Happy Blogiversary! ¹¹

by Katrina • Beauty, Blogging, Opinon • Tags: Celebrations, Hair

That’s right…today, ‘Sota is Sexy turns one!

I can hardly believe that just one year ago, I published my very first post on how Scott was cheating on me.

Relax…it was just with his iPhone.

A year later, not much has changed. Aside from the fact that he’s cheating on me with a new iPhone as this happened to the other one a few weeks ago:

Your first blogiversary is a pretty big deal, which is why I decided to totally pamper my blog today with a gift certificate to the hottest salon in all of Small Town.

And then I remembered that blogs can’t get their hair done, so I had to rearrange my schedule and go get my hair done instead.

Darn.

I just want to say that this foil, cut and style cost sixty-eight dollars.

Sixty-eight dollars.

In Seattle? It would have set me back a cool $220 before the tip, and they probably would have screwed up my bangs.

This is why I love Small Town.

While infatuated with my new weave, I do feel bad for stealing the blog’s present. That’s why I decided to do the next best thing and give my website a relaxing foot massage.

Unfortunately, it’s really difficult to determine where a blog’s feet are. I simply scrolled down to the bottom of the page and started massaging the footer. Aside from it being incredibly awkward, I got greasy finger prints all over the screen, which is why the massage lasted approximately three seconds.

At least I got to get my hair done.

Since it’s nearly impossible to celebrate by giving my website a foot massage, I’ve instead decided to share three things I’ve learned in the last year of writing.

1. Blogging is hard work

It’s time-consuming, and requires a pretty large commitment from the blogger. I spend an average of one to two hours on each post…sometimes much, much more.

I also firmly believe if you truly want to grow your blog, it’s important to post at least once a day. Especially when you’re first starting out. Engaging with your readers as well as other bloggers is totally crucial, as is coming up with content that is fresh and engaging. You also need to implement things like marketing, social media, search engine optimization, cross posting on other blogs…the list goes on.

Basically, it’s a crap load of work.

Thankfully, I love every second of it.

 

2. You shouldn’t care too much about what people think

I used to be really careful about what I posted, for fear of what you all might think of me.

As you can see (or read), I quickly got over that.

Kind of.

I quickly learned that humans have a morbid curiosity in regards to the private details of other people’s lives. I’m assuming that’s why my posts about not wearing makeup, gaining sixteen pounds or having an extremely traumatic pimple crisis get more hits than most of my other pages combined.

I’ve also learned that those nagging, insecure, weird thoughts you think no one else in the universe has? You’re probably wrong. That’s one thing about posting your insecurities on the internet…you’ll quickly learn that you are certainly not alone in them.

That being said, I still really care about how the world perceives me. I mean, sure, I’m pretty open and shameless on this blog, but I want people to find my openness and shamelessness endearing….and you know, not think I’m totally cray cray or something.

I’ll be honest, I still go into panic mode when I write a post that gets zero comments or not very many “likes” on Facebook. It causes me to second-guess myself and have one of those “What did I just publish to the internet?!?” panic moments.

I’m working on that.

And yes, at the end of the day I do blog so that other people can read, and hopefully enjoy, what I’m putting out there. If that wasn’t the goal, then I would just put all of this in a diary.

But I also blog for myself. I love to write and I love to tell stories. I hate when people use the word “passionate”, but that’s honestly how I feel about this blog. And because I’m doing this for me, when all is said and published I try my best to feel great about what I’ve posted, even if no one else does.

Again…still working on that one.

 

3. Honesty is the best policy

Anyone who reads this blog knows I like to put it all out there.

I’m not saying you need to share the intimate details of how your dad crashed your wedding night, or share every last moment of the time you got ringworm on your face.

What I am saying is that honesty is important. People don’t want to come to your site only to read a bunch of censored, restrained, politely written paragraphs that don’t have any humanity behind them.

People want to read real content that comes from a real person.

You know what’s not interesting? Reading stuff written by someone who is always right, never makes mistakes, and doesn’t have any stretch marks.

(No offense to any stretch mark-free bloggers…that one was more of a personal example.)

If you take away one thing from this post, it’s this: Never alter your content because you think it’s what someone else wants to hear.

You don’t have to be outrageous, you don’t have to offend anyone, you don’t even have to say anything private or embarrassing.

You simply need to embrace who you are, and let your personality shine through in your content and writing style. Don’t be afraid of your voice…even if it cracks every now and again.

Because there’s no point in living a life (or writing a blog) where everyone loves you for pretending to be something you’re not.

There’s also no point in creating an environment where everyone loves you except yourself.

As a slightly irreverent twenty-seven year old, I’m still trying to find the balance between celebrating my true colors, and being able to accept the fact that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea skinny caramel macchiato. In real life or on this blog.

You’re real. I’m real. Let’s stop pretending to be perfect and embrace ourselves for exactly what we are.

********

Happy Blogiversary, ‘Sota! I’m off to celebrate with a piece of cake, heavy on the frosting.

And that’s the honest truth.

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