Yo. It’s February. I haven’t been consistent in posting, and I’m totally not surprised. If you’ve heard it once from me, then you’ve heard it a million times. I. Hate. Winter. The Christmas lights come down, and winter is just a desolate span of leafless trees and weeks on end with no sunlight. That’s wildly negative, but the heavier part is that it’s also really true, at least in my neck of the woods.
In addition to this year’s Winter Blues (consider this volume 4 or wherever we’re at for my annual post), I’m turning 30 in less than two weeks and I am so down and stressed out about it. You’re floored right now, aren’t you? 30 is the new 25, right? Well, honestly, right now, 30 feels like the new 35, and my winter blues tell me it personally looks more like the new 40 with an added bonus of 12 year old acne. Again, super negative, but emotions, amiright?
That brings me to all of these pre-30 thoughts that have been taking over my brain. Goals and bucket lists, things I have and haven’t accomplished approaching my three decade mark on this planet. (The realest and bummerest of which might be that I have no desire to be a parent, in the traditional sense anyway ((more on that later)), and society makes me feel like a real a-hole for being of that mindset…anywaaaay.) One of my biggest dreams pre-dating the start of this blog and amplified in the years since I’ve been sharing my diary posts with the internet essentially, is that I’d really love for this to be a job someday.
Approaching 30, with slow growth here (by comparison to some major bloggers I look up to who celebrate one year of blogging with 100k instagram followers and signing autographs at their local coffee shops lol), it’s hard not to feel a little slighted. However, I sit back and realize those boss babes are where they are because they wanted blogging to be a job and they treated it like one. What do I mean? Well, I post super sporadically (unless I tell you I’m doing Blogmas, and then damnit, I post every. single. day. of. December!), especially this time of year. I don’t really have a niche… unless it’s complaining… hmm. I try to take a couple pictures in basically my backyard when the sun comes out. So yeah, my instagram and by association, blogging schedule is very much based on the weather, and that’s probably not the most productive route here in the good ole midwest. These girls I look up to, they work their asses off. They have beautifully curated posts frequently, on time, in rain or shine, in sickness and in health, and even literally for richer or for poorer as one of my favorite bloggers revealed via Instagram post the other day that she had 8 cents in her bank account. These girls are hitting the pavement hard to reach their dreams, and I’m inspired to say the least.
So yeah, that’s where I hold myself accountable. And trust me, I really do, but here’s where I hold a less than supportive Instagram (specifically) culture accountable…
(I say Instagram specifically because WordPress has truly been such a joy with an uber supportive and talented community, and I’m so happy I landed here blogging!!! <3)
I track my followers. Yup, you read that right. I use apps to track my unfollowers and while that reads as super pathetic, I’m going to explain why: from the moment I realized that I was going to have to integrate Instagram into the growth of this blog, *insert “Sign of the Times” lyrics here* the most important part of the equation for me was being super supportive of the community that supports me. Due to all the crazy Instagram algorithms and whatnot, I can’t just be following hundreds of people who don’t follow me back because then I’m never ever going to see the carefully created content of the few people who consistently interact with and support my account.
Seems simple enough, right? Wrong.
A huge chunk of the Instagram (beauty/fashion/fitness/lifestyle) blogger community in my experience, is notoriously and infamously flaky. There. I said it! In fact, just this morning I lost the mutual follow of a small fashion blogger I’ve been following for about a year who I make a point to like every single one of her photos and interact in the comment section of most of them (and it’s returned!). For. A. Year. The best part? I take it in stride because this happens all the time. All day. Every day. And I straight up don’t get it. I don’t have any offensive content (on Instagram that is, this might be borderline offensive). I absolutely don’t post too frequently (can be annoying), and truly not too infrequently either.
Just a little tidbit: my favorite and pretty frequent examples of the above are people who follow, shout #bossbabes and #womensupportingwomen from the rooftops, interact with my content while I interact with theirs, send me DMs about how nice it is to make internet friends where we share information about our jobs, our home lives, what blogging means to us, and then un(f-ing)follow. For literally no reason.
And while I realize active follows don’t validate me or my talents, they are basically the one that thing stands between this as a hobby and this as a livelihood, so it unfortunately is what it is.
So yeah. I see you. And you’re not women supporting women. You’re in support of a good Following to Follower ratio and meals that get cold before you’re done taking pictures of them. Salty smiles all around!
Finally, upcoming changes (thanks for staying to the end! lol). Nothing major! But I’ve promised you content and I’ve got dreams to make come true, so I’m going to get on a posting schedule, and I have to say that here (lol, Blogmas) or it won’t happen. So go forward, while I get my shit together, expect to hear something from me here on Sundays and Thursdays! As always, I’m grateful for everyone that double taps on my photos and takes a few minutes to read these posts, especially the whiny ones, and I’d love to know your favorite kind of posts to read in the comments below!
xoxo salty with leigh ann
P.S. @shutupcrystal and I are still doing The Bachelor recaps, so you should head over to her Youtube channel and get caught up before tomorrow’s hometowns episode!
laughingatleighann.com 
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