My 9 Year Blogiversary & a Linkup

9 YEAR BLOGIVERSARY 

Y’all, my blogiversary was on Sunday! My blog is officially 9 years old. Holy shit, I cannot believe I’ve been doing this for 9 years. Granted the last few years haven’t been as active as previous years, but I’m still here. In the past 9 years I’ve grown so much as a person and my blog has seen so many different parts of my life. This blog saw me get my first big girl job as I like to call it. It saw me start dating my now husband and moving our lives to Florida. Of course we can’t forget that this blog also watched my husband and I start our little family. In 9 years so many things have changed and I was able to document it all.

Related: A look at previous blogiversaries.

THE ACTUAL BEGINNING: 2010 

Ok, so technically my blog is older than 9 years, but I don’t count the first 3 years. I even archived all of my blog posts from back then. 2010 was when I started an account with google and my blog had blogspot.com at the end of it. I had no idea what a domain was and the reason why I started was because it was a creative outlet. I was going to school to get my MBA and was working a kind of boring job at the time but I needed it to pay off my student loans for my bachelors degree. At the time I was in what would turn into a very toxic relationship (this was many years before my husband). 

I was a fashion minor and loved dressing up. Then I stumbled upon a website called Chictopia (scroll down on that link to see little baby Monica from 2010 haha!). I started uploading my outfits to that website. My mom was the one who would help me take pictures and then I’d ask my boyfriend at the time. He ended up getting annoyed about taking my outfit photos so after uploading onto Chictopia and my blog for a few months I had to stop. Then fast forward to 2013. 

Hat: Gifted from my mom // Top: Shein // Pants: Amazon // Sandals: Target

THE BEGINNING “ALLOW ME TO REINTRODUCE MYSELF”: 2013

2013 was the year I revamped this blog. It all happened on accident. I had gotten my big girl job and one of my coworkers was obsessed with reading blogs. I told her how I used to have one back in 2010 and she asked to see it. After a little bit of her reading my blog (because I hadn’t archived my old posts at this time) she told me to start blogging again. I toyed around with the idea a little bit then started asking my mom to take some outfit pictures of me on my iPhone 5 in the morning before work since I always dressed up super cute for work. Our dress code was business casual so I didn’t have to wear a suit everyday. 

Since my parents have an online clothing business I started to model for them. Well this worked out in my favor because now I had a personal photographer; my dad. Some of my friends also took some photos of me here and there but my dad was my main photographer. My style back then started off business casual with a mix of a modern day equestrian inspired style. As the years went by I definitely played with different styles and let’s not even get started with how many different hair styles have been shown on this blog! I look back on some older photos and forget that I was platinum blonde at one point. 

Related: My first blog post in 2013 

INTRODUCING MY HUSBAND TO MY BLOG: 2014 

It’s quite ironic that my husband actually messaged me on Facebook telling me how awesome it was to see my blog doing so well back in late 2014. We’ve known each other since high school and then that message turned into lunch, that turned into dating, then making it Facebook official on January 1st, 2015. My husband was and still is interested and supportive of my blog. He started taking my pictures here and there at the beginning of 2015. He was kind of filling in if my dad didn’t have time to drive around with me to different locations to take photos. 

As the years went on my husband took over for my dad completely. I think as much as my dad truly enjoyed taking photos and being creative, towards the end it wasn’t as fun for him anymore. Driving around on his only days off every single weekend can get exhausting. Then in 2017 I announced that I would be taking my now husband to Poland with me. 

My blog had seen a lot of Poland over the years prior so this was going to be a great trip. It turned out even better than expected because he proposed in Poland. He got down on one knee and everything. We didn’t have a plan on when we were going to get married and we weren’t in a rush. Just a year later our lives would change forever.

Related: The first time my husband took my pictures for fun.

Hat: Gifted from my mom // Top: Shein // Pants: Amazon // Sandals: Target

MOVING TO FLORIDA: 2019

I didn’t announce it on my blog until early 2019, but it was 2018 when we knew we were moving to Florida. My husband’s brother had been trying to get him to move to Florida for quite some time and the timing was perfect. We didn’t have a house or anything like that. We had our families but both of them didn’t/don’t plan on staying in NJ, so we figured we’d try. Worst case scenario we could come back. 

