Intro

Hello and welcome to my blog!

I made this space for a couple reasons. I have always been a writer. One of the greatest ironies of my life is that I spend a lot of time at work helping kids improve their handwriting – but mine is pretty terrible. It wasn’t always like this – I used to get great marks for having neat penmanship. But at some point my hands stopped being able to keep up with my brain. I had so much that I wanted to write and share with the world – why would I waste time slowing down to make my writing more neat? In the fourth grade, I wanted to be an author. I even submitted a 50-something page short story about a mouse family being terrorized by a cat for a state portfolio requirement. I’m sure whatever assessor that got assigned to me would still shake their fist at all the extra pages I made them read. And while I don’t tend to write from the perspective of anthropomorphic animals anymore (unless it’s writing an Instagram caption for a picture of my cat), that love for writing has never died. I love it for its unparalleled ability to forge connections, share information, and help people. And while I never did go and get an English degree like elementary school me thought I would, writing is still a huge part of my life.

Secondly, I’ve spent a not-insignificant amount of my time on various internet forums through the years. From Urbanspoon to Google Local Guides to Facebook groups to SongMeanings – a lot of my contributions are floating around out there. And while I’ve enjoyed participating in all of these, I realized I wanted something of my own. I’ve thought about making this website in some form or fashion for a while now. First it came in the form of a travel blog. Then a restaurant guide for Louisville. Then it was an occupational therapy website that reviewed the evidence behind specific interventions. Then it was a board game review site. Then it was a blog about the Mediterranean diet. Spoiler alert – I didn’t make it very far with any of these plans. I would get excited about them for a period of time, but then get caught up with life, lose momentum, or become distracted by my next shiny project. I eventually realized that if I was going to share any of this stuff – I needed an easy place I could put all of it. Despite all of the cool things I’ve been able to accomplish – I am still a huge procrastinator and will find a reason to put tasks off if I can. I’ve even put off writing this first post for a few weeks now. But here’s hoping that the next time that I feel that spark of inspiration, whether it’s board games or OT or travel or food, I will have no excuse not to harness that energy and put it out into the world.

I’ve hesitated in making this website for a while for mostly silly reasons (again, I will find a way to make a roadblock for myself). One of those reasons was that I couldn’t decide what I wanted to name it. Devon’s Travel Blog – wait, that’s not really inclusive enough. Devon’s Travel and Food Blog. Oh, hmm, what about OT stuff? Well I guess it could be a blog about being a traveling therapist – that way the OT and travel content could be relevant. Well, where do board games come in in that? I realized that I was never going to come up with a catchy and clever name that encompassed all of it. And maybe all of those Facebook ads about marketing would advise me to “find my niche” and decide on one theme for this site, but I realized I didn’t want to. I am all of these things. I don’t want to artificially limit myself just because it isn’t good for SEO or branding. I finally came to the conclusion that the only unifying factor with all of these topics was me. Hence the name DevonBreithart.com. The egotistical nature of having a website named after yourself still makes me cringe a little – I definitely don’t feel like a big shot. But if I am carving out a space for myself on the ol’ wide web, then I suppose there’s really no better name for it than my own.

So, I hope this blog can be a resource, entertainment, or maybe just a way to keep up with me while I’m traveling. I doubt there’s a person out there who can relate to all the content I plan to post (but if there is please @ me because we’re probably soulmates), but I’m hopeful that everything will be useful for someone.

What kind of articles would you like to see here? Let me know in the comments.