I absolutely cannot believe that it’s already been a year.  Time seriously flies.  I feel like just yesterday, I was announcing that we were moving, and y’all didn’t know where we were going yet until I announced our final destination in my Instastories.  So many things have happened in the past year, that I just can’t wrap my head around it.  My in laws are currently in town, and it’s so weird, because last year they were here when we first moved into the house.  Let’s get into the update like I have in the past year.  Also, I probably won’t do any more updates until a year from now, because now we are officially residents in my opinion haha!

THE GOOD

Our two businesses

Both of our businesses are doing great.  It’s so crazy to think that a year ago, we started one business and didn’t know what was going to happen within a year, and now we have two.  Don’t get me wrong, it has made life really hectic, and owning a business (let alone two) has been very time consuming.  This is definitely not a get rich quick type of deal, but anything that is worth it, is definitely worth all of the blood, sweat, and tears.  I mean, we would have never had this chance in Jersey.  Everything is so expensive in NJ, and there is absolutely no way, we’d be able to succeed as much as we have here.

The area that we live in, in Florida, is definitely a place where unless you’re military or a government contractor, the only other way you’re going to make money is owning a business.  This is not the place for regular 9-5 type jobs.  I mean I had one at one point, and I had to fight extremely hard to get a higher salary than what was on the application, and that was a starting salary for NJ.  That salary is not something you could fully live off of in Jersey, unless you don’t have student loans, or unless you have someone helping you out financially.  This move has opened up opportunities we would have never had before.  It also helps that the weather is great, and that we live on the beach lol.  I feel like that helps out our mood a little bit.

Epilepsy Update

I recently went to my neurologist for an update on my EEG.  Good news, is that my EEG didn’t show any abnormalities.  She said that, while that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m in the clear.  I could be one of those people who has to have a seizure to see the full abnormalities in my EEG results.  However, my last neuro told me that I constantly have abnormalities in my results.  My current neuro told me that I may have grown out of the type of epilepsy that I have, or it has just evened itself out a bit.  I’ve been seizure free for 2 years, and she said that once I hit the 10 year mark is when they will consider weening me off of medication, and at that point it’s safe to say that it’s gone away.  I’m going to take this as a win regardless, because I’ve felt way better.

If you didn’t know, I switched over to the generic version of my medication back in August.  I have not changed medications in over 10 years.  And it’s working!  I don’t want to jinx myself, but I’m really happy with my progress.  Regardless if my epilepsy is still here or not, I’m very thankful for how my body has reacted and how my body hasn’t failed me yet.  If I do end up having another seizure anytime soon, I’m just going to have to accept it and hope for the best that I don’t die.  I actually had a Youtube subscriber reach out to me recently and tell me that she watched my epilepsy videos.  I honestly didn’t think too many people would watch them, but she told me a story about how her sister recently passed away and that she’d like to help me make another series of epilepsy videos in memory of her sister.  If I would have never had epilepsy, I would have never met this beautiful soul, and been able to talk to her in this really tough time.  So, as much as having epilepsy sucks, I’m thankful that I can help others out there.

In Laws Visiting

My in laws are in town.  I’m very lucky that my in laws are as great as they are.  I’ve heard so many crazy horror stories about in laws, and I truly do consider myself lucky.  They obviously aren’t my parents and I would love to have my parents with me all the time, but it’s really nice to be with family again.  Being in Florida, and being so far away from our family, it’s really hard to have that sense of family.  I mean we have my fiance’s brother, brother’s wife and their kids but it’s just different when the parents or in laws come down.  I hope that there is a day where all of us can be in the same spot again because it would make everything so much easier.  I’m also excited, because my mother in law is going to teach me how to make the family sauce (they’re Italian) one of these days that she’s visiting, it’s like a right of passage in the family haha!

Finances

Since moving, I’ve started living a little simpler.  I think it has to do with the fact that we spent thousands of dollars moving down, and when I lost my job, I did go through some of my savings, which I’m trying to build back up.  Because of all of this, I stopped buying as many shoes and clothing as I was.  I’m sure you can tell because my fashion posts have been few and far between, and I’ve worn a lot of the same items multiple times.  I haven’t felt really inspired enough to switch up my closet, nor have I truly cared.  I know that’s really sad, considering that I started this blog as a fashion blog, but I do think that life can sometimes intervene.  While I do still love looking at fashion posts, and I’ve been on the #NYFW hashtag nonstop looking at all the beautiful outfits, I just can’t bring myself to spend money on that as much as before.

I have started building my savings back up, but when we were in NJ, once I packed up all of my clothing and shoes, and once I saw how many boxes and bags that I sold and donated, I was stunned at how much money I spent on all of it.  And for what?  It was for my blog and to wear maybe a handful of times.  Some items still had tags on them!  That’s insane to me.  I still don’t use more than 1/4 of the items that I have in my closet.  I know that I’m going to have to go through and purge a bunch of things.  I will probably try and sell some things, and donate the rest.  I’m hoping to do that once we buy our dream home.  We are hoping to do that soon (please cross your fingers for us), and once it’s time to pack up all over again, I’ll probably do the same thing as I did when we moved to Florida.

Making new friends

I know I’ve talked about my Youtube channel a ton on this blog, but thanks to that channel, I have met so many incredible people.  There are people that I’ve done collabs with (other content creators) that are amazing people, and I would honestly love to meet them in real life.  It’s crazy how anti social I am, but it’s so easy for me to connect with people via the internet haha.  I think it’s also because we are all very passionate about the same topic, and we all cheer each other on.  It’s just like bloggers.  Even if we don’t cover the same topics, we all know what it takes to be a blogger, and we can all relate on a level that “normal people” just can’t understand.

