Always Be A Mermaid

Let's go ahead and address the elephant in the room, this little ole blog received a face lift over the weekend. 


I feel like I should take a step back and admit that I and this blog have been having a bit of an identity crisis as of late. Maybe its the birthday, the change in housing or the three year itch I get when I have any job for too long. Regardless of the why, I just haven't felt 100% invested in this blog as of late.

If you were around for most of June and May you know I wasn't all that present, I even considered quitting the whole shebang. Mostly because it felt like a lot of work, work I wasn't getting paid for...and for me when life got tough this blog took a backseat. 

Since school is on summer break and we are finally done with a less than ideal move I decided to put a little thought into why I started blogging: I wanted a place to document my life...the good, the bad and the messy...a place that forces me to take pictures and a place that allows me to connect with other girls and forge friendships I never even imagined existed on the internet.

I see other bloggers out there posting five times a week, maintaining thousands of followers, posting perfectly cropped and polished pictures and never forgetting to tweet a few times a day and here I am struggling to post once a week. Forgetting I even have a twitter account and looking at page views like it all matters to me. And so comparison started creeping in, which led to unnecessary pressure which lead to me abandoning ship. 

As 29 starts to sink in, I have started accepting that I will never be the perfectly polished girl or blogger. I am the girl who puts feathers in her hair for no reason, wears odd headbands, listens to depressing emo music one minute and country music the next. I am the girl who handled turning 29 about as gracefully as an elephant ice skating and had the bruises to prove it. I have never met a bottle of gas station wine that I haven't loved. I will always be 30 minutes late no matter where I am going and middle fingers and bras are appropriate accessories.


And I am perfectly happy with all of that, in fact I decided to embrace it...hence the blog face lift.

I have champagne tastes on a beer budget...well more like a gas station wine budget...so this weekend I committed to redesigning the blog myself. I spent countless hours on etsy looking for the perfect template to start with, if you are in the market for a new blog design and want to keep the costs low I would suggest starting there...there are 100's of options. Once you purchase a template all you have to do is install the template in blogger, edit the header and about me pictures in picmonkey and then tinker to your hearts desires. I am lucky that I do have HTML knowledge but I will say that even if you had none you could do this in a heartbeat.

I had visions of feathers, glitter, X's and O's, mermaid quotes that made no sense, pretty and soft lines, grungy flowers and more glitter. Because glitter, duh! What I came up with makes me pretty giddy, I think its a happy place that expresses me. It's simple but quirky in parts, like me. It's a work in progress, that will take time to get just right...just like me. 

But most importantly it feels like home, a place I would be happy to invite girlfriends over to, to drink my cheap wine, dish on the latest bad reality television shows, life and everything in between. 

What does your blog say about you?
Why do you blog?
Is there anything that is showing up funky or unreadable on your computer screen?

Linking up with: CarlyLeeAnnMore Pieces of MeOn the Daily Express and Monday Mingle.  and Tara.

6 comments

  1. Well, this is my first time here, and I was thinking how nice your blog looks before I read that this is a brand new look! I love it! Found you through Funday Monday. =)

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  2. I LOVE everything about it! I don't see anything showing up funky at all. This design is just so YOU! Just thinking about you not blogging makes me depressed. You are the ONLY blog I read that shows your personality 1,000%. You never hold back, you type exactly what you are thinking and you are YOU. I love that and I absolutely love you! So...don't ever bring up this nonsense BS talk about not writing anymore. I know you don't want my mental state to suffer now do you? I'm old...it's not good for my health to worry. Let's talk in 7 months about elephants ice skating when I have to blow out the +11 candles from your 29. Don't you dare add up that number and type it anywhere...do you hear me??? XOXOX,
    Gossip Girl...I mean Ali....the other, A!

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  3. I LOVE it! It makes me want a bloggy facelift as well, but of course, I have no funds or skills for such things. I've also been toying with the idea of abandoning my blog, but Alison forbade me... and she can be scary! :) I totally understand what you mean about how it's so easy to start the comparison game, but I've decided I don't have the energy or the care to link up to EVERY linky party every day during the week. I'd rather LIVE! I'm gonna try to stick to it for a while longer... I just need some new content!

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  4. I love the new look. I'm with Alison don't stop blogging. Sometimes we just need a break. Hope you have time this summer to relax.

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  5. I like your new design :)

    There was a time I almost stopped blogging because I felt like I couldn't keep up with the very people you mention as well as those whose blog feels basically like one huge advertisement for their TpT store. No, thanks.

    Then I realized I started my blog as a way to vent about the BS I deal with in my district and no one can take that away from me -- not even my nosey administrator who somehow stumbled upon my blog and called me out on it. (Nope, won't stop blogging because I know that idiot is reading it.) :)

    You have to blog because its for YOU is my ultimate advice. I've gotten to the point that I don't care if no one reads it -- it's really for me, not them. :)

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  6. I like the new look. I've been on a waiting list for a really long time for a designer to renovate my blog. I recently heard from her and was excited to get things underway. (Haven't heard from her since, so I'm hoping things will be ready/done very soon.) I started my blog back in 2005. I started writing more frequently since June of last year though. I added some features to my blog but don't know how to redesign it. PLUS I have zero time it feels like.. to blog. (I got up at 6:15 am to just to catch up on reading blogs.. I mean really..)
    A change is good and I like your mermaid quote.

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