 10 years. Thank you for joining in, even when the vision was extra cloudy and murky. Thank you for believing that the best would be yet to come. 

Because it is. I have ONE prerogative for this website and that’s you. You’re going to…..

Heal your gut. Heal your life.

And I’m giving you the reasonable approaches to do so.

p.s. Other things to note:

1. My LLC is formed! Yes! 10-years in the making, but I have the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State Certificate of Organization A Gutsy Girl LLC paperwork sitting on my desk (needing a frame!)
2. A trademark may or may not be pending 🙂

Xox,
SKH