Happy Blogoversary MoscatoMom

This morning I woke up to the annual renewal notification for MoscatoMom.com – meaning one year ago today I began this blog.   Now many of my friends have had big events to celebrate their Blogoversary, but I have been so busy getting ready for the Wedding this weekend, it kinda snuck up on me.   But I couldn’t let it go by without some kind of acknowledgement, so I thought I would share the “Things I Have Learned In My First Year of Blogging:”

1. Life becomes more interesting when you become a blogger.  Something about your brain switching from the mundane day to day to “ohhhh I am SO blogging this”  suddenly makes life more interesting.  In the last year I have taken more vacations, seen more sights, attended more festivals, attempted more recipes, mastered the Cake Pops,  and really noticed even the little moments of the day – taking them all in as a new experience, and something I can share.  This may be my favorite part.

2. Some of the coolest products in the World I never knew existed.  Since becoming a blogger I have had the pleasure of checking out all kinds of products and gadgets that I otherwise probably never would have known existed.  From Flip Flop Wines to the must-have Zhip … there are some really amazing things out there.

3. Thanks to Analytics and JetPack I can see that even years later my “stalkers” are still… well… stalking.   It’s a funny thing about WordPress – you can see who visits your site, and what they do while they are there.  This of course is for businesses and advertisers to track their marketing efforts.  It is also quite humorous to see who is checking you out – and on a consistent basis at that – and grin at the mental picture of them sitting at a desk reading about how terrific your life is now that they are not in it.  Guess maybe it wasn’t the “Lynsey Curse” keeping you down and miserable after all, huh muffin?

4. Blog Conferences are the best conferences ever.  I have been in the Party Plan Industry for 13 years – I know conferences.   But I have to say, of the handful of Blog Conferences I have been to, they are by far much more educational, inspirational, and entertaining than even the Party Plan Conferences I attended in Las Vegas.  Maybe some of the Party Plan Companies should start hiring Bloggers to help organize their events…. just sayin.

5. You can actually love someone you have never met, and cry for them as well.  This year has not been all sunshine and roses in the Blogosphere, and I have felt the loss and heartache of many of my Blogger friends as they have suffered through deaths, divorces, and illnesses.   I have laughed out loud, cried the ugly cry, and gotten so mad that “20 to life” almost seemed worth it… all for women who I have never even met.  The Blogosphere is a community, a place to thrive and a place to fit in.

6. A blip in your Hosting service will absolutely drive you to drinking.  Having had a website for over 7 years now, I know how frustrating Hosting Plans can be.  But when it is your blog – the place you have logged thousands of hours of your life, pictures, memories, and ideas – a Hosting issue can absolutely create the need to have a portable defibrillator handy at all times.

7. Blog themes are laced with crack cocaine.  At least that is my theory on why you can not get enough of them, you collect them in secret – thinking that nonbloggers will think you need treatment – you will spend hours and hours tweaking-refreshing-tweaking-refreshing-tweaking-refreshing, and even though you might love the current one you have, it does not stop you from looking around the internet, pining for the “perfect” one.

8. You can, in fact, fall madly in love with a camera.  I never knew what I was missing… until I bought my Canon T3.   I have always been one to take zillions of pictures, but now with this thing and the detail that it can bring to absolutely anything, I can not WAIT for the next opportunity to capture something.   I still don’t know everything that it does, or what all of the settings mean, but that I guess is the best part about this love affair – it never ceases to surprise me.

9. Next to Bloggers, PR Reps have the best job in the World.  In my next life, I want to be a PR Rep.  Or maybe I can convince my daughters to be so I can live vicariously through them and not have to wait so long.  Good PR Reps are worth their weight in gold, and you can tell they love their job and the products the represent.  Maybe it is from my lifetime of sales through Party Plan, I just can not think of a better job than I have a product that you love, and get to spend your days telling others how awesome it is… and getting paid for it!

10.  Blogging makes me very, very happy.  This year has been awesome.  Having a place to share my life in my little corner of the internet has been awesome.  Making friends, having experiences, checking out cool new stuff, sharing my loves and losses, my ups and downs, my successes and failures has been awesome.  Having a place to talk about whatever is on my mind – whether anyone ever reads it or not -has been awesome.  I don’t get caught up in analytics and page views and uniques and all that jazz… MoscatoMom is MY place.  I have my business to worry about all of that.  Here I get to just be ME, and that makes me very very happy.

I remember having a Diary as a young girl, where I used to be such a good writer… somewhere along the way I was taught to “never keep anything in writing” since it can come back to bite you later.  Well, the lesson should have been “dont live your life in a way that things will come back on you” and left my writing alone.  This year I have found my voice again and though I am not back where I was, I certainly still plan to be.

To all of my readers, those stopping by for my giveaways, and even the stalkers that continue to make me smile – Thank you for an amazing first year.  I can promise you it will be the first of many.