In 6th grade, I had a Xanga. My friend Joe used to “design” it to me. i WR0t3 liK3 diS &+ th0UGht i W4S th3 C00l3St. (It just took me so long to type that, haha.) Then that went away.
In 2013, I had a huge surgery and wrote a blog to capture my experience. I wrote daily for a year and then stopped writing.
Then in January 2015, I stumbled upon Erica‘s Anniversary Mini-Series (One, Two, Three, and Four). Just like that, my love for blogging was reinvigorated. By the end of the month, I wrote about Starting on a Steal and emilielimaburke.com was born! I started on Squarespace. I’m glad I did because I got to start quickly, but I’m also glad I moved on.
That September, I decided that I wanted to preserve my name for other things and be on WordPress, so I rebranded to Burke Does with the help of Elizabeth from Chantilly Branding Designs. I consider Burke Does to be an extension of emilielimaburke.com, so when I say “this blog” I mean both. I started this blog as an outlet. I liked writing, but I was over the academic writing required of college. I was much more interested in putting words on paper (or a screen) than I was about analyzing another expert’s work.
I wish I could say we had a plan when we started but I didn’t. I wrote things like “What to Expect” but things never panned out like that. For the first time since re-branding, I feel I’ve finally found my blogging groove for the first time in a while. I’m blogging for me again, which means that in addition to writing the evergreen content bloggers are “supposed to write”, I’m also writing my Life Lately posts and I love it.
So what is next for Burke Does? Now that I’m finally in a groove again I’m looking forward to really investing and building here. I’ve been doing budget consultations one-on-one and have been thinking about adding that here. I’ve also started investing in me, signing up for the Simple Pin Media Master Course and the Inspired Bloggers SEO Summer School! I’m getting back into my Coursera classes and determined to finish. I’ve been working with Fran from Free Borbeleta to help build my professional site! I’ve got lots of things going on and I’m feeling really great about them.
This space is about me and Laura, sure. But it’s also about you. It’s about sharing. It’s about reading. It’s about learning. It’s about navigating social media and technology. It’s about making time to read when netflix is an alternative. It’s about saving instead of spending. It’s about debt repayment. It’s about working to be better versions of ourselves. And doing it together.
Emilie is an Army Wife, Data Engineer, and CrossFitter with a love for working through her thoughts in this space on the internet. She is a contributor to many open source projects including dbt, Meltano, and GitLab. She lives with her husband Casey, their son RJ, and their pup Bo in Columbus, GA.