I’m thrilled to announce that after much deliberation, I’m officially rolling out my (not so) new blog: The Nutshell Version.

Don’t be alarmed, faithful readers, this is still the ‘Hullabaloo and Susie Too’ blog you know and love tolerate. I just felt it was time that I cast off the shackles of my n00b WordPress appearance and come up with a non-tongue-twister name that people can actually remember and spell. (Fun side note: Now, for all the times you’re recommending my blog at a party, you can just reference NutshellVersion.com instead of susiewittbrodt.wordpress.com. I imagine that happens pretty often, so I thought I would mention it.)

‘The Nutshell Version’ was actually inspired by this post, in which I reminisce about my wordy nature in childhood – and my older brother would occasionally interrupt one of my lengthy stories with a friendly reminder: “Susie. Give us the nutshell version.”

So as an ode to my brother, and my childhood, and my perpetual verbosity – I’ve decided to do just that.

The Build-Up

Deciding on a new blog name wasn’t easy. This decision stems from literally months of psychoanalysis, overthinking, asking every person I’ve ever known for advice… not to mention spending WAY too much money on domain names that I wasn’t even that crazy about but what-the-hell-I-better-buy-it-before-somebody-else-does-so-there-goes-twelve-dollars.

This name change is one of several recent monumental changes in my life – most notably: getting a writing job, moving to the Portland area (particularly when following a year of three moves in nine months), developing some semblance of a healthy lifestyle, and… uh, well, starting a blog to begin with.

With all of these drastic transitions, my poor widdo brain has been continually thrust from its home of comfort and familiarity into entirely new situations and challenges. This is good for me, a healthy workout for my gray matter – but it nonetheless has sparked some pretty in-depth internal conversations about who I am and what I want my place to be in the world.

It seems like most of this has stemmed from the sheer volume of decisions I’ve had to make lately. What kind of groceries should we buy? Should we recycle? Where should we hang this picture? Paper or plastic? It seems like around every corner there is a new choice to be made, a new opportunity to reaffirm my beliefs and priorities. And in case you’re new here, decisions aren’t my strong suit.

So you can imagine that something as simple as a blog name was enough to throw me into an existential crisis. What would I like to portray here? How do I want to present myself to others? What are my goals and values? Who the hell am I, anyway? On the surface it seems like out of seven billion people in the world, I should be the one most equipped to answer these questions. …And yet, when faced with these pressing dilemmas my very first course of action was to ask someone else.

Hello, excuse me… Could you tell me who I am, please?

I would like to believe that this was my first instinct because it is a logical solution, in a way. I do not know who I am from a third party perspective, similarly to the fact that I have never looked at my own face beyond a mirror image. It makes sense to enlist an outsider, who can grasp my identity more effectively and help me see the forest through the trees.

But I’m afraid that might be giving myself too much credit. I fear that a bigger part of the reason is that I did not know the answer myself. And the reason I was grappling with these decisions is because until now, I didn’t have any need to identify these core personality traits. I was living in a world of limbo, just as curious as everyone else what kind of person I would turn out to be.

In any case, I did enlist the help of others – and I couldn’t be more grateful. Thank you to Taylor, who put up with every new name idea with unrelenting enthusiasm, to the ongoing group chat with my best friends who offered candid feedback on my not-so-amazing ideas, and to my boss Shawn and cousin Kristin, who contributed their incredible marketing expertise to these efforts. (Double, triple, quadruple thanks to Kristin, for also designing my fabulous new blog banner.)

And so I present to you, internet, my brand new blog and the Life and Times of Susie.

…or at least, the Nutshell Version.