I was a little worried to move because I had already moved out of state and come back. This time around I had my husband and our dogs so I wasn’t alone. We packed up our lives and moved to Florida. There are pros and cons and I actually never made a two year Florida anniversary post, but so much has happened. We started two businesses and closed one down because of all the red tape with the government. It was starting to become harder and harder to run the business. But it was thanks to that business and having the freedom to do more hobby type stuff that I revamped my YouTube channel. 

Related: Our Move.

YOUTUBE: 2019 

Back in summer of 2019, I started watching YouTube more and more. All of the sudden anti MLM (multi level marketing) was being recommended. I was intrigued because I had been in two MLMs previously and wrote about how damaging they are and my opinion on 2017 and early 2019 on this blog. I mean this blog followed my Mary Kay and Beachbody journey. Anyway, I started watching and my first YouTubers I watched were Savannah Marie, The Genetically Modified Skeptic, and Kiki Chanel. They opened up my eyes to just how much deeper MLMs go than just being that annoying person on Facebook bombarding your friends and family about your opportunity.  Or if you’re on the receiving end, it goes way deeper than that person who bullied you in high school now befriending you and trying to get you to join their, in my opinion, product based pyramid scheme.  Obviously, the FTC recognizes that if MLMs follow their guidelines they are considered a legal MLM, but if you read this article, that compares MLMs to pyramid schemes, it’s clear that a lot of MLMs are allegedly walking that fine line.

Anyway, I could keep going, but I’ll let you check out my Youtube channel for more about how in depth it actually goes and why some people call MLMs commercial cults.  Because I came across these anti MLM videos, I decided to share my story just to add to the conversation.  I wasn’t planning on making any other videos besides my first one that has absolutely horrendous audio and the exposure in the video washes me out like something fierce, but, somehow that video garnered (at the time of writing this) 33k+ views.  It’s the third most viewed video on my channel.  People started commenting that they’d love to see more videos and how I should look into different companies.  Along with telling me even more problematic information that I didn’t know about MLMs.  This was the start of what would become my youtube channel today.  

Although I haven’t grown as much as I originally expected, I still have over 10,000 people subscribed to my channel.  How that is even possible, I really don’t know.  I ended up adding more content into my channel such as anti scams and true crime.  Since giving birth to Scarlett, I haven’t been creating content as often as I’d like, but that was something that this blog saw as well.  I even made some anti MLM posts here to try and get the word out even more.  Not to mention, I was monetized within a month after posting that first anti MLM video.  It’s just mind boggling to think about how much has happened since that video.

Related: My Youtube Channel

Hat: Gifted from my mom // Top: Shein // Pants: Amazon // Sandals: Target

GETTING MARRIED: 2020

Not too long after I uploaded that first Youtube video, my husband and I decided to set a date for our wedding.  We would get married on Halloween of 2020.  Halloween is my favorite holiday, and it just so happened to fall on a Saturday back in 2020, which is why the pressure was on to make it happen.  We had less than a year to plan by the time we set a date.  The great part was that through our auto shop, we knew of a wedding planning business and they took us on right away to help us get everything figured out.

I originally wanted to plan our wedding myself, but because of us moving to Florida and not knowing anything about this area, I needed help.  Forever I Do Weddings was the wedding planning company that helped us.  We ended up getting married right next to the water in a very intimate setting.  The plan the entire time was to have a small wedding with just our family.  I would’ve been fine with just getting married at the courthouse if it meant our parents and siblings would be there.  That’s all I wanted.  Maybe in the future for one of our anniversaries we’ll renew our vows with a larger wedding, but honestly, the day was perfect.  

After the ceremony and reception we had the after party at our house.  I drank entirely too much wine and haven’t really had the urge to drink since then haha!  In addition, I spent 2 hours educating everyone on the #FREEBRITNEY movement, which as tipsy as I was, that was the only thing I was very passionate about.  I think that was a great way to end the day, but maybe that’s just me.  Not too long after the wedding we ended up closing our CBD store and I moved to work at our auto shop.