Most of my friends are bloggers, influencers, and content creators.  It’s because we support one another in pursuing our passions and dreams.  A lot of people who don’t do these things, they don’t understand the drive that you need in order to do this, regardless if it’s full time or you’re doing it as a hobby.  You have to self motivate yourself, which is hard for a lot of people out there.  It’s tough to continue going with the rise of social media and algorithms, along with the younger generations coming into the industry and already being really tech savvy, or having beautiful photos.  It’s a very competitive industry that can get ugly, but it has so many perks.  If I was to shut down my blog or Youtube channel today, I would honestly be proud of the work I’ve done, and the amazing people I’ve met.  As of today, all of it was truly worth it.

THE BAD

Time to myself

Because we own two businesses, it’s been really hard to keep up with this blog, my channel, let alone a personal life.  We have met some friends, but we literally do not hang out with them outside of the store.  They come visit us at the CBD store and we usually order dinner and hang out with them here.  Our only day off is Sunday, it’s really hard to want to motivate ourselves to do much because of how exhausted we are both mentally and physically.  I’m moreso mentally exhausted, but my fiance is physically exhausted because he’s working on cars all day.  I’ve even had to cut back on cooking, and y’all, we’ve been eating your typical TV style dinners haha.  I just don’t have time to cook a full meal at the end of the day, and quite frankly I’m tired.  It’s gotten to the point where I’ve forgotten to eat lunch haha.  I know that’s not healthy, but honestly, it’s been that hectic.  We try to go out to dinner every once in a while, but we have to force ourselves to go out.  We know it’s healthy to have date nights, but it’s been a pain to do that.  Another issue that I have to is time management.  I spend a lot of time online whether it be social media, my channel, or my anti MLM Facebook group, that I truly need to take a step back and realize that I cannot do it all.  I need to be able to take a break every once in a while.

2019 was rough

I’m not going to lie to y’all.  2019 was a pretty rough year.  It didn’t help that I was so far away from my family, but in case you didn’t know.  We lost 3 loved ones last year.  It’s truly one of the worst years because it was one after the other.  It doesn’t help that it was my mom’s parents and our dog that she was extremely attached to, and I couldn’t be there for her at all.  I couldn’t go back to Jersey, and she couldn’t come to Florida.  It really took a toll on the family.  Not to mention the aftermath of drama that came with family members.  That’s something I won’t discuss, because I do not want to air out dirty laundry, however to say I’m disappointed in people is an understatement.  The reason why I put this under “The Bad” section even though I’ve talked about this previously, it’s because it truly made moving to Florida at one point extremely hard and I questioned whether or not it was worth it.  My family was experiencing one of the worst things ever and I could not be there.

Negativity

Y’all, Youtube is the cess pool (is that how you spell it) of trolls and negative comments.  I don’t recommend Youtube for people who do not have thick skin.  I mean, there are ways where you can filter out certain words that will go into the spam folder or held for review folder.  However, I will say that comments can get to a person.  Especially if you’re going through something and on that same day you get multiple negative comments one after the other, but then the next day you don’t get any.  It can take a toll, but you have to remember that it doesn’t reflect on you as a person, it reflects on those people that they feel the need to try and bring others down.  It’s also one of those things that these people are kept anonymous, so they don’t have to deal with saying these things to you directly, they can hide behind a computer screen.  They’re just ugly on the inside.

IN CONCLUSION

I would be lying to you if I said we are used to Florida, because we aren’t.  The food is still something we’ve had to get used to, along with some other little things.  The drivers here are so horrible, and the pace is sooooooo slow.  I don’t think the Jersey girl will ever leave my body lol.  We definitely aren’t used to how involved people are in other’s lives.  Literally, it’s gotten to the point where it’s almost like overstepping boundaries.  I know that the south is really known for that, but it’s something we aren’t used to and probably won’t ever get used to.  I know I’ve put my life on the internet here on this blog, but I’m giving y’all information I’m choosing to give you, not that you’re prying for information.

I’m hoping that we can eventually take some time off, because y’all, owning your own business takes up your entire life.  I’m not saying this to discourage anyone from pursuing their dreams, but just know that it’s going to be hard.  You’re not going to be able to clock out at 5pm and not have to worry about your business.  Or if you’re really slow one day at your 9-5, it’s no biggie because you’re still getting paid, but when you own your own business, that one slow day can make you miss your number/goals for the month.  You have to invest time and money into owning a business.  Even if you’re a full time influencer, people don’t understand the amount of time and money that gets invested, let alone the struggles that happen behind the scene.

Let’s say you get really sick, but you need content for your blog because your livelihood depends on it, you have to make yourself do it.  Of course your health is important, and sometimes people are at a status where they have the extra money saved up, but lets say that you just quit your 9-5 to be a full time influencer.  You have no choice, because you’re not at a place where you can take time off like Jaclyn Hill for example.  I know she’s a controversial person to talk about, but she just posted a video that everyone is talking about because of certain topics she talked about.  However, she talked about how she was so sick for weeks and she couldn’t work.  That’s scary when you own your own business.  Every second counts when you’re a business owner.  You can’t just take two weeks off from work paid vacation time.  Anyway, I know I went on a ramble there, but that’s just what I do here, and my OG’s here know that haha.

At the end of the day, I am happy that we moved.  It’s been really hard at times, but this all happened for a reason.  We were meant to go down this path for a reason.  With all of that being said, let’s get into the weekly linkup!