Life Lately | 10 Years Ago

Howdy!

In 2009, I created my first ever blog. Even though it was purely for school, it become one of the best platforms for me. It seemed to arrive at the perfect time and place considering I was in my last year of high school, quickly approaching college and the rest of the unknown. Unfortunately, after graduation everything pretty much went to hell. The only thing that really kept me going was blogging about life.

I have told this story before, but I give a lot of my credit for even creating a blog in the first place to a decision that my Grammar teacher made at the beginning of the school year; she knew that we would probably receive the new laptops sometime in October, which meant we would only have a short time learning about the site in itself and what kind of assignments she wanted us to do on there. The moment we were allowed to explore and change our layouts, I was hooked! You have to remember though, I was a newly senior in high school, I was thrilled about spirit week, campus visits, football, powder puff, homecoming, prom, etc so having a blog was a great way to express myself at that moment of time. Unfortunately, when we finally got the laptops I had already went on my only campus visit and didn’t even think to talk about it on there after a couple of months had passed; of course now I wish I had blogged about it anyways, but it’s okay.

After two years on my first blog, I thought I needed a change, but here’s the real reason why I went from Blogger to WordPress, I just wanted to be able to comment on Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park’s blog. Yeah, that was inspiration to switch over but honestly I really prefer WordPress than any other platforms. They claim to be easy but I’m not really convinced, but that’s my opinion on that issue. Anywho, what started as a way to do something like that turns into a big thing as far as time-consuming and being very passionate to turn it into my sanctuary.

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On Saturday, it will officially be ten years since I first started blogging. It definitely doesn’t feel like it was that long ago that I was sitting at my lowered desk by the door, in complete awe on how tiny these laptops were, and learning how to create my first innocent blog post. I would like to mention thank you very much for reading my posts, leaving me sweet comments, and just inspiring me to keep going on my hard days. You are as part of my journey than the blog in general, so again I say thank you!

If you visit my blog’s Facebook page you can join to get updates to my little celebration. I will be sharing around 10 posts that I published throughout the years, You are welcome to not only read them but I would love to know some of your favorites too!

It’s still strange to think I was being graded for those little assignments honestly! What really gets me is that I never had a lot of pressure of working on them as I have in the past couple of years. I may not be graded in the sense of a school project but you can still get noticed by important people that could see you as a potential of working on something that you talk about on your blog. It’s really cool when this happens, but it also puts tons of pressure on yourself to make sure everything in perfect. As you might know, it’s been a roller coaster ride lately because I try to start a new month on a high note, but somehow in the mist of the first two weeks, it’s like I lose my energy and inspiration to do anything blog related so that part sucks, but I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t be angry or sad about it because maybe all I need is a reset. I still have lots of ideas in my head and on notepad but getting the motivation for more than a few days is pretty difficult. I know I’ll come back but there’s no set time on when that’ll be at the moment so you’ll have to be patient with me.

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Oh wait! This might be a strange question, but how are you about moodboards? I have been spending a lot of time on Pinterest, creating boards of color aesthetics, and it has been a lot of fun (and I’m pretty sure I am addicted too!). So I thought I would do my own moodboard, and shockingly it was really fun and therapeutic!

As a fun way to celebrate the weekend’s festivities, I have a challenge for you right now. Can you create one? Instead of maybe focusing on one color, which is the easiest thing to do! I chose to use my sunflower rug my mom got me several months ago as the backdrop. I went by the general colors of a bright yellow and various shades of brown because no two sunflowers are alike in the changing seasons. You can stick with my color scheme or use another prominent hue that you have in the room you’re currently in or just around the house. By the way, I’ll give you bonus points if you do it in purple! Have fun with it though! It doesn’t need a lot of objects to get the point across, but I would like to see more than four or six items together.

Here is my first attempt and now it’s your turn! Share them on my Facebook page please! Click here to be transported to the page, if you haven’t already you can “like” it and if you want to see my posts more frequently, you should also click the “follow” tab and select “see first” so you can keep up with me a lot easier!

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What do you think of this idea? Should it be a monthly thing on here?

Depression | One Year On

Howdy!

It’s crazy to think that it’s been a WHOLE year already, for not only the presence of my nephew but asking for help to deal with my depression! I almost had forgotten about it, but something on Pinterest one afternoon, made me realize that it could be a good idea if I talked about my mental health and give you an update on all of that.

Do not let the shadows of your past darken the doorstep of your future. Forgive and let go.

Overall, I think I’ve been doing really good. I am always going to have my ups and downs in my life but for the most part I am feeling great! However, I feel like I would be lying to you if I didn’t mention that I am afraid of going into July and August. Since I have so many negative memories of getting through both of those months that I automatically feel panic at the thought of them coming soon. I am trying to really keep positive though, but sometimes I just can’t help it, those visions are on a loop at the end of summer. 

This year has a lot of different meanings, between my blog’s 8th birthday, Nolan’s first birthday,  and celebrating 10 years as a blogger in October. I have had a lot of plans this year and the fact that I’ve had quite a few months with little as two posts in roughly 31 days has been somewhat frightening. I have been trying to let it go and so far that’s been working out great because I’m not putting too much pressure on myself to get things finished. I’ve been feeling somewhat zen ever since I accepted it. I’ve also been enjoying telling myself that you don’t have to set things up if you don’t want to right now. 

That’s one thing that I think my antidepressants have been helping me out with the most, keeping everything straight without branching off into a million different directions. I’ve always wanted to adopt a healthier state of mind, because my brain goes a hundred miles away with different things and it gets to the point where I get really angry with myself over being lazy but I think it is a good thing to slow down, watch a little TV and just chill out for a while.

My anxiety has taken a hint, and calmed down a lot in some unexpected ways, like for example, we weren’t expecting it to help out was my fear over the nail clippers. I have always been afraid of these damn things since I was little, but I haven’t been sweating like crazy or attempting to pull my fingers away of my mother’s grip as much so that has been probably the biggest surprise of all! I have surprised myself with how much I trust myself and others when it comes to certain things, like feeling I am going to fall because again I have had a serious fear of heights all of my life, but now I am so chill. It’s nuts!

I am better than I was yesterday, but not as good as I will be tomorrow.

Despite the fact that things are going really good lately, unfortunately, these pills are not a cure-all. I wish they were, because I have a couple more issues that I wish would go away in less than a year. I’ve been trying to find some ways to distract myself along the way so that I don’t give in so easily and sometimes that works, but then again it doesn’t. Thankfully I am a patient person and I love to learn to work things out better for me, so hopefully I’ll be able to get through some of these other things on my own. 

So, yeah this is my life one year on after accepting the help that I needed for my mental health and maybe come back to blogging full time again, because honestly I really miss it a lot! 

Have you ever decided to take anything for your mental heath, whether it be anxiety, depression, OCD, etc? How long  did it take for you to see some results? 

Dear Papaw III

Dear Papaw,

Tomorrow marks three years you’ve been gone. It may have been years, but it honestly still feels like yesterday. The whole week before and the days that came after play on a loop in my head. Originally, I had a totally different way about how I wanted this letter to go, but I’ve never wanted these to be too snappy. You wouldn’t have liked that anyways. I miss you a lot, even if some people don’t think I do. I think of you whenever I watch basketball, and I often wonder what you’d think of my knowledge about it and the four professional teams I watch on a daily basis. I think you’d be like dad and hate on the Lakers because of LeBron. I don’t blame you. I don’t care for him being on the team either. I wonder if you’d like the Rockets though since they’re the ones I seem to watch and root for the most of course! I understand why you didn’t like it because of how many attempts a player will take to shoot the ball and the whole scoring process, I’m still not understanding that part yet, but I’m slowly getting there.

On the day I wrote this letter, I went looking for a picture for the banner. I was going to attempt to find one of “Alex” with your old Butler shirt but then I found an album that nana made for us in the family to share memories and old photos, and I found one dedicated to you. I had array of pictures to choose from, but once I saw this one, I knew I had to use it. You’re wearing a Butler shirt and if you’ve been watching them from heaven, you know they’re in a desperate need of a miracle, getting through the Big East tournament and March Madness, which will all probably be over with by the time this post goes out, but you know!

I always thought it was funny how Rick would continue to buy you a Butler shirt for your birthday or Christmas and you’d wear it once maybe and then stuff it back in the closet. You were pretty consistent with your fashion in your old age. We all thought you looked adorable in anything you wore, even if you had food spills down your shirt and pants, we didn’t care. We laughed at you, and apparently you’ve been getting back at us for doing so, because we all tend to spill our food on our shirts a lot more than we usually do.

We are all in agreement that you visit little Nolan. Em posted a video of him reaching up to an invisible spirit; it gave me goosebumps! He is so smart! He actually reminds me of you in the fact that you wouldn’t really flaunt your smarts, sorry, I couldn’t think of a better word there! I think you would have loved him dearly. Now, if you can talk ChiChi into letting him pet her easier, that would be nice. He is so curious about his surroundings, and ChiChi is the only animal that is afraid of him. Honestly, if you saw him in his walker or “car” as we call it, you’d be terrified too! The best way to compare the experience is a four year old me racing around the house in my wheelchair!

Hope you are enjoying yourself wherever you are, and watch over all of us down here too, not just the youngsters. We’re still a quirky bunch but we all need an angel at our side sometimes. Although, I feel like you’d be like a bit of a jokester still, so be good too. You don’t want to get on God’s bad side! So no pranks with some of your friends up there. You told me way too many stories of you growing up with them to know that you all can get into some mischief. Anyways, I love you.

Your granddaughter,
Meg-han.

Why You Should Blog Now?

Howdy!

I may be getting ahead of myself a bit, but on Sunday, I’ll be celebrating seven years of blogging on here! SEVEN! It still shocks me that next year I’ll be blogging as a whole for 10 years! Blogging wasn’t supposed to mean anything to me, other then another outlet to do school assignments in one of my English classes, and yet here I am completing another milestone!

I’ve been trying to rack my brain on what all I could talk about today. I could have ignored the meaning of the day and publish a simple favorite movie post, and in my defense I’m actually having fun coming up with those, so if I annoy you with all of the different types, sorry not sorry!

So the only thing that I thought would be a response post to a swirl of blog posts I’ve been seeing online.

Apparently blogging in general is losing its shine on people. They’d rather watch videos on YouTube then read a bunch of articles on a blog, and in a way I understand because I roughly read four posts a week. I may follow over a ton of sites, but it’s true I don’t read as many of the blogs I used to. I will say this, it’s not smart to read a restaurant review at eight or nine o’clock in the morning without having breakfast first!

What is the point of having a blog, if nobody is going to read it? 

If you created a blog for the sole purpose to share it with strangers on the internet, even maybe make a little money on the side, then yes, this is a question that you’re faced with every single day. For me though, since my views are somewhat low anyways–we’re keeping it real today–I don’t really care. I’m not focused on my stats anymore. I’ve literally switched that section to the bottom of my dashboard, I do enjoy the comments I get from fellow bloggers and some of my readers, it makes everything worthwhile, but when that fades away, would I still blog?

My answer will always be yes and this goes back to the first blog. Despite the fact we made them in school, that didn’t mean that they were all set on private, they were very public, but we got our laptops so late in the semester (it was a one semester class!) that our teacher couldn’t give us the low down of the settings of the site. I actually didn’t know where the stats section was until probably four months prior to creating this one. I hardly ever received a comment on the various things I would talk about there, so I didn’t really care or knew anyone who read my stuff, I  just wondered how that person came across my post in the first place!

If you do decide to create your first blog, here are some most frequently asked questions I’ve been asked in the past. If there is anything else, please ask below and I’ll try to answer it.

How many times should you blog on a daily basis? 

This is your decision. I don’t recommend on blogging 365 days. I actually did that once and even though I only missed four days out of the whole year, I absolutely hated it. You shouldn’t force yourself to talk about something, you won’t produce genuine posts!

I think it is important to come up with some kind of routine. I don’t have a daily routine of when I write my posts, but I usually start in the early mornings when it’s really quiet or past noon, after I’ve eaten lunch. It just depends on how much free time you have, if you’re an early riser or have an afternoon/night to yourself, then I’d use it to your best ability.

Now as far as figuring out a daily schedule. If you want to work on pieces and publish them at a later date, that’s not exactly a bad thing and I don’t know why more bloggers don’t do it. I actually post on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday at roughly the same time each day, around seven o’clock in the morning. Whenever I publish my posts on Facebook, they actually have an exact time schedule and that is 8am. Every day has a different topic, such as Monday’s are usually more personal, whereas I leave both Tuesday and Thursday as my entertainment days, this is why you see my movie posts on Tuesdays and music reviews on Thursday!

Should you establish a niche for your blog?

For me, I always knew I was a lifestyle blogger. I wanted to discuss things that went on in my life as a person with a disability. Even while I was still on my first blog, I knew what kind of content I wanted to create on a weekly basis, but I didn’t know there was an actual category until about five years later and found the motherload of fellow bloggers like myself.

To answer the question for you though, no, I don’t think you should. I think it’s fine to play around with different topics at first, but if you are an amateur expert at a certain niche, then go ahead and give it a go! I just don’t think you should close off on other things though. I’ve seen plenty of bloggers who, for years, have only talked about one or two very specific things and literally feel like they’re repeating themselves or notice other people talking about similar things and they want to change things up, but are too afraid that they’ll lose followers in the switch.

Should you buy a domain, professional layout, and/or accept sponsored posts right off the bat?

This one is a difficult one to answer, because you have three different things wrapped into one question, but they all do go together because they all involve money. Now this is purely my opinion, but you shouldn’t buy a domain or template until you’ve at least blogged for a year, for example, say you only use your blog for six months and don’t go back to it until a year later. By that time, you’re going to be kicking yourself because you could’ve used that money for something else.

Now about the sponsored posts part, I’m not the best person to answer that section. I wouldn’t know how to get started on it or do it in general. If you know some bloggers already that have a widget for monthly sponsors or pieces that say that they were sponsored by a certain brand, then you could ask them how they got started with it. However, I will say this as a fair warning, not everybody is as friendly about it as you’d think, especially the ones who work with bigger brands!

When is it time to branch out of your blog though?

When is it time to branch out and do other stuff? Honestly, if I was asked to writing articles for Disability Horizons in either 2012-14, my editor would have hated me, for the fact that I had such horrible writing!

I think being asked in 2016 was the perfect timing because I was starting to really care what I was talking about, and I edited my posts that desperately needed to be taken care of before I officially scheduled it to be published. I don’t think you’re never ready to do something out of your comfort zone. Blogging has become my security blanket, I’ve grown into it, and with that being said, I believe I can grow into writing for other sites too! That’s why I’m building a relationship with the creator of the History Of Royal Women, because as passionate as I am talking about disability issues, I am also a fan of history and the royals!

It’s like what I said before about being open about discussing other topics on your blog, you shouldn’t close your mind from something else you enjoy and have some type of knowledge for it because it doesn’t go with your original blogging plan. It does get boring every once in a while and when I decided to write about my love for Anne Boleyn last year, I literally had the same freeing experience I had whenever I started blogging about music full time. Don’t worry, that post goes up soon!

If you’re asked to work with a site or another blogger that either is similar to what you write about on your blog, go for it! There’s nothing wrong with it, because if you decide one is enough, then at least you can say you were published somewhere!

How to deal with the misconceptions of blogging

Thanks to a recent lifestyle blogger chat on Twitter (hosted by a favorite of mine Amie!) I’ve decided to add a section of it to this post.

Back in January, I was asked by an old friend from school, who was thinking about creating her own blog. She had looked up the different platforms and asked me array of questions about blogging. I actually think she’d do good as a blogger, because she already knows how to promote and I thought she could bring something new to the blogoshere, but ultimately she decided not to go for it. She’s recently had a baby, so she doesn’t have a lot of free time on her hands.

Blogging isn’t for everyone, and I think it’s fair to keep that in mind. I mean, it isn’t easy by any means. People who don’t do it just assume that you are sent things from brands for free all the time but whenever a blogger is being sent things, the blogger has post multiple times on their blog, social media accounts, etc to help promote the brand itself. They may not always get a commission from the brand itself, but there’s a lot of work that goes into it that people just don’t understand!