Related: Our Wedding

THE ARRIVAL OF SCARLETT: 2021

A month after I started working at the shop I found out I was pregnant. My husband and I didn’t want children but always said that if it happens, it happens. I wrote an entire post about finding out I was pregnant and what happened afterwards. There is a category on my blog where I documented the entire pregnancy along with postpartum life. 

Anyway, Scarlett made her grand entrance into the world a few weeks early. She was a very healthy little baby. We didn’t have a good experience at the hospital whatsoever but at least our baby girl was brought into the world with no complications. At least I know that if I ever have to go to the hospital, if it’s not life or death, I’m driving an extra 15 minutes to a different hospital. 

We decided to keep Scarlett’s face private and not give out too much information about her. This was a personal choice and of course no judgement to anyone who does the opposite. Each parent is different. I also believe there is a difference between sharing your child publicly and exploiting them the way family vloggers like the Ace family do. We just don’t want her face out in the world either way. I’ve had quite a number of dms and subscribers who demand to see what she looks like which has been really strange and creepy. It’s people like them that are part of the reason we’re keeping her private. Kind of ironic if you ask me when those people don’t understand why Scarlett’s face has an emoji on it. 

However, at the time of writing this Scarlett is a little over 6 months old and I cannot believe how fast time has flown. Where did the time go? I know it’s cliche when they say to enjoy it because it goes by fast, but they really aren’t kidding. Two nights ago I couldn’t sleep so I started looking at Scarlett’s pictures and I scrolled all the way back to the beginning. I cannot believe how much she’s changed and grown. Looking at those pictures and knowing how much she’s developed since is remarkable. Motherhood has been one of the most challenging parts of life but also the most rewarding. 

With that said though, I still respect the people who don’t want children and I get it. I was one of them, and this isn’t to say that if you’re child free you’ll change your mind because I really hated when people said that to me. Having children is not for everyone and if you don’t want children, whatever your reasons are, don’t feel like you need to explain yourself to others. People are going to ask nonstop or say you’re going to change your mind but at the end of the day it’s your choice. This is your life and the people who are giving you a hard time or just simply asking aren’t the ones who would take care of that child. You need to do what is right for you and what you want to do. I think not wanting to have children should be normalized. In addition it should also be normalized that it’s no one’s business. What if that person you’re asking does want children but they can’t have them? Or what if they just went through a miscarriage?

I know I kind of went on a little bit of a rant but I just had to get that out. Recently I had to experience other people being questioned about when they’re having their second or third babies. I usually slowly walk away when I start hearing those questions. 

Related: Scarlett is here!

Hat: Gifted from my mom // Top: Shein // Pants: Amazon // Sandals: Target

WHAT I WOULD TELL MY YOUNGER BLOGGER SELF

Anyway, obviously this blog has seen quite a bit in these last nine years. I’ve shared a lot of my opinions and I’ve learned a lot. I’m so proud of how far this blog has come.  Never in a million years did I think I would be blogging for this long, and not because I have to but because I want to.  I take breaks when needed because anything can get overwhelming at times.  However, it’s definitely been interesting to see where blogging was so many years ago and what it’s turned into today.

There aren’t too many things I would tell my younger blogger self besides just be yourself.  Have fun with this and don’t go into it thinking you’re going to become some famous Influencer.  Actually, fun fact, the term Influencer wasn’t used when I first started this blog.  This blog was started as a creative outlet.  I have had sponsorships in the past, but that’s not why I got back into blogging.  That was just an added bonus.  I don’t regret anything, except maybe oversharing at times, but I think because my blog is so itty bitty, I’m not as regretful about it.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

Honestly, I have no idea what the future holds for this blog.  As of right now, I don’t plan on shutting it down anytime soon.  I may not be as active as I’d like to be, but it’s not closing time yet.  Who knows, maybe once Scarlett is a little older and my life turns into the typical soccer mom life I won’t have the time.  But, for now, I’m going to continue blogging and documenting life.  It’s nice to look back on old posts here and there to see how far I’ve come.  I did want to say thank you for being here. Whether you’ve been here for a while or you just found me. Thank you ❤️ Let’s move on to the linkup!