A Year of Pretty Rounded

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, HAPPPPY BIRTHDAY DEARRRR BLOG! Happy Birthday, to you!

Pretty Rounded has officially been live for an entire trip around the sun.

When I first had the itch to start a blog, I’ll admit that it took a long time before I took action. And even when I made the decision to do it, it was nearly a year and a half before I was brave enough to go live with my website.

I agonized over the logo and the layout. I worried it looked too amateur. I couldn’t tell you how many times I re-did everything. Eventually, I realized that all I needed to do was put it out there. I would always look at something I made with a critical eye, even if I was a professional.

This first year of blogging has gone much differently than I expected. It’s not easy to create a post every week like I initially insisted to myself that I would and I soon moved to a new post about every other week instead.

I’m also not as organized as I’d like to be. Balancing a full time job with regular content turned out to be more of a juggling act for me, particularly with life and other side projects.

I’ve learned it’s not easy getting regular quality content during a pandemic, although my post about my mental health during COVID-19 remains one of my most popular. There’s only so many pictures in your house and of your cat you can take. Just kidding, I never get sick of pictures of my cat.

Other Popular Posts

Shows I Watched in 2020
Dear Friends, I’m Sorry for the Past Few Years
My Weight Loss Journey So Far
It’s Okay to Be Quiet
7 Questions to Ask Yourself When Picking Your Battles

I’m happy I was finally brave enough to put myself and my thoughts out there. I know it’s a learning curve and I will continue to improve as I go along.

Here are a few specific things I hope to improve on…

Photography – It has always been an interest of mine, but I’ve never more than dabbled in it. I hope to independently learn how to improve my abilities nd use that skill towards more eye-catching blog content and social media. So if I have any friends into picture taking adventures…I’m in!

SEO – I admittedly slacked on this one, despite it’s importance in gaining more blog traffic. I want to start making it a priority for all of my posts and cleaning it up on my old ones.

Building Instagram Following – This task has proven trickier than I could have expected starting out. It’s tough making eye-catching content and using the right hashtags, but I also think it brings about further opportunities. It’s even tougher since I want genuine followers who enjoy my content, not the ones who follow to get a follow-back and then unfollow once they’ve gotten their numbers up.

Be Authentic – This can be challenging in the days of social media and presenting your best self. I started this blog as an outlet while I was in a tough space mentally and I’d love to be more open and honest about the bad days as well as the good.

I’m sure this list will grow day by day as I continue on this journey. There’s still so much to learn, but I’m happy to be creating something.

Thank you to everyone who has read my posts, given me a follow, commented, shared, or enjoyed from afar. It means the world to me and I hope you continue reading as I embark on year two!