When I started writing this blog on February 15th, 2010, little did I realise that I will never be able to celebrate my blogiversary the way it deserves to be celebrated for February is one of the busiest months of the year for me. I often write my blogiversary posts in a hurry, wishing that little blogging elves would come out the woodwork at night day and write one for me. This year I initially decided not to write a post as there had been too many debacles on the blog front, but then I saw the year – it was 2017 – which means that I have been blogging for seven years and this, right here, is the Lucky 7.
2016-17 has been the year of many ‘planned for many years’ yet completely unexpected moments. My US trip to Beadfest and my blog move being foremost on that list. It was also the year of suffering – physically, emotionally, and financially it completely drained me and I shudder to think back and recollect memories. Though I made very little of my usual jewelry save a few pieces for challenges, and Festive 2016, I partnered with Indian brands like TheCraftshop and Beadsnfashion. I also wrote a lot of tutorials and created customised bridal jewelry with flowers and silk thread. I travelled to my heart’s content – went to Coorg – Mysore, four states in US, Kancheepuram and Kolkata – Shanthiniketan.
Blogger to wordpress move
This blog move has been disastrous, to say the least. In the aftermath of the move and the consequent 4 crashes (once each due to spam, brute force attack, plugin interference and coding error) my blog looks like Chennai post Vardha. It was heartbreaking to see 500+ links break and page views come from tens of thousands to zero after spending a good amount of money and a hell a lot of time. Almost everyone I knew including tech experts at my hosting provider asked me to give up on my blog. They told me to stop writing, to go back to blogger, reset my account, hire an expert who could handle these problems or simply take a break.
As frustrated as I was, I did not listen to a single advice that I got. I made a bad decision, so I owned it and became okay with being uncomfortable. Moreover, I have given up very many things in my life because I have huge commitment issues but I wasn’t going to do that to my blog – something that has been an intrinsic part of my life for a past seven years. I put on my game face and focused on solving one problem a day and I continued writing. My blog does not look the way I want it to look but it works and I am thankful for that this blogiversary. I am still in the process of repairing my blog, post by post, link by link and hopefully before long it will all be okay.
In this process, I have learnt so much about writing online – readability, SEO, Plugins, creating better visuals, etc and I am excited to share my knowledge with you. Consequently, I made a pact with myself to attend more training, participate in blog partnerships, challenges and contests to help me strengthen ties in the jewelry and blogging community. I want to share the very best of what I know and offer valuable content that I hope would be useful to my readers.
Training
In January, I spent most of my nights attending a Jewelry bootcamp run by Tracy Mathew of Flourish and Thrive academy and a subsequent Mastermind Webminar on brand positioning and desire creation. Now I have signed up for Marie Forleo’s BSchool free marketing series and attended the first two sessions. I hope to strengthen my marketing and management skills in the process to enable me to teach better, write better and do business better.
Challenges, swaps & contests
So far I have signed up for two bead swaps – Lori Anderson’s Bead soup blog party (BSBP) horder’s edition and Linda Anderson’s Bead Peeps Swap and Hop. For these swaps, I have two wonderful partners Dee Elridge and Karin king respectively and I am still figuring out what to send them. I am also participating in Valentines blogging contest at chennai blogger group and I plan to participate in as many We’re all ears and ABS challenges as possible this year.
Learning
My biggest learning this year has been that – it takes a village to do it. Regardless of how capable we are, we need a good solid support system. To quote a dialogue from Maid in Manhattan – it is not what we have, but who we know and what they have. I am connecting to more artists, designers, Makeup artists, photographers and brand specialists than ever and I am enriched by their company. I have done a few collaboration shoots which I will post soon.
If I should pick one word to define my current state of mind I would say “Grateful“. I am grateful to my parents for letting me who I want to be, propping me up each time I fall, and reprimanding me when I lose hope. I want to thank all my students, my colleges, my critiques and all my readers who have made who I am. Though all my readers are dear to me I want to specifically raise my hat to Maya, Tracy, Karin, Rozantia and Neena who read and comment on every one of my posts. You guys are so awesome for being there, during my lows and even when this blog was a ghost town 🙂 To appreciate all my clients, there will be a surprise contest soon, so stay tuned for it.
Much to the irritation of my mother, I believe in all sorts of quirks – having a lucky number is one of them. The number 7 has been very lucky for me since my school days and I hope that this 7th year will bring a lot of good things for me. I have also realised that when I write something on this blog, it is like making a commitment, a promise to the Universe which helps me take efforts to fulfill it thereby making it come true. So here’s to a better year – a year of being better, doing better, and living better. A year of being true, generous, healthy, lucky and useful – to myself, my family and community and the world at large.
There, I wrote it, it must come true now 😀
I hope you found it interesting
Cheers
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