Should people continue to create blogs if the trend itself is dying?

Again, this is a yes for me!

If you’ve learned anything about this world, nothing really fades away. I mean, just look at MySpace, it’s still holding on with all its might! So who knows, blogging could catch its second wind, but I think I’ll be here anyways.

I know I’ve already said this, but if you have any more questions, send them my way!

Dear Papaw II

Dear Papaw,

Last year, we discussed basketball, and I know you probably really enjoyed it. I have been learning a lot of terms in the past five months and I’m really enjoying it, but wish I could have you back around so you can see me cuss and scream with joy at my TV late at night just like you. I’m actually still shocked that mom doesn’t put anything on Facebook about that actually! I know she laughs at me though because every once in a while, I can hear her behind the door!

I’m still surprised you never watched a pro basketball game though. I find those are a little bit more interesting! One of the first games I ever watched of the Houston Rockets was when they went up against the Detroit Pistons and what was so cool about it, was the fact they kept going back and forth making three point shots! I was so impressed, but unfortunately, after they went into halftime I never saw finished the game nor did I find out who won it. Now I either watch it and after halftime start recording it or I just tape the entire thing because I get really tired watching the later games!

I recently watched the Dallas Mavericks go up against the Lakers and found out that one of your favorite players from IU was a member on the other team. For some odd reason, I didn’t notice him until the end of the third quarter because the commentators were suddenly talking about him and I immediately recognized the name “Yogi”. He wasn’t the only Hoosier I’ve actually got to see play. Back in November or early December, I finally got to see Cody Zeller play! He really is a tall dude but also looks like he’s thirty years old too!

Let’s get out of talking about basketball, but don’t worry, we’ll go back to it in a minute!

As you may know, little Emily is pregnant and Kristi is expecting #2! There’s babies all over the place! Is anybody else going to announce their pregnant in the next coming months that you know about up there?

It’s still a bit of a shock knowing that she’s not only married now but growing a baby in her baby when I literally have vivid memories of her being in mom’s belly. I still remember the day we all went to see her on the ultrasound. I vaguely remember being amazed that this stick like thingy could see through the uterus and map out an image of a fetus, and as a four year old that was like the coolest thing ever! I have yet to see Nolan move on it, but there’s a reason for that. Apparently, there’s just enough room for the doctor, mommy, and daddy in the room. So I’m left seeing the ultrasound pictures on Facebook, because mom keeps forgetting to actually show me the pictures!

When we found out that Emily and Brandon were expecting a boy, I will be honest and say that I was shocked. I really wanted a girl, but mostly because we all know how to take care of girls, plus Brandon has two sisters so even knows things about girls (somewhat) so knowing that he’d get a boy probably made him very happy, but I think figuring out that Emily also wanted a boy was interesting! I mean, since it’s been announced I’ve had many dreams of her getting peed on in the middle of the day, which means if I decide to take up the challenge of changing a diaper, it will be me getting wet instead.

I think it’ fair to say that almost everybody has purchased something for them, but mom has a full bag of baby clothes, while both dad and I have one outfit picked out for him. We at least have control over ourselves, but I have a feeling you were trying to influence me these last two months with the onesie I got for him. Amazon had cute little onesies that had collars like you used to wear and mom didn’t like them! One thing though is that I do think the one I got will work better as its more casual.

Brandon and I are going to be awful with this kid, as he loves DC and I’m on team Marvel, thankfully he has been buying him both sides but you know if I get the chance of changing his clothes, I’m going to put him in anything Avengers. The last time we went to Walmart, I saw these Avengers sneakers and I almost got them because I felt like I wouldn’t see them the next time. We both like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so we’re good there, it’s just colleges now is our issue. Brandon has a lot of North Carolina stuff on his wish list but I’m the good one. I’m trying to keep up with the tradition of the Butler shirts. This definitely won’t be his only shirt, as Emily saw little Butler booties and now I want to get those to complete the whole package!

Well, I think I’m done with this now. Hope you are still watching over us and enjoying your time in heaven with some of your friends too.

Love and miss